Home Theatre PC Guide

Greg Ridder writes "For those of you who are interested in possibly putting together a Home Theatre or Media PC, I stumbled upon an excellent guide. It discusses basic hardware requirements, four software choices (BeyondTV, SageTV, MCE2005 and MythTV), controlling your cable or satellite set-top box and much more. Based on the research that I've done in the past, this is the most comprehensive guide that I've seen to date."

Comments

melrose place?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're late to go out for the evening and just as you're about to run out the door you remember that Melrose Place is going to be on that night and you just can't miss it.

Did anybody else read this waiting for the punchline???

Re:melrose place?

[trailerparkcassanova]

Give the guy a break. He is, after all, Canadian.

Re:melrose place?

[immortalpob]

You do realize she was talking about the shortcomings of a VCR had when she used that example. She used a dated example for dated tech.

Re:melrose place?

[Bobman1235]

I think that IS the punchline.

Re:melrose place?

[gabecubbage]

What makes this comment funny is not that it's funny, but that it was modded "insightful".

Full mirror

[winkydink]

Here.

What about...

[sinfree]

... popcorn recommendations?

Re:What about...

[Shadow Wrought]

Get a Whirley Pop. They rock.

Re:What about...

[hamburger lady]

i'll bet they could cook popcorn on their server right now...

Re:What about...

[onkelonkel]

Get a heavy bottom pot. Add 2 tbsp oil (aids in heat transfer). Pour in enough kernels to cover bottom of pot. Crank heat to medium high. Now the important part...KEEP LID OFF AND STIR. Keep stirring the kernels and they will all more or less reach popping temperature at the same time. Once the first kernel pops put the lid on and shake. When the popping slows down take pot off the heat, add fat and salt to taste and enjoy. Do it this way and damn near every kernel will pop and none of the popcorn will be burnt.

Am I the only one?

[kebes]

On the subject of MythTV (or equivalent). I like putting together computers and tweaking linux as much as the next guy, but I was thinking the other day that I might be willing to buy a fully functional MythTV box.

I really want a MythTV, but I don't have the time right now to really play with it and search for the best hardware. I was thinking that I'd be willing to buy a computer, with linux and MythTV all installed and configured properly (to work with my local cable box even?). Having someone else take care of all the hardware and software installation details would be great.

In the end, I may just build it myself, but there are lots of people I know that don't have the time, patience, and/or knowledge to build one from scratch, but are smart enough to take advantage of such a system (and maintain it). Does anyone know of a company offering such a service? Does anyone think that this has merit as a business idea?

Re:Am I the only one?

[Dan667]

I'd build one for you for a cost plus arrangement. Email me and let me know what you would be interested in. littlejohn86 (at) gmail no spam dot com

Re:Am I the only one?

[Bios_Hakr]

A friend and I priced it out once.

It is VERY difficult to make a PC for less than $500. We were, of course, using Shuttles or Shuttle clones (Aopen XC Cubes, actually). Anything bigger does not fit in an entertainment center.

Case/mobo = $200
CPU = $100
RAM = $50
CD/DVD = $50
120gb hard drive = $100

Add another $150 for a PVR card and you've broken most budgets. Consumers won't pay $800 for a VCR.

We did offer to turn old PCs into VCRs for some friends. Basicly, they were upgrading and we took the old shit and dropped in a PVR and Linux. These went OK, but still took a LOT of tweaking.

On top of all that, MythTV is a bear ro set up. We are on an unlisted cable network unwilling to provide listings in XML format. It was impossible to make MythTV just record evert Thursday at 9pm. That's basic functionality in my book. Sorely lacking.

I've been assured that Myth works flawless on listed networks.

In any event, you're looking at $800~$1000 per MythTV box. No way to make a good model around that.

Re:Am I the only one?

[karnal]

Holy heck.

I just priced one the other day. it was about 500$ for all components included.

50$ mobo
50$ case+PS (don't need a high capacity PS for this one)
50$ CPU (don't need a real fast one, see below)
50$ RAM (512MB, generic Mushkin or similar)
60$ DVD-Burner (can go cheaper here; figured may as well have the latest burner tho)
30$ Cheapo video card with reasonable SVID out
60$ Cheapo HDD (have storage space on the net.)
100$ PVR-150 (Comp-USA price, lower elsewhere)

This will get you a basic PVR for under 500$. The only thing I would do is beef up the HDD and you're up to 500 then (if you don't have a central server; I do already!).

I'm actually thinking about throwing a PVR-150 in the server to do the timed recordings there; then I can use a generic tuner that I already have in my MythTV box. Additionally, I already have a 30GB HDD and a Geforce4 to throw in the box, so that cuts my costs down even a little more.

You could even scrape older parts (P3 or Athlon ~1ghz) together if you're using a PVR-150, since it does all the encoding by itself. Decoding is fairly easy; encoding is kind of rough (even MPEG2 - My 2800+ sits at about 50-60% encoding one stream realtime of MPEG2 640x480 + Mpeg Layer3 audio)

Re:Am I the only one?

[Krypto420]

Actually I've seen pre-built mythtv boxes around for a while now...

Here are some examples...

The pre-built ones that I've seen are a little too expensive for my taste. You can get a Tivo and a lifetime subscription as well as have a bunch of money left over for the price of some of the pre-built mythtv boxes. I built my own mythtv for the following reasons:

a) I wanted a PVR

b) I wanted to learn more about the inner workings of the linux Os.

c) For the sheer pleasure of saying that I built it myself.

Granted, it took me months before I had a stable box with all of the features that I wanted, but I learned A LOT. If you are only looking for reason a, then save yourself a bunch of time/headaches and buy a Tivo.

Re:Am I the only one?

[swv3752]

Well an Asus Pundit would work very well. it includes TV out. A microATX system can be used as well. There are many microATX boxes that are about the size of a Stereo Receiver.

Here is one specced out with a Pundit for $463. A Different one with MicroATX and an Athlon64 for $508. The Pundit is actually $10 more expensive but the other system has higher end features. Add $10 for a Serial IR receiver/Transmitter if you need that. Some TV capture cards have remotes that work in Linux and some don't. Cheaper than your estimates- about the same as a Tivo+DVDrecorder. If you build yourself.

If someone really wants me to build them a MythTV box, email me and we can work something out.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Moofie]

Cool. Send me one of those computers, and I'll try to get you a date.

I kid, I kid!

Re:Am I the only one?

[eechuah]

MythTV now has (of the last few months, I think) manual recording. I set it to record every Mon night on Lifetime for my wife.

s l o w

[jargoone]

Looks like 2cpu.com could use another 2 CPUs...

Buy of the shelf

[Virtual Karma]

I would rather go to walmart/ best buy and buy off the shelf home theater system. If there aren't any as described in the article, I will wait for Sony to make one. Its too much of hassle to build your own. Especially when you are dealing with different components from different manufacturers. Look at Windows Media Center OS. Any high schooler can put together a super entertainment center. Utility? Not much. Hassle? a lot.

Re:Buy of the shelf

[Anita Coney]

There is nothing hard about building your own PC. Like a brilliant person once wrote, it only takes two tools to build a computer. The ability to RTFM and a phillips screwdriver.

I've got four home built PVRs in my house. I like the freedom of not being tied to a corporation. E.g., not being screwed by Tivo's recent pop-up ads.

I like the ability to have the PVR do what I want, and not what some corporation wants. E.g., Microsoft's Media Center's inability to record shows to DVD.

But most of all I like the price. A PVR built by Sony would cost a couple thousand more than what you could build one yourself for. The ones I have at my house are merely built from left-over parts from my own system. But even if you built one completely from scratch, you could probably do it for less than $800.

Re:Buy of the shelf

[Anita Coney]

When I first started building my own back in '95 I always used a grounding strap. It's been 9 years since I've used one, I've build about three systems are year, and I've not had one problem.

I equate the grounding strap to be more of a lucky charm than utilitarian.

Re:Buy of the shelf

[RichardX]

For what it's worth, I've at times deliberately attempted to destroy or damage components with my body's static electricity (y'know.. dancing around on nylon carpet while holding a stick of RAM in each hand, that kind of thing), and I've never yet managed it.

I live in hope though.

Other HTPC resources

[navarredr]

Build Your Own PVR and DVBn are also good resources if you are looking to build an HTPC

ATI All in Wonder

[0kComputer]

This seems awfully complicated to hook your PC into your computer. I have an ATI All in wonder video card that took about 5 mins to install, cost maybe 100 dollars more and has most of the functionality that this guy's setup has.

Re:ATI All in Wonder

[jreberry]

No. All in Wonder cards are horrible for HTPC setups. First, it does not do hardware encoding. Second, its image quality is trash compared to a PVR-250 (or similar) card. Third, they aren't as compatible with PVR software. Check out the forums at any of the big PVR software sites and you will find thread after thread of people with AIW cards complaining about problems. Ask any web savvy person what search engine they use. 9 out of 10 will say Google, and there is a good reason why. Ask any HTPC savvy person what capture card they use. 9 out of 10 will say a PVR-250 (some 150 or 350), and there is a good reason why. Try using an AIW with a HTPC and I bet you'll upgrade to a 250 within the first 6 months. --Jon

most frustrating project ever

[Fox_1]

Thanks for reading today. I know it was quite a commitment to make it through these 21 pages, but I hope it was of some value to you.

It's either actually doing this myself on a budget - and it was painful - I never seem to buy stable powersupplies, or supported hardware, and blood is surprisingly conductive.

or making it through the reading of the article

Too bad they forgot commercial skip on the server

[jmcwork]

I went to the site and up came an 'read this ad/you will be redirected' page appeared. I have no real problem with this so I waited for the next page to load, and: the ad again. Well, the article finally appeared and I read the first page, clicked 'next page' and: same ad (Vonage, I think). That was enough for me. (This never happened with archie, gopher, and ftp!)

Re:Howto build Media PC

[crypto55]

That's ridiculous. You need an analog capture device compatible with NTSC video sources, generally via Coaxial. The mini lacks this component. In addition, it also lacks sufficient hard drive capacity, which is extremely necessary for video recording. I built my own PVR with SageTV, a hauppauge PVR-USB2 box and a 200 GB HDD, and it barely suffices.

HDTV solution

[Tiger4]

The article is well written and conversational for the layman. Great. But he doesn't really go into the one great unknown area oput there - HDTV.

What are the best HDTV capture cards, for Over the Air or for backside-of-the-cable/satelite-box? The article only touches on this, but it will be of greater concern for the home enthusiast/hacker in the next two years.

And by the way, what packages support this? MythTV, Freevo, etc.

Re:HDTV solution

[badasscat]

What are the best HDTV capture cards, for Over the Air or for backside-of-the-cable/satelite-box? The article only touches on this, but it will be of greater concern for the home enthusiast/hacker in the next two years.

"Best" depends on what you're using to watch TV. For MCE, the FusionHD or ATI HDTV Wonder work equally well (if you want QAM tuning of non-encrypted cable signals, you want a FusionHD). For "backside of the cable box" you may as well just do firewire capture - providing a box that supports this is an FCC requirement now; your cable provider has to give you one if you ask.

Keep in mind you have to also have an analog tuner for MCE, even if you don't use it. (Most people will want one, though, unless they want to be stuck with only 12 or 13 channels, some of which don't even broadcast all the time.)

If you're not using MCE, then the MyHD line of cards is probably best - they do hardware MPEG2 decoding (note I said decoding - unlike analog capture cards, all an HDTV card needs to do when capturing is stream the digital TV signal to the hard drive). They can be finnicky to set up, though, and you don't want to buy one if you have MCE because hardware decoding is not supported in MCE.

Don't forget the Linux HTPC Howto

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a guide much like this already, and that has been around for some time and is still updated regularly that is Linux oriented (The Linux HTPC Howto). The information regarding how DD/DTS work and what soundcard to pick and how to get HDTV working quickly was very useful to me.

ahref=http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linu x-htpc/http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/lin ux-htpc/>

Re:Howto build Media PC

[Fortunato_NC]

I'm a Mac fanboy, and I'll say there is a step three.

3. Wait for a stable release.

While CenterStage looks promising, it's a new project that hasn't even reached its second alpha yet. Let's give the developers some time before we start giving people unrealistic expectations.

(I've got a lot of hope for this project - the fact that ATI has already contacted the developers to add support for their Remote Wonder products is awesome!)

Is it simple enought?

[elh_inny]

I haven't even thought of building HTPC simply because I don't watch TV, but I was wondering if average Joe Sixpack is willing to embrace this complexity, I mean MCE is as simple as it can be, but in many cases still a bit too complicated don't you think?
Otoh average people tend to use stuff like MSN Messenger etc, I think it's a decent way of making a living: I just put together a SFF such as shuttle, MCE or linux on it and the price can be premium compared to what you get for your casual PC, the question is are 'normal' people willing to spend that extra cash for that?

Missing the Point

[jamacdon]

I think some people don't see the bigger picture behind a PC based home theater. It is not like just plugging a tuner card into your PC and using the software that comes with the card to watch it.

With PC Theatre software, the program manages your recordings, schedule of records and ties into other medias such as videos, mp3 and CD collections and even digital cameras.

Also, when you have a PC based home theatre you usually have the output running through a highend sound system and large screen TV or project, not your 17" monitor and $12 speakers.

Beleive me, once you start using a properly configured PC based TV system, your methods of watching TV completely change.

closed captioning for the google-impaired

[mapmaker]

flame

For those of you who are interested in possibly putting together a Home Theatre or Media PC but don't know how to use a search engine, I stumbled upon an excellent guide.

/flame

MythTV vs BeyondTV

[Yo Grark]

Here is my personal final thoughts on MythTV vs BeyondTV.

MythTV != Novice.
I could never get a season pass to work, never did record "quite right", never got the thing to run smooth, never got the parsing of the xml guides fully automated, Hardware problems with ATI AIW cards. Fix was available, but messy.

BeyondTV = Simply Works.
It worked out of the box, I could access it anywhere in the world via web and record at home, had "season pass", no messing with xml converters, scripts etc. It just works on my hardware (ATI9700 AIW)smooth and simple. I can stream out the shows all over my network and have never regretted purchasing it.

So? In the end I paid the $50.00 to get a TIVO like service on my PC via Snapstream's BeyondTV. It's not as flexible or customizable as MythTV, but for it's specific purpose it wins hands down.

Don't get me wrong, while the 4 weeks spent aggrivated with MythTV was worth it just for the fun, I'm just not enough of a Nerd to keep at it and I paid to have something that was reasonable priced, and worked.

Yo Grark

Re:MythTV vs BeyondTV

[ispepalocacoc]

4 weeks? XML Files? How long ago did you do this. I set up my mythtv box and the majority of the time was spent installing gentoo. I've never edited an XML file, I get all my guide data automatically, and everything works as it should. I would even go so far as to say that the setup was easier than freevo.

Re:Howto build Media PC

[MacGoldstein]

I'm working on CenterStage, and I think the parent is not as "Interesting" as the mods would have us believe. His media center itself would be "interesting", because we haven't implemented anything but the most basic of functions in CenterStage yet, and it's currently still in alpha 0.1. So unless you'd like to just be able to watch movies full-screen, which it can do, you might want to wait a while.

I just set one of these up...

[raam]

I also did a comparison, and since I am too goddam busy reviewing copy machines at the moment, I will just weigh in:

Best computer for the job: an intel with a cool-running CPU and fan. Dell 400SC's, if you can find them, are whisper quiet and perfect for the job.

Best card for the job: ATI or Nvidia, yada, yada. The TV card is what you care about. Hauppauge is the rage, and they just came out with a dual-tuner card (ostensibly only for MCE, but if you believe that I've got a Mac to sell you)

Best remote for the job: Snapstream's Firefly. Yeah, $50 is pricy, but, let's admit it: we're trying to make somethings as good as Tivo and this remote is the only one that does it. Remember that awesome Tivo IR blaster? Firefly is RF, baby, and you can edit XML to set up functions.

Best software for the job: BeyondTV. I tried Sage, Myth, even GB-PVR (don't get me started...it's good and free, but man is that shit finicky - release the SOURCE!!!). Anyway, BeyondTV is incredible, bullet-proof, supports two tuners out of the box, integrates with Firefly, and I got it for $50. Almost Tivo.

Best keyboard for the job: Definitely, definitely, the BTC 9019URF. It has a built-in joystick, handles, etc., and killer range.

There you have it!

Re:Howto build Media PC

[ad0gg]

Listen PAL, these jokes are getting old.

Bah!

[Golias]

I recently built a new computer-based home theater system, and in researching my options I found that a hacked X-Box or a Mac mini both present superior solutions to anything officially in the "HTPC" market. (IMHO, YMMV, yeah yeah yeah.)

I chose to go with the Mac mini solution, and will be submitting a review of the pros and cons of going the route I went (warts and all) in the near future over at modmini.com

Re:Bah!

[enrico_suave]

I like the added functionality of my hacked x-box... but I'd like to hear how you got a TV tuner/encoder into yours =P

They do make pretty good playback clients, but not sure i'd consider a hacked xbox a full soup to nuts HTPC solution. *shrug*

e.

Re:Bah!

[jedinite]

The lack of digital audio on the mac mini is pretty easily solved. My suggested solution is the M-Audio Transit, but there are numerous other USB soundcards which work just fine on the mac.

The big problem for me is the lack of a gigabit ethernet adaptor in the mini. Not a problem if you're not intending to move large video files around your network, but my intention with my hometheater PC is to be able to serve MP3s and MPEG4 to any PC on my gigabit backbone.

The lack of gigabit on the mini is almost unexcusable. I've got a mini, ordered on launch day, and I love it to death... but i'd pay +$100 for gigabit on it at this point...

Re:Bah!

[Golias]

What are its advantages?

1. Low price
2. Low noise
3. Small size
4. DVI Out
5. Built-in Firewire, USB2
6. Airport/Bluetooth available

By the time you add the HD tuner, USB audio, and lots of memory, it's no longer a budget-box system, but it still works out to less bucks for the bang of the big Microsoft HTPC solutions, and looks really nice in the living-room cabinet.

Re:Bah!

[Golias]

Since you've got a lot of other PC (and/or Mac) hardware lying around anyway, maybe the way for you to go would be to link it to a system on your "backbone" via Firewire cable. There's a lot of IP-via-Firewire solutions out there, and while Firewire 400 might be a little sluggish compared to Gig Ethernet, it's still quite a bit faster than the 10/100 card, and plenty fast enough for streaming video.

However, if you are sharing video files all over your network, I would not advocate using any living-room computer for the server.

Build a big, fast, noisy beast of a server with a nice RAID for storage, plug it in somewhere like your basement cellar, and leave it there.

Then the mini can play large video files off it by mounting the storage drive and selecting films using something like Matinee.

The only downside to this method is if you want to rip DVD's on occasion. You would either need to rip them over the network or else go down to the cellar, plug in a keyboard, monitor and mouse, and sit down at it to rip them at the server.

Re:Bah!

[Golias]

May I ask what combination of software and hardware add-ons you went with for your home theatre?

Yes you may. Like I said, I'll be posting a detailed review to modmini.com in the very near future, but here's the basics:

Extra hardware:
EyeTV 500 (High-def tuner w/ the usual PVR functions)

M-Audio Sonica (NOT recommended! I will be replacing this with a better USB or Firewire sound very card soon.)

Keyspan IR remote control (I use the sensor only. The remote itself is a flimsy piece of crap. I programmed all the buttons into my amplifier's "universal" keys and moved on.)

250 GB external drive.

Panasonic PT-AE700U 1280x720 wide-screen projector.

Sony amp w/ Dolby 5.1, Dolby 7.1, and DTS decoding.

B&W speakers

Extra software:

VLC (I still use the Apple DVD Player for 99% of actual DVD's, but for most other media files VLC roxors my soxors. Also, free is good. We like free.)

Mac the Ripper (A great tool for archiving DVD's on your HD... while it's at it, the region codes, ads, animated menus, and FBI warnings can all be stripped out, too.)

Matinee (A simple little DVD image kiosk. The author humbly asks for a ten buck shareware fee to encourage development.)

World of Warcraft. Very not free. Be warned, playing WoW on a 119" screen in first person mode could make you motion sick in no time flat. Scroll out to 3rd-person view if you start turning green.

Re:Bah!

[MojoStan]

I chose to go with the Mac mini solution, and will be submitting a review of the pros and cons of going the route I went (warts and all) in the near future over at modmini.com

For those that haven't seen it, Anand Lal Shimpi tried the Mac Mini as an HTPC and wrote an article about it: The Mac mini as a Media Computer. (16 Feb 2005)

My summary of the article: The Mini is very nice for importing HD video via FireWire and HD video editing with iMovie HD. However, HD playback is unacceptable with current OS X software and DVD image quality (using Apple's DVD decoder) is not up to par. The Mini has potential as an SD DVR, but DVR software with "media-centric interface" is currently lacking for OS X.

Re:Bah!

[Golias]

However, HD playback is unacceptable with current OS X software and DVD image quality (using Apple's DVD decoder) is not up to par.

Unfortunately, Shimpi overlooked the EyeTV 500, with which I've been enjoying perfect HDTV playback and recording.

The secret is that the file is not compressed or encoded in any way. The pure, unadulterated MPEG stream is simply passed along.

Also, I must disagree with the analysis of the Apple DVD player. Anamorphic DVD's look fan-fucking-tastic on my 119" projection screen via the mini and OS X's "Apple DVD Player." Some cheaply-made disks (such as a few of my anime disks) do experience a little bit of combing during playback, but I can always whip out VLC on those occasions, and run a deinterlace filter on them.

Capture card recommendation (UK)

[Aphrika]

While I must admit that I'm new to the whole built-it-yourself PVR box scene, I started off by buying myself a stand alone TV card, just to see what kind of quality I'd get, and also because I couldn't find a standalone box that was open enough.

I chose the Nebula DigiTV card, and I have to say, I cannot recommend it enough. 110UKP gets you a PCI card, remote and a bundle of good software that covers pretty much everything - including letting your PC become a TV server on a network. The best bit about the card though... It's got a built in Freeview decoder.

Yup, the quality of the recordings is absolutely amazing - read cable quality - and the PVR software easy to use and if you don't have any special requirements it could be the only software you need.

All in all, incredibly chuffed - especially after some lacklustre forays into more mainstream TV cards a few years ago. Now all I have to do is build another PC to put it all in.

free as in speech, cheap as in beer

[fred fleenblat]

Not to be a downer, but replay and tivo services are actually not that expensive. I have the grandfathered-in $9.95/mo service from replay and that is my lowest monthly expense. Honestly, I spend more on cola.

What I want is a $300 PC that will replace my mortgage, property taxes, and/or car insurance.

Re:After you have a home theatre

[TheFlyingGoat]

Decent movies:
netflix.com

Decent TV content:
This is obviously subjective, but there's a number of shows out right now that have some potential. Lost, Deadwood, The 4400, Battlestar Galactica, Good Eats, Simpsons, Smallville, The Office (this show is excellent) have all either proven themselves worthy to be recorded or are showing progress. The Office is probably my favorite show in years. Good Eats is a must see for any nerd that likes cooking. Smallville has had some poor episodes and some good ones, so it's hard to say if it will get better or worse. Lost is intriguing enough that I'm completely hooked, but it has the potential to get cheesy if they don't stick with what's worked so far. Finally, The 4400 seems interesting after the first 5 episodes, so hopefully it will continue to be good once they start back up again.

Re:Hard drive setup

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Since speed isn't an issue for recording 20Mbps video (ATSC max), you don't even need the speed afforded by a 4200 RPM drive to record it.

My HTPC has a surprisingly quiet 15k RPM drive for booting. I don't use it for PVR yet though, but I do have a separate, slower drive for storing audio and video.

I think an argument can be made for keeping the hard drive storage system in a closet somewhere and a super quiet system with only one drive in the living room, as a RAID system uses a lot of drives that do generate noise.

True, there are 5400 RPM drives...

[evolutionaryLawyer]

Made specially for DVRs. Maxtor makes them. This site sells them.
http://www.weaknees.com/

You'll want a faster CPU

[bogie]

500MHz is not what you would want to build a a HTPC with. Its possbile, people do it, but since your going to be spending good money on a hardware TV Tuner then please at least buy something like a AMD 1600 >. I use a 1GHz which gets the job done but then I also like to do emulation etc. I need a faster cpu. 500MHz unless your dirt poor and have no money isn't the best cpu to start with.

And second I'll point this part out. "This will depend on whether or not you're an "audiophile". If you don't have a surround sound speaker package setup, than almost anything will do."

At a minimum buy something like the cheap chaintech Via Envy which will give you very good audio quality and more importantly SPDIF out. Are you really going to go through all of the trouble of buying hardware and setting it up only to use some shitty realtek card that causes hiss when you playback music or TV shows? That applies even if right now your not doing surround sound.

I'm not being snobby here either. These are basic things any decent HTPC guide will tell you.

Re:You'll want a faster CPU

[glesga_kiss]

You probably want a bit more oomph for future proofing, but it's not all that neccessary depending how you set up. If the capure cards are doing the encoding and decoding onboard, all the PC will be doing is shuffling data around.

SPDIF is essential if you ask me. Computers are terrible audio sources, there is far to much RF noise in them. Get a digital audio out and keep the analogue audio stage out of the PC. A surround amp can be picked up for next to nothing nowadays.

Re:You'll want a faster CPU

[renehollan]

The real bugbear is MPEG2 hardware decoding. While you can use a backend server and vlc for MPEG2 encoding (and even that is unnecessary with the Hauppague PVR 250 and 350 cards), decoding has to be done in the theatre "room" (unless you're happy running long cables or PC noise).

A Via M10000 will just about do SD software MPEG2 decoding, but forget about HD. The CLE266 supported by Unichrome and Via's own drivers (and integrated into their Xine fork: VeXP) works well, but follows the model of MPEG2 in, fram data out (dunno if it does YUV->RGB conversion). Most players (mplayer, xine, vlc) use this model: they have a decode phase which can benefit from hardware assist (and, as noted, Via's VeXP and the free Unicrome drivers leverage the CLE266 this way). However, not all hardware works that way.

ATI's X225 Xilleon chip, used in Roku Labs HD10000 "Photobridge" eats MPEG2, demuxes, decodes, and provides digital audio and component (as well as SVideo and composite) video, to HD resulutions.

There are vlc patches to run on this hardware (which is a really slick, fanless, thin client), but it does software MPEG2 decode to drive the graphics overlay buffer (limited to 1024x768, IIRC, so you can't do native 1080i). I'm surprised the X225 has the oomph to do that (It's a MIPS core). It would be nice to use the overlay for decoded SPUs (i.e. DVD menus), and leverage the X225 hardware decoder for the MPEG2 audio and video. Unfortunately, there is no display model in Xine, or VLC, where the display accepts undecoded MPEG2.

The closest one can do is use the streaming function of VLC to feed MPEG2 TS (it will transcode PS to TS just fine) to a TS player leveraging the MPEG2 hardware on the X225, and reserve the graphics overlay for SPUs. Sadly, one can't display SPUs without a video window on which to overlay them, requring MPEG2 video ES decoding.

I wonder them, how hard it would be to modify vlc's MPEG2 decoder to not decode picture, but to display black, for this purpose, overlaying the SPUs, and writing to the graphics overlay page, and splitting the stream into a remuxed (PS to TS) copy to drive the harware MPEG2 decoders. Unfortunately, this would only work for players that can stream: vlc, but not xine, or mplayer. And, it would be a hack at that (the SPUs would be out of time sync with the rest of the program, but that's rarely a big problem for menus).

A decoder/display model where the decoder does nothing, and the display does the decoding would work better here.

Re:Next up on Punch-line...Idle Worship.

[slackerboy]

"Idle Worship"?

Well, I guess I do tend to just sit in front of the TV not doing anything worthwhile...

Oh, wait! You meant "Idol Worship"! Nevermind.

Not the way you're thinking

[Rufosx]

It's not really easy or cost effective to capture component video in (I think the last time I saw it quoted was $30k). Too much processing required and too much data / sec.

Component video out to your TV from an HTPC is easy (well, besides tweaking it to fit just right).

The best ways of getting high def content into the box are :
1. An off the air HD tuner card (HD3000 from pchdtv.com or the Air2PC card)
2. A slim chance of firewire output from a high def digital cable box.
3. Rip your own DVDs. This makes sense if you want to setup up something like every Baby Einstein video on demand (I do).
4. I heard once that someone downloaded high def tv shows from teh Intarweb.

Re:Howto build Media PC

[kmo]

The mac mini includes firewire and USB2 ports. People using it for a media PC will generally use external hard disks and media capture cards. The EyeTV capture cards seem to be particularly popular -- You can even get HDTV working with a mini.

One of the nice things about a mac is that the non-PVR features of a HTPC, like watching DVDs, playing music, managing your picture library, and burning DVDs are Apple supported best of breed apps.

Don't forget MythTV also does MP3 (and web/news)

[lisnter]

I didn't really need a PVR since Babylon 5 is done and Star Trek is ending. . .but I did *want* to build one. A main requirement was something to play my MP3 catalog (all 100% ripped from my own personal collection, FYI). We have two small children and keeping all the CDs in order and undamaged is a challenge. Anyway, I put together my box in a Shuttle ST62K using Fedora Core in a couple weekends using the the excellent help from www.wilsonet.com. I would only have a few hours/day, if that, after the kids were in bed which broke up my train of thought certainly, but in any case I agree that MythTV is not a plug-and-play task. I knew that going in and, as has been expressed above, was looking forward to the technical challenges. FUN! In the end I'm very happy. It's not 100% perfect nor as seamless as a real Tivo but I wouldn't have been happy with a Tivo anyway. I have all my CDs available through the stereo and can record TV when I want to with picture quality that's actually better than through my cable box!?! If anyone's interested, my problems are (a) an annoying hum from the Shuttle case. This should be alleviated by suspending the hard-disk in the case instead of rigidly mounting it. Check out http://www.silentpcreview.com/article139-page6.htm l for a writeup on this; (b) I need to attach a small/quiet fan in back of the (closed) shelf where the case is sitting due to heat. My wife won't let me leave the PC next to the TV and I don't want to leave the door open because of the 10 little 6 year old fingers and 10 smaller 2 year old fingers running around our house; and (c) the X GUI screen size (and thus MythTV config screens) are too large for the TV and run off the edges. I've fiddled with this a bit but haven't solved it.

Re:All HTPC cases suck

[realkiwi]

Where have you been living?

Look at the Silverstone web site for example

you bought a noise generator!

[spagetti_code]

Sadly, you cannot use "any old mobo/cpu/hdd" for a PVR. If you do, be prepared to enjoy the sweet whine of a power supply fan + CPU fan, plus the whine and seek click of a HDD, plus the jet-engine like wind up of the optical drive.

Noise Matters! Especially in the lounge. And double-especially if you will be leaving it on 24x7 or watching DVDs or playing some gentle music.

Here's my recommendation (from experience folks - I have done this and been very happy with the results):

Option 1
A quiet PC built around a fanless VIA EPIA mobo, plus external power supply + quiet (and large) Samsung or seagate HDD and quiet Samsung DVD.

Option 2
A diskless, fanless PC booting from a flash card, plus a quiet optical drive. This is the MythTV front end. Then put a large, cheap PC elsewhere in the house. That is the server. Front end plays recordings and live TV delivered from the server.

I use option 1, and put it in an HTPC case so it looks just right beside the amp.

A measure of success is that the S.O asked me to get more disk space because we record so much stuff (kids programs mainly). I've just added another 400G :-). We went away for 2 weeks and came back to every episode of ER, CSI*, and The Magic School Bus you could ever want.

The three most important features of a PVR

[spagetti_code]

No noise, silence, quietness...

Honestly - you guys are all talking about putting big drives in a tower, or having P4's vs encoders, blah blah blah. When you finally get your system up and running you are going to have a loud hum, a whine, lots of clicks and occasional buzzes when watching tv or movies or listening to music.

Noise makes a difference. Design for noise first. As many people have pointed out, any old PC can be a myth box. Any old grunty PC can be a MCE box. Thats easy. To have one that you want to share your living room with? Thats another matter.

Here's a test - put your P4 home PC in your living room and then watch a DVD. Notice the noise? I sure did.

Best choice I made was designing around noise first, heat second (because of reducing noise) and then CPU power/memory/HDD size third. Trust me, you wont regret it.

So what can you do...

• Use as lower powered PC as you can get away with. I suggest a Via EDEN fanless CPU.
• Use an external power supply - no fan. The EPIA mobos require very little power.
• Use a quiet disk and optical drive
• Use a case designed to deal with heat and look good in your stereo rack.