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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...
...for over $2200? I realize it needs to have a lot of bells and whistles, but that seems excessive somehow.
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.
Depending on your needs, you can spend alot less than $2246. I have my pvr running on a Shuttle SS40g with a 1GHz Athlon/512MB RAM/200GB drive. Its been running for 3 years now without problems (knock on wood). If people need a pvr on the cheap, I would recommend buying a used lowend Shuttle PC or similar and save yourself the cash. You could probably get one on eBay for half the cost than this one.
http://religiousfreaks.com/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.
Man. I'm always missing out on something.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The problem is to be made into a mode of pure watching, a state of the same. In fact, if the environment is technologically-driven, so you crumple up the URL from the last tab you were already expecting.
/. when I say:
I believe I speak for a large % of
What the hell did you just say?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
If I was building a HTPC, I'd use Linux, 'cause it's highly customizable since you can strip it down the way you need it. I think Windows is totally inappropriate for HTPCs especially 'cause of all that DRM shit.
From the last point in your post it seems you have little to no experience in Windows-based HTPCs, given that your statement is based on exactly one piece of software: MCE. I can't think of one non-MCE piece of Windows PVR software that uses "all that DRM shit" on their files. Not one, and I've used most everything for Windows at one point or another except MCE. MediaPortal, GB-PVR, MeedioTV, BeyondTV, SageTV...none have DRM on their files. None. And they're all Windows-based.
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.
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
MythTV sucks if you've ever had the chance of using Media Center.
I can say this because I've used both, and ended up going back to the Microsoft solution, of which MythTV makes it look good!
My setup: dvb-t card (nova-t), geforce4 w/tv out, athlon xp 2700, lots of storage etc.
Mythtv, took eternity to setup, had to manually give it the frequencies so it could find the channels. When setup, guide data took a while using xmltv, and following guide after guide to set it up. Even once setup, its nowhere near as complete or stable as Media Center using dvb-t. Getting to this point took hours.
With Media Center, its very simple to get all working without having to go to such great lengths or following guide after guide to get something done. So long as your hardware is somewhat recent and has BDA drivers, and you install rollup update 2, things are smooth for myself.
MythTV has some serious issues. Tuning into an encrypted channel crashes it. Yes I know its the mpeg codec's problem but surely MythTV can check the channel beforehand! Media center can cope with that.
The GUI hasnt got anything on Media Centers, even with custom designs.
Then there's those little things like droping a DVD full of xvid's into the system - Media Center will ask to copy it to the system and watch it.
You have to exit the TV section entirely to goto something else - Media center can do picture in picture no problem regardless of what your watching.
It can also record the stream to the hard drive in the format it came, mpeg2, without an issue with dvb-t. MythTV couldnt do this, nor could it provide a good quality recorded stream without having to use the CPU under dvb-t.
There are other things, but I can tell you now, from my own experience that dvb-t under MythTV just isnt ready for primetime. Finally, why bother spending lots of hours configuring and time tweaking it later when Media Center does it nicely first time around?
Oh wait, this is slashdot...
The price difference between OEM and retail software is due to two mitigating factors:
1) OEM software is forever married to the machine on which it is first installed.
2) Microsoft doesn't provide support for OEM products - they leave that up to the OEM.
As long as you don't want to call up Microsoft for support, OEM software is just fine. But considering support rates ($35 a pop, or $245 for a professional incident), retail software may be a deal for those who lack basic troubleshooting skills, internet search capabilities, or impressionable tech-savvy relatives.