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.

What happened?

[Killjoy_NL]

Did this article just pop on the frontpage under the novell article? Or did I just miss it??

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.

4-way HTPC?

[joib]

Obviously I *need* a quad cpu machine to handle my recipes database.

MythTV

[kevin_conaway]

While we're on the topic of HTPC enclosures, does anyone know of a company that sells pre-built MythTV boxes? Or would anyone like to volunteer? I'm in the market for one but I really don't want to spend a lot of time getting the hardware to work right.

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...

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.

RT == Read The

[Quest171]

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

Why a 3GHz Pentium?

[mark2003]

Wouldn't a low power Pentium M be more sensible - otherwise the fans will drown out my TV and the cost of the power would bankrupt me.

Why do we always assume we need a high end generalist device for a specific usage that could be satisfied with a lower power and cheaper alternative?

Re:Why a 3GHz Pentium?

[Spooon69]

A fast CPU is required if you want optimal image quality with resizing/noise-reduction/sharpening filters (e.g. piping your video through ffdshow for instance). Unless you own a DVD player that costs a few/several grand, an htpc is a good solution that costs much less and does much more.

And no, you can't enable "Hardware Acceleration" (to reduce cpu usage) in your video card for mpeg2 video (e.g. DVDs) and still pipe your video through a software post-processor, it's either one or the other. So a fast cpu is required.

Here is a good beginner's guide to what I'm talking about:
http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1

DVDs honestly look a lot better and going back to "regular" dvd video is a big let down that's very noticable.

Re:Why a 3GHz Pentium?

[Hast]

The frontend needs to be powerful if you want to decode HDTV. 1080p requires a really good CPU/GPU combo to playback without framedrops.

The reason you would want a backend with CPU power instead of hardware encoders is because software encoders are typically higher quality. It's hard to do multi-pass encoding and similar if you are recording real-time.

Naturally these don't apply to everyone, but there are reasons for getting a high powered HTPC.

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.

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.

mCubed HFX ?

[dago]

Unfortunately, they missed a unique case : the mCubed HFX. Altough it is a little pricey, it features heatpipes between the CPU/GPU and the case that will dissipate the heat (with fins). There's also an optional "emergency fan", as well as other gadget (VFD display, remote control, ...).

Add a fanless powersupply, internal or brick, and you've got a nice silent HTPC.

dirkvader.de has a review with a Pentium M, this site with an Athlon64 3500.

Re:Mini / Pico ITX much nicer

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

I guess really what Im saying is I would perfer a Mac Mini :o)

The Mini is a nice box, but it's not an HTPC box, despite what Slashdot users want to think.

Things you might want in an HTPC that the Mini doesn't have:

• Lots of disk space. TV, ripped DVDs, and music all take up space. Notebook drives aren't going to cut it, and your only option for adding drives to the Mini is to buy external FireWire drives/enclosures - another added expense.
• Multichannel / Digital audio. I'm sure that there is some USB gadget that you can buy, but, again, we're talking more gizmos sticking off the back of the Mini and more added expense. Lots of PC motherboards have optical/multichannel audio, ora decent PCI sound card (e.g. Audigy 2) runs around $40.
• Component video. If you have a TV that will accept a DVI input, you're lucky. Most TVs won't accept DVI, and they only accept the encrypted DRM variant of HDMI. That leaves component output - which is available on many different video cards, often for less than $60.
• A TV tuner. Sure, there are USB and FireWire solutions, but it's another thing sticking off the back. And more money - PCI tuners with MPEG-2 encoding run less than $70
• 
  
  So, yeah, if you get a Mini and add:
  - FireWire disk
  - USB Optical Audio adaptor
  - USB TV tuner
  - USB IR reciever
  - A USB 2.0 hub (only 2 ports on the Mini)
  
  Then you may have an HTPC. All you need to do now is piece together an integrated solution to browse your media on the TV.