HTPC 4-Way Enclosure Roundup

Anony writes "Anandtech's Joshua Buss takes a look at four horizontal HTPC enclosures. He writes, "With the amazing rate at which full-fledged computers are dropping in price, it's really no wonder why they're starting to take over more and more roles that used to be accomplished by simpler machines. For everything from car stereo systems to hold massive music collections to kitchen machines for helping retrieve and store recipes, these "specialized" computer uses seem to only be expanding in number...Luckily, there have been many improvements made in this category since the inception of the HTPC, and as such, we were able to round up four very nice looking enclosures to compare in this article. Every unit is advertised as being able to handle a full ATX motherboard, and since the demands for a powerful HTPC are relatively high, we'll be giving these cases' cooling systems a vigorous workout with a brand new 3 gigahertz Pentium 4-based ATX test bed."

Comments

HT == Home Theater

[benhocking]

It's unfortunate that one hast to actually RTFA to figure that out.

If you missed it, then so did I

[glengineer]

I had the same thought until I read your post. Thanks for clearing up my insanity. /. is getting weirder and weirder every day.

Re:MythTV

[w.p.richardson]

I would be willing to build one for you, if the price is right.

Alternatively, you could get the "reference" knoppmyth hardware. I am by no means an expert in configuring Linux systems and I have had a working mythtv box for almost 1 year. I built the system from soup to nuts (order parts, assemble hardware, install, test, deploy) in 1 week vacation around the holidays last year. If you have two bits of knowledge, it would take even less time.

There are a couple of companies that sell these pre-built, but they are expensive, to the point of being in the price range of a Windows Media Center box with similar specs. The obvious advantage of mythtv is no DRM, etc., but you would need to know how to troubleshoot if something went wrong. Without setting it up, that would be potentially bewildering...

JHTPC Cases

[Silwenae]

I'm surprised the reviewer stuck to some of the major case makers in the review (Antec, Lian Li).

HTPC's, IMHO, are still very much a niche product, and the specialty case makers like a Silverstone or Ahanix would seem more appropriate.

The review focused on some of the bigger cases out there - when you realize how big the assortment is to choose from, from mini-ITX to slimline to full size, there are quite a number of choices out there.

Not works of art, are they?

[Jules Bean]

Maybe I have pretty high standards, but I want a PVR/HTPC to fit in with my HiFi equipment and TV. I thought these four were rather ugly, to be honest.

I quite like the Accent HT-400 http://www.arisetec.com/products/HT-400.htm, or some of the silverstone cases http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm, or perhaps (although personally there's something about this last that doesn't feel quite right) the http://www.ahanix.com/dvine5.html.

Re:MythTV

[kebes]

Interestingly, I asked the exact same question some time ago. If you look at the replies to that post of mine, you'll see some others who said they might be willing to negotiate building a MythTV box for someone else (you can check into those if you want).

If you're interested, what I ended up doing was building it myself. It really was a fun and manageable project. I added this wikibook to describe the process (which also mentions some alternatives to building your own MythTV).

Even without much linux knowledge, building a MythTV is do-able... in fact I used it to get-to-know linux.

I've got one of these

[philj]

Hoojum Cubit 5 - in chrome.

Very sexy :-)

Re:Mini / Pico ITX much nicer

[timeOday]

If you want flexibility to go beyond those simple tasks, small cases are too crippled by the inability to add PCI cards. It might be OK if you're sure you'll never need new capabilities down the road, but my HTPC/fileserver is a 7-year old computer which never would have lasted so long without the flexibility to add:

1) a linux-compatible sound card with optical outputs for my stereo.
2) a pci to pcmcia adapter for a wireless card
3) a second video card (one outputs to the TV, the second to the kids' monitor and keyboard)
4) a second NIC (it's the router and provides QoS for VOIP)
5) a TV tuner card
6) second hard drive (you want lots of HDD space and a separate spindle for backup in a fileserver/HTPC)
7) an old-fashioned serial port for the infrared receiver (remote control)
8) Another obvious addition would be a high-performance graphics card for gaming on the TV, but I don't do that.

I realize you can get a small PC with some or many of these things now, but my point is a lot of those needs were originally unforeseen and you never know what will happen next. Of course there are external USB devices, but IMHO that's much uglier than one somewhat larger box.

As for larger boxes being ugly monsters, well it's personal taste but I note that many of the higher-end receivers are in taller boxes that look a lot like the cases in this review.

Re:My HTPC woes

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,
you may want to try out the MSI RSI482-4 ILD motherboard. It has almost everything integrated including the HDTV out. It's a video component out which outputs 480p/720p/1080i to feed into your HDTV. If you like to go digital ( with all the newer TV sets out now ) you also can hook it up using the DVI out.I've put together such a system and couldn't be happier. Using mATX as opposed to some VIA ITX based solution imho is a much better idea anyway btw. since you caneasily modify or upgrade such a system.

Dan