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A Truly Silent Home Theater PC Built for Linux
slimrabbit writes "LinuxDevices is reporting on a truly silent home theater PC that comes with its own Fedora 5 based quick install Linux DVD capable of installing a fully-configured FC5 system
with LIRC, KDETV, TV-Time and Kradio in about 15 minutes. The most notable features are its "church mouse quiet" 14dba power supply, TV-Out (SVideo and composite), component video, DVI and VGA out, and hardware MPEG support(XvMC). The company also supports and engages the Linux community through its sponsorship program. It is sponsoring knoppmyth and the Debian User Project and makes the mechanical drawings of its face plates available under the
GPL."
Finally I will be able to replace my XBOX, which is used solely for home theater purposes, with this HD-DVD capable system.
There is no HDMI, but component and DVI should suffice for most.
there is no issue with my network
A truly silent home theatre system? Hope it comes with closed captioning...
Did I miss something there?
;-)
Oh I get it! It's supposed to be GeForce.
for watching silent movies
...and makes the mechanical drawings of its face plates available under the GPL.
Whoo hoo! Striking a blow for freedom! Telling those evil user-subjugating anti-freedom proprietary face plate manufacturers where to stuff it! I want one of these, because I'm sick to death of this nasty Antec case that won't let me distribute its modified face plate...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
This is interesting - for $300 they've created something that beats me spending my own time and money on building myself. Previously when I've seen "silent" under-the-tv boxes, they've been closer to $800. This is enough to make the average geek think "I'll just build one myself". That, however, takes time and effort, and there's no guarantee that it'll work properly at the end of it.
To get a barebones, including a nice case and decent psu for this price makes it worthwhile getting over a diy system. Only question is, does it suck because it's cheap?
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
but does it run Li... oh, wait...
I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want that below my tv..
The submitter seems to have confused quiet with "truly silent." In addition to the power supply's 14db fan, there are two more case fans. The CPU lacks a fan, relying on nearby vent holes on the top of the case for air intake - don't set anything on top! It also uses a hard drive, apparently not in an acoustic enclosure, and lacks any noticable means of acoustically muffling the DVD-ROM drive. And in general, fan quietness often comes at a cost of unsufficient cooling. If it's reliable, at $550 for the loaded system, I could still see it being kinda cool. But not silent, and maybe not even all that quiet when the DVD fires up.
It might not be wise for them to recommend SAA7134 TV tuner cards. I had to hack MythTV's source code (using a patch someone else developed, fortunately) just to get TV audio working. That might not fit in with their plug-and-play philosophy. :-) Other than that, this looks pretty neat!
They sponsor some guy's blog and a live CD project which doesn't do any real development. Yeah, those guys must really be aching for money...
I have been itching to build a MythTV (or similar) box for a long time now, but what has always stopped me is the noise. I have tried to keep up on things like underlocking, rubber grommets, etc. for noise reduction, but even though I can successfully build a low noise PC, it is no where near the level of quiet I desire for my living room. The whirr of my Xbox is almost unbearable, and is a big reason I buy multiplatform games for the comparatively silent GameCube.
But if there is a truly quiet box on the market that provides these functions, I will gladly fork over the cash.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Does it run Linux?
Legalize it.
Forget about buying a media system, just dig out some old computer you have, make sure it has a video card with TV-out. Doesn't matter if it has a hard drive or not, as long as it has a CD or DVD player. Download Linux Geexbox boot CD. Hook up your system to your TV and stereo system. Download some movies from the bittorrents. Burn to CD/DVD. Watch movies. Who cares if the system is noise, you won't hear it when you have a movie playing loud.
Meh.
1. The power supply is 14dbA? Yea right. The reviewers didn't even test it. That number is highly unlikely, especially from an unbranded PSU.
2. What about case fans? What's the dBA on those? What about the CPU fan, which isn't even included? Both of these will have a big impact on the total overall noise of the system.
3. Not to mention the hard drive! But enough.
This is not a "silent" HTPC. It's a quickstart HTPC. It should be judged on those grounds. Calling it truly silent is just going to confuse people.
See http://www.silentpcreview.com/ for real silent computing.
Nice that they're prepackaging all this and supplying the drivers and all. But this seems to me to be a 6150 Mobo and case w/ remote. Good Mobo (use a 6100 for 2 Linux WoW machines), though sound was a pain to configure (ended up getting a external card).
Not sure how much the case is worth but the mobo is only $60-$80. Still guess it may be a good deal for those that don't wanna mess too much getting their own drivers and tweaking them properly.
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
I've been battling my MythTV install for the past couple days, and am working on it as we speak, so this article is perfect timing.
This device appears to be little more than a barebones PC and a lot of marketing induced FUD. Others have already touched on the lack of HDD, CPU and RAM, so I won't bring those back up. What I will bring up is my suspicion of the true reason why it doesn't have MythTV - Because MythTV under FC5 is a serious pain in the arse. To quote Axel Thimm from this posting on the Atrpms-users mailing list:
"Anyway, all in all currently mythtv on FC5 isn't an easy ride. If you
don't want to get in adventures, don't upgrade yet. Wait at least
until the fixed kernel makes it into updates proper."
I had originally loaded FC5 on my MythTV candidate, only to run into whacky issue after whacky issue. I formatted and reloaded to FC4, following the holy grail of MythTV install guides, and the install has been much smoother. (I'm just trying to nail down the audio / video sync issues - I gotta get my line out to stop playing 'live' audio, dammit!)
I think you'd be better off speccing out a PC from NewEgg or something, rather than purchasing one of these boxes.
By following this guide, http://www.silentpcreview.com/article16-page1.html , I have built two machines identical to their setup and modded my power supply cpu with a low rpm fan. These machines have run solid for almost 4 years, until one of my motherboards crapped out. They are quietest piece of hardware I have owned since I sleep right next to them.
The main reason I am not engaging in any PC-based home theatre appliance is the 350-500 Watt power consumption.
I am always looking for energy saving, and I think it's insane to use that much power for playing/recording DVDs, music, compared to CD or DVD players/recorders, which consume much less energy.
10 links in one submission, wow.
I don't know for how many years I have been building movie machines with Linux.
I'd like to see a thorough comparison between the LixSystems' $560 system
/ cPath/24_27/products_id/237
h p?cPath=9&products_id=81.
http://www.linuxtechtoys.com/ltt/product_info.php
and Interact-TV's $600 system
http://store.interact-tv.com/store/product_info.p
And any others that might be out there.
Unfortunately, it's uber-expensive, costing around 2500 USD
$2500? For a 1GHz G4?!? You could buy a used "table lamp" style iMac on ebay or cragslist, rip off the monitor, plug a mini-dvi to S-video adapter into it, and have the same capabilities for 1/10th the cost.
This has already been done in the world of OS X:
http://homepage.mac.com/chamady/MacMiniReview
you were right the first time.
http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems/M ini_ITX_BareBones_Computer
I have a silent M10000 system, which is similar to this one, which makes a perfect MythTV front end.
Perhaps the only draw back is the non-customisable hardware and price, but it's difficult to go pass laptop for silent pc.
If you RTFA, this is $300 for a HDTV case, a quiet PSU, and a GF6 video integrated Motherboard. The motherboard is an ASIS a8n vm csm. ($78 @ newegg) The case is some sort of Custom HDTV case, not found with easy trawling, lets assume $100 + $60 for the "Ultra Silent" PSU.
0 -939BB-A8NVN/installCD/Lx8100-939BB-A8NVN_InstallC D.htm
Not a bad deal for the $300 barebone. Especially as they configure the Linux for non easily installed stuff.
Linux Install CD: http://www.lixsystems.net/lix/product_files/LX810
(Coincedentally, also the site that is selling the units)
The PSU looks quiet, but it's not fanless.
There are two case fans - I couldn't see how loud they are, they say "Case fans as low as 1200rpm", but they look pretty small and small fans are usually pretty whiney.
The model that comes with a CPU seems to use a stock heatsink/fan and there doesn't look like there's a lot of room in there for a quieter solution. Also there are air holes straight above the CPU which are going to let the noise straight out.
I didn't find anywhere where they quoted a sound level for the whole system - maybe I missed it?
I have no idea how this compares to other HTPC form factor solution, but it sure isn't "truely silent".
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
After seeing and discussing a very interesting mythtv frontend at Lugradio, I went out and bought myself (on ebay) a T-Online Vision S100 set top box. These were built for a german VoD service, but they're easily available on ebay.
It is *totally* silent (no moving parts) and comes with wifi, ir remote, ide slots, a pci slot, tv/audio/spdif out, usb and runs linux beautifully. I can even use it as a Wifi AP. It's only 766MHz and the 128Mb DRAM is soldered on (non upgradeable) but this is all you need for a silent box.
And whereas most set-top-box PCs are reminiscent of a massive mid 80's VCR, this is actually no bigger than your average DVD player.
Note I say "frontend". You probably need a bigger case to get a PVR-150 into it, so it might work as a combined back/frontend, but in its natural form factor it's easier as a frontend. Though you can buy USB based DVB tuners, and assuming there's linux support, you've got your backend.
Requires some hardware hacking if you want to get a DVD drive or a 2.5" HDD into it (mine runs off a 1Gb USB stick), but remember - there are no moving parts, and it's got wifi built in!
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
What really is the point of this? MPEG is hardly CPU intensive to decode these days. Even an XBOX can decode MPEG4 HDTV streams on it's CPU, a lowly Celeron 750MHz.
A useful feature would be hardware H.264 encoding.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's is incorrect to state anything about quietness of the system with such a big unknown quantity as CPU cooler noise level, given that CPU must be supplied by the user.
3 MythTV boxes (1 master, 2 "satellites"), all running FC5. As someone previously mentioned, just "yum install mythtv-suite" using the atrpms repo.
For a couple years now I've had an HTPC hooked up to my TV that is pretty much silent ... it has a TV tuner, DVD player, various information services, a thingamajig for showing photos and playing music from my Macs. Oh, and did I mention that it runs Linux?
This may be just the ticket.
Currently I've a Windows box with quite a bit of media (both video/movies and mp3s) on its HDD. I have an S-video cable and a fiber optic cable running some 30 feet from the desktop to my AV receiver.
It works alright, and the quality is pretty decent, but it's somewhat clunky to use as a true HTPC. I literally have to drag media player into the other display and maximize it to watch anything. From where it's situated, I don't have line of sight for the remote in my normal TV viewing location (my Harmony can't even reach it), and even if I could I wouldn't know where to start to find a decent software front end to control the HT.
This appears to be a pretty decent solution. Just a set top box I can put with all my other A/V equipment that does everything I need. The PVR feature would be a significant bonus.
However, I'm not too knowledgeable about Linux powered HTPCs, and I'm going off several assumptions which may or may not actually be true:
1. Out of the box, the system will be configured to send proper audio streams to the receiver, without stripping DTS/Dolby Digital out of the source audio.
2. The interface (both the GUI and command line) will be clear and readable on the TV if I'm running component video from the HTPC to my receiver and then to the display. It also will allow me to easily browse and select various media I want to play.
3. I'll be able to network the device and either stream media, or copy that media and store it locally, read from my Windows box's HDD. Also, it'll be able to decode and play various file formats (AVI/MPG etc.) as well as be able to download various codecs (like Divx).
4. It can run remote shells, just so I can enjoy the novelty of being on IRC from my HTPC.
If my first three assumptions are correct, I'd say it's highly likely I'll be picking this (or something like it) up in the near future.
The Internet is generally stupid
First, you're forgetting the optical drive. As any Xbox 360 owner will tell you, the optical drive can add a lot of noise to the system. On the 360, although the machine isn't nearly silent without the optical drive on, it gets a lot louder with it on.
Also, slow processors and low-end video cards today do not have more than enough power for HD video. They would for MPEG-2 video, but not for MPEG-4 or H.264. Only a very few video cards accelerate MPEG-4 or H.264 at all. And most of them are high-end mosters that have fans.
I have a Mac Mini with a 1.66GHz Core Duo and 2G RAM) and it can't play full screen 1080p H.264 video at full 24fps frame rate (let alone 60fps). It almost can, it'll play it if it is 2.35:1 movie (which means the image is 1920x817x24fps), but it won't play a 1.85:1 movie (1920x1034x24fps) let alone full screen, full temporal resolution (1920x1080x60fps).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It's actually pretty difficult to test something that is 14dBA. Ambient in almost any room is higher than that, even before you put test equipment in the room.
I doubt the reviewers could have managed to test verify the power supply was only 14dBA.
I agree it's pretty clear the reviewers don't really know what they are talking about.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Here you go, http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_t he_fans/ a truly silent PC with additional benefit of cooking french fries while watching a movie.
I've actually been trying to spec. out a PC based PVR the last few days -- my total pretax cost is coming around to CAD 450.
It should be relatively easy to get your power usage to under 150W at load, and half of that at idle. It's still a lot more than a DVD player, but certainly not 350W. The trick is to be selective about components -- you don't need the highest end, most power consuming, hardware for this. Here's a link to an article at Silent PC Review on these things -- note, the system they've tested does not include a TV tuner, and uses a laptop harddrive, so figure on them being on the low side.
Don't forget, after you've built a PC based PVR, you get a whole lot more flexability that you could possibly get from a standalone device. Imagine 3 years down the road you want to switch to HDTV, use next-gen DVD's, or get multiple TV tuners? Well, each of those will be a simple $100-200 dollar upgrade.
I built an HTPC not too long ago. The case fans are a little loud, but honestly, I can't hear them over the TV or movie. I don't even think about them. Sure, when it's completely silent in the room, you can hear it. For me though, that doesn't matter.
I'm actually suprised I didn't see a silent power supply (Thermaltake W0029) in there. It would stick out the back a little, but it would probably fit in there. As for CPU fans, the Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu I have is VERY quiet, and with out the case fans, I can't hear it.
Because I'm TOO LAZY to do so! Try taking Reading Comprehension 101, please. I said in the post that I didn't have enough interest to go through the work and frustration of setting up the system and getting Myth to work ONCE, for MYSELF. Do you really think I would go to the additional difficulty of setting up something for mass production if I'm not willing to do it once?
I have plenty of money...if someone else sold systems like that working 100%, then I'd happily pay for their services. Me=Part of the market, get it?
I talked to Andy, the guy who apparently is LinuxTechToys, a bit before buying the system. He was very helpful in clarifying questions the website created. When I asked him if my old MatrixOrbital VFD2041 display would fit in the case, that was all the prompting he needed to make me custom mounting brackets for it.
The system came packed in one inch of low-density foam in a cardboard box about half an inch too narrow. As a result, the FedEx ground trip from California to Washington left a sizable dent on the right side of the case, possibly from the slimline CD to IDE adapter which was packaged alongside. I was able to pound this out with a hammer, a block of wood, and some gaffer's tape without any damage to the paint, so no biggie.
Everything is a very tight fit. I had purchased a Samsung SN-S082D DVD burner for this system. I don't know if this drive is slightly larger than any of the others, but using the included IDE adapter, there was literally about a millimeter of space between the back of the floppy power connector's plastic tab and the front of the power supply - not enough room for the other side of the connector. I worked around this by grabbing an old fan power connector and soldering GND and 5V wires directly to the IDE adapter circuit board. (I needed to make one of these anyway for my VFD2041 anyway.) The 40-pin IDE cable rests snugly on the power supply, and I'm glad that power supply isn't a millimeter higher. There's a capacitor on the motherboard partially blocking the VFD2041's serial port, but that's OK because I only need pins 3 and 5 connected, it's the bottom row of pins that's obscured, and appropriately-sized wires will friction-fit into a female DE9 connector.
My first message from the system was from Asus's BIOS, which said something like: "USB overcurrent detected. Locate and unplug USB device. System will shut down in 10 seconds." The IR receiver draws its 5V from one of the USB headers on the motherboard - I'm glad they chose this location instead of directly from the power supply, otherwise I could have let the magic smoke out of something. With the IR receiver circuit board screwed in to place between the VFD2041's mounting bracket and the case, there's enough pressure to cause the very end of that 5V line to make contact with the mounting bracket. I removed the IR receiver, covered the entire receiver circuit board in electrical tape, tucked it in next to the VFD, and taped it in place. Problem solved.
The SN-S082D's tray is, at 13.8mm-ish, slightly wider than the acrylic front panel cutout. I had to sand the front panel quite a bit to get smooth operation. 100-grit sandpaper left the edges considerably smoother than before - they must have been CNC milled and left at that.
I do not have a dB meter or the appropriate room to verify their 14dB claim, however the system has a total of four fans (CPU, power supply, and two case fans) and the only noise I could identify after powering on was from the CPU fan (which is the stock AMD fan). The BIOS does a good job of spinning these only as fast as they need to go.
Debian Etch Beta 3 boots just fine on it, however I plan to netboot it (which the BIOS supports) so it'll take me a bit longer to get everything installed.
Bottom line - the system works, they will go the extra mile for you, but be prepared to put more time into it than you think you'll need.
It is a VGA port. There are no external serial connectors, but the motherboard has two serial port headers. Pin 1 on the first serial port is used for the IR receiver.
if your not using HDMI
I'll overlook the minor typo here, but I think you're still missing something. If you're not using a digital signal, the signal will be downgraded to 540p or something similar (about 1/2 the bandwidth). First, this is not going into effect until around 2010, so this won't be a problem yet. Second, the signal downgrade, caused by the Image Constraint Token (ICT), is only for analog signals, namely Component, and devices that support digital signals, but not HDCP (namely computer video cards). Both HDMI and DVI support the same protocol, and both support HDCP.
Generally, if your TV has either DVI or HDMI, you should be fine. Furthermore, saying "everything" will be downgraded is just not correct. All of the downgrade crap comes directly from the vicious/senseless copyright restrictions of the new DVD generation (bluray/hddvd). Specifically, it does NOT apply to (a) home movies being played back in HD, (b) any HD signals from your cable company or Over-the-Air HD service, or for that matter, (c) any movies/video files in HD that you may have on your computer.
I appreciate your spite towards DRM and the like, but this downgrading is directed specifically at bluray and hddvd.
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
I built my own Linux Media Center based on Fedora Core 5 and MythTV. :-)
- center-fai-da-te/
I worked a lot against the noise and now the box is happly working side by side with my TV set. It also passed my wife check.
I documented all the job on my blog (in Italian): http://www.malex.org/archives/2006/05/linux-media
....On your fileserver?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
does it run Windows?
*ducks*
Who wants quiet? I want the world's Freakin' Loudest Home Theatre System!
All available data suggest that regardless of any of this, the sun will still come up tomorrow.
I call bullshit on the "14dbA" power supply.
1: No distance measurement is given, so the measurement is bunk anyway.
2: The quietest fan-based PSUs are around 18dBA/1m, and that's difficult to measure - typing, nearby traffic, and just about any other noise can easily muffle a sound that is that quiet.
The only way to build a "silent" PC is to build one with no fans and no optical/hard drives. Even then, poor power circuitry can make noise.
Unless your optical drive is riplocked, it will read the disc at 8X or more. Drives are a lot louder at 8X than a standalone drive that runs at 1X.
I have no idea how you say a decent HTPC is defined by where it is playing its content from.
My shitty Intel graphics aren't a bottleneck, they just aren't helping at all. They don't accelerate MPEG-4 or H.264 playback. As to your comments about high-end cards accelerating MPEG-4 and H.264, that wasn't the point. I did allow for this with my comments, but this is a long way from the GP's comment:
"And since relatively slow processors and low-end video cards today have more than enough power for HD video,"
A GeForce 7 is not a low-end card. Nor are the Radeons you speak of.
The GP's argument was wrong about most video cards and misstated how much CPU you need to play HD video. Your arguments do not refute this.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It's interesting that nearly the entire comment/response section for this article is dedicated to the noise factor. Assuming normal TV/Movie/Music listening levels, the sound coming out of the HTPC should be negligible, and if not, it's one of the easiest things to fix. The bigger issue, it would seem to me, is media support. Their website claims that out of the box this is nothing more than a TV/radio box, which is useful to about . . . . nobody. In fact, it doesn't even include a TV or radio tuner, just the applications! Using stock FC5 you can pretty much rule out working DVD playback or MP3 streaming. So as near as I can tell they're bundling a MB/PS/Case and giving you an install that won't sufficiently play back what 95% of people are going to want to play on it. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a linux based HTPC that I can have shipped to my door, plug in, and GO! I just think that this product is misleading since it doesn't appear to do anything.
trickle down to Dell? 10 years? 20? Never? Sorry, I'm just in disbelief that computers aren't dead silent at this point. You would think when customizing, say a Dell, you could choose silence options.