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Build a Homemade Media Center PC
DigitalDame2 writes "PC Magazine's Loyd Case explains how to build a Media Center PC of your own, how to choose the parts for a custom project, and tips for the Motherboard." I imagine you guys might have some other opinions on what parts and tools to use for the task...
Total Cost $2,276 USD, what a bargain! Personally I just used an oldish laptop (few ghz, gig ram, 128mb vid) and a good $150 tuner card, mythtv (or gbpvr, or whatever) and wireless keyboard, mouse, remote. Smaller, quieter, and a bit cheaper. Total cost -- $200~
My name is coaxeus, and I approve this message. In fact, I think it is awesome.
Only one problem, MS Explicitly says they don't sell XP MCE.
I've had a lot of luck running MythTV on inexpensive hardware I had lying around the house. There's no reason to spend buckets of cash like the one mentioned in the article if all you need is a simple PVR.
MCE $130 OEM.
Note that you "must purchase with a piece of hardware" to get around Microsoft's "must be sold with hardware" legalese.
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You're talking about MythTV, and it's quite good. It's difficult to get working in many cases, but most people who like it put up with that because of the flexibility it allows. One backend, multiple frontends, so your TV upstairs can watch shows recorded on the main machine in the living room, for example. It also has great IMDB lookups for existing video files, no DRM (media center edition definitely doesn't have either of those). Best thing I can recommend is to try it. You can always install Media Center edition too, if you think it's bad. Not like it'll take anything but a bit of time, and it's free, so the price is much better than Media Center.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
extreme overkill, my own uses the following.
MB: microstar k7n2g-l
Ram: 1gb
video: onboard gf4mx
sound: onboard 5.1
hdd: 80gb
tuner: 2x hauppague pvr150
os: win2k
pvr software: beyond media 3, beyond tv 4
pvr remote: snapstream firefly
Ok, you'll all turn this into a "Install MythTV" thread, but...
I've built several MCE machines. Here's what you need to know.
An Athlon 1700+ is overkill for a three-tuner (dual analog + OTA HD) setup. Encoding is done on the card. They suggest a $500 CPU/motherboard combination. A Sempron 2600+ on a motherboard is at Fry's for $69, and is boxed with a fairly quiet fan on a cool-and-quiet supported motherboard.
1g of memory is overkill. 512M of Corsair Value RAM costs $38 at NewEgg. That's about $150 cheaper than their suggestion of 2G of CVR.
A "fancy" sound card is useless if you simply intend to go out to your stereo. Optical out is available for a couple of bucks, and the stereo out on any newer piece-of-junk AC97 audio sounds just fine through my stereo.
Their tuners are "fine", but the standard configuration for MCE is almost always a single MCE500 from Hauppauge and a combo of an ATI HD Wonder (no broadcast flag support) and an AverMedia A180. About $400 for this - and it'll be your biggest purchase.
You do not need a keyboard except in the closet; and yes the remote is $35 from NewEgg.
250gig drives run $75 or cheaper after rebates and other "scams." I bought a pair of Hitachi "Deathstar" 250's at $49 each at Fry's. We'll pretend though that you'll have to spend $100 for a solid 300 gigger.
Cost for a four-tuner setup including dual-HTDV dual-analog tuners and plenty of storage? http://www.powercompress.com/product.htm
It's also available by Graphedit add-ons and an AT job if you can live without a fancy front-end.
Last month, I built my own PVR. Here's my cost:
- ECS motherboard + Pentium 4CPU combo from Fry's: $110
- 512MB (2 x 256MB) of Kingston RAM: $50
- Zalman CPU fan (stock is just too noisy): $45
- Antec TruePower 2.0 380W power supply: $60
- GeforceFX 5200 (no fan == so silent): $40
- MS media center remote: $35 (yes, you really need this)
Items reused: OS, mouse & keyboard (for initial setup, then don't need them anymore), dual-tuner Tv tuner card, and PC case. Total cost for me was $340. If I had to buy the items I reused, then I could have very easily stayed under $500.The machine is hidden behind my TV stand (I have a CRT 30" HDTV Sony Tv, 16:9 aspect ratio), is almost completely silent, and delivers a nice, crisp, HD signal to my TV (DVI port of my graphics card plugs in to the HDMI port of my TV). I keep it on all the time, and manage it via VNC. It has been running for almost a month with no hiccups, and I saved $1700 in the process.
You can save a lot of money by downgrading from the specs in the article.
Any equivalent of a 3GHz P4 single-core is plenty of CPU for HDTV. A nvidia fx5200 is enough graphics card. For sound, you just need an spdif port if you already have a receiver.
And, of course, Linux and MythTV are free, and superior to MCE.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
Well, the better way to do this is to use turner cards that do onboard video compression instead of using the CPU. That way you can make almost any computer work. http://www.snapstream.com/Community/articles/pvs_s ervice/ ...and you can then add tons of tuners that will record all at once without really taxing a modest system...
http://www.snapstream.com/Community/Articles/medus a/default.asp
Same author, same system, slightly rewritten for PC Mag (original article date was 11/29/05). http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1893732 ,00.asp
I wonder if the guys at ExtremeTech know that their author resold the story he sold them.
I didn't even know it was doing it, had set it to record all instances the two shows through the EPG, which yesterday happened to be aired at overlapping times.
And having it as both my stereo, video and photo album, I find 200 GB disk a minimum (I wish I went with 300), which would be a problem with laptop, but I guess you could go with external disk.
MythTV can be installed and setup very easily using the KnoppMyth distribution, and then customised after that (all I've done is install libdvdcss). Otherwise there is Jarod's detailed setup guide, and the mythtv-users mailing list is very busy, and people on there are very helpful.
If you're in New Zealand, we have a localt mythtvnz list.
Rob :)
With TiVo Desktop, you can upload correctly encoded files back on to the tivo, as well as tell it not to delete shows. It only deletes shows not marked as keep until i delete when there isn't enough space left. DirecTiVo allows multiple shows at once, and TiVo Generation 3 boxes will do this as well.
It would also take something very out of the ordinary to knock tivo into oblivion overnight. TiVo is a friendly and conveniant tv recording mechanism. All my DVDs are on DVD and I dont mind sticking in a disk and pushing the button on my receiver remote to change inputs.
Also TiVo -CAN- play mp3 format. I have my entire collection in apple lossless, and until TiVO & Apple make a deal, I have another copy in mp3, which is a small price to pay (well, 100gb at 128kbit which is good enough for me and if I really want something in high quality I listen to the original CD or fire up iTunes and play the apple lossless version).
TiVo's not all bad and definately has its place in my home. My wife's not a computer geek and doesn't want to mess with the rest of the problems that come from having a windows based machine that needs you to accept updates, run virus scans and spyware scans, etc. TiVo changed our life for the better (we always missed our shows due to our 16 month old son getting crabby or wanting to play or something). We live on our own schedule thanks to TiVo. Granted, it could be done with a PC based solution, but TiVo really is simple.
You also -can- check the weather with galleon installed on a home PC that sends the java programs to the TiVo for use.
Not everybody needs to emulate old games (though I have a dreamcast and xbox for that occasional use). I can also play some fun games on the TiVo. I don't see why someone couldnt make a java NES emulator either, though playing with the remote might be strange, granted.
Anyway, the TiVo isn't a swiss army knife, but it's definately more than you think.
It is perfectly legit and within Microsofts Licence terms to buy OEM Operating Systems provided it is supplied with a non-peripheral component - which can include a mouse.
You cannot purchase OEM Office or Server products ecept with a complete machine,