Building my first HTPC

[JohanK]

Hi guys. I'm building my first HTPC. I have the Philips Acoustic Edge sound card, an old IBM hard drive and just ordered the ATI 64MB Radeon VIVO card.

I need suggestions on the mobo/chip/memory area as I'm not a computer builder. I was thinking of using the ASUS CUSL2 board with a PIII @ 866/133. I've looked around a little and now see an ASUS TUSL2 mobo. Is this a replacement?

Which DVD-ROM drives seem to work well and are reliable? I was going to go with Toshiba. Are Pioneer DVD-ROM drives good as well?

Thanx for reading.

[JonMarsh]

The TUSL2 is a newer board based on the 815EP chipset. There is also a TUSL2-C which includes ATA-100. This is a good board to consider for using the Pentium III.

I have about three Radeon cards in different PC's, including an Audio Test and secondary HTPC which also, coincidentally, uses the Philips Acoustic Edge. All of my systems are Athlon based, however.

These days most DVD-ROM drives work well and are quite reliable. Having a 14X drive doesn't necessariyl buy you anything, because you won't be getting data off the disk that fast to watch a movie. In fact, to totally elminiate stutters, it is sometimes desirable to set the drive caching to minimum and optimize read patterns for a single speed drive; I've found this in personal experience, and others at the AVS forum have also. I have been using mostly Acer DVD-ROM drives recently, mostly because of price, though I also have had Sony and Toshiba- the Toshiba, an early one, was the least satisfactory. Pioneer are good, but apparently a bit noisy on the higher speed models.

Have fun finishing your system, and enjoy your DVD's.

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Trevor Schell]

Hi Johan!,

Glad you came here for help and advice.
There are some real knowledgable guys around here that can give you some good advice.
Unfortunately I am not one of them.

Rick just finished putting together a HTPC so hopefully he can share his list of components.
From the pictures I recall seeing, it sure was a beautiful unit once it was completed.

Best of Luck with your system.
Looking forward to seeing the final results.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[SiliGoose]

Do you have any interest in going with an AMD chip over Intel? Not that it really matters, I'm just curious.




-Sili

[JohanK]

Thanx for the replies guys.

I have added a Toshiba 1502 DVD-ROM drive and an Enlight case to my purchased parts list.

Jon, thanx. I'm leaning toward the TUSL2-C board.

Sili, I'm not sure why but I prefer Intel CPUs.

Trev, I hope to show some pics when I'm all done.

[JonMarsh]

Johan,

I did some research on your component list, because of something nagging me in the back of my mind.

What I remembered/came across again are some discussions about problems with DVD playback starting to stutter and glitch on both audio and video towards the end of movies (after the last half hour). In several cases, this was traced to the common use of Toshiba DVD-ROM drives, in several different systems, and various versions of their drives- 1202 (which I had one of), 1402, and 1502. In all cases, replacing the Toshiba drive with a different brand (Creative, Sony, Pioneer) solved the problem. Now, whether it was a specific interaction with a certain hardware software combination, or a more general problem isn't clear. However, this has been reported on both Intel based and Athlon based systems.

If you encounter problems when your system is assembled, consider swapping the drive. If you have the opportunity before assembling your system, consider exchaning the Toshiba drive for a different brand.

Best regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Bing Fung]

Experiance is the best answer... Nice work Jon,

Hope it works out Johan. I'm kinda partial to Intel's as well, I don't know why? :? I use AMD but if Intel's were cheaper.




Bing

[JohanK]

Jon, thanx for the heads up. I have heard that Toshiba drives and the ATI software DVD player don't mix well; I plan on using PowerDVD but I have copies of both. My brother has a 1402 and a 1502 and they work well (1502 in his HTPC which uses a CUSL2 Black Pearl mobo w/ 1G PIII). I wonder if it's a firmware issue with the Toshibas??? I hope it works in the HTPC. I think it will as I've already used the drive with a Hollywood+ card in my old computer (an old Pentium machine).

BTW, I ordered the TUSL2-C mobo w/ a 1G PIII today. Hopefully, the HTPC will be up and running by next weekend. My Radeon arrived yesterday so all the parts are here. I also picked up a used 9G scuzzy IBM HD (72 pin, I think) and SCSI adapter so I don't have to use my old Quantum HD.

Bing, all this HTPC stuff has got me interested in upgrading my old Pentium computer which I use for surfing (used to do some gaming way back but my components are outdated so that has gone by the wayside).

I'm looking into setting up a cheap PIII or AMD machine. I already have a 16MB AGP4X card, couple of HDs, a SBlaster card, CD-ROM and floppy drives and a 200W ATX mid-tower case. Any suggestions? I'd like to do this on the cheap (<$200).

[Bing Fung]

Johan, the AMD system is about the cheapest bang for buck chioce right now.

Start with an
Elitegroup K7S5A board, $100 cdn,
AMD 1.4 Tbird, $200 cdn
256mb DDR Ram, $49

So for $349 cdn or ~$232 us you are ready to go.

Have a look here http://www.ncix.com/Canada/index.cfm




Bing

[JohanK]

Bing, this is what I found:

ECS K7S5A mobo/1.2G T-Bird(266) w/ heatsink and fan/256MB Kingston DDR PC2100 = $207 delivered

$30 more would get me the 1.4G processor.

What do ya think?

[Bing Fung]

I think that is close to exactly what I spec'ed

I think you would be more than happy, esp at that price.




Bing

[JonMarsh]

Isn't it amazing what you can buy for $207 these days? And someone is actually making some (though probably not much) money on it at that price.

When stuff is this inexpensive, I find the incentive to polish my bargain hunting skills reduced (that's probably why I've been a boxed CPU guy for a while, Bing!)

Still, this is a great deal- consider that a year ago I thought I was doing well to pick up a 600 MHz CUP, Asus MB, and 128MB DIMM for $200 for a friend!

Imagine if cars improved their value/cost ratio this way- we'd all be driving Ferrari's or Porche's or SL600 Benz or (substitute your dream machine here).

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[JohanK]

LOL Jon.

Looks like I'll have two computers to build in the next week or two. I had forgotten how much fun they can be (and maybe how frustrating also).

Many thanx to both of you.

I have one more question. I'm interested in sending analog sources (broadcast TV mainly with the occasion (S)VHS) to be scaled into the HTPC. What would be a good way to handle this with the HTPC? Can the ATI Radeon handle this or do I need to purchase a TV type card? Thanx.

[JonMarsh]

There's a couple of ways to go about this. Probably the best is to get a copy of DTV, (a sort of freeware/donationware doubler software package a number of guys at AVSForum have worked on as a joing project; it supports simple video capture boards using certain Brooktree chip sets (I'm thinking BT848, but my brains a bit foggy at 9:20 PM). I have the URL's at my work computer. People report good results with DSS, LD, etc.

One of the ATI All In One may do this also, but I understand not as well- re scaling or de-interlacing. I'm not an expert in this area- all my older gear (LD player, STB DVD player, etc. is in my daughter's system- she's got the envy of most of her 17 year old friends (Toshiba RPTV, Toshiba SD9000 DVD player, Pananic LD player, high end Toshiba VCR) in her bedroom. Just hand me downs, ya know. I've never tried to integrate it with my main viewing systems, since I'm almost 100% DVD. Don't even have cable connected. I watch some TV shows- when the series comes out on DVD!

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[JohanK]

Jon, thanx. I will be using dScaler or dTV or whatever it is called. Apparently, Pinnacle makes a decent card for less than $100 so I may pick that up at some point...my primary concern is DVD so I want to get that set up properly first.

Thanx again for your input.

[RickS]

Johan,

Haven't been around much lately but, here is the system that was built with the help of Jon/Bing/Thomas.





-Antec Black Rack Mount Case IPC3480B + 300 watt PS

-AMD Athlon 1.2 Thunderbird 266FSB CPU

-Asus A7V133 with VIA® KT133A 266/200MHz FSB

Stepless Frequency Selection, Ultra-Fast DMA/100

AGP Pro/4X/ RAID 0 support, 4 USB ports, and Promise®

PCI-ATA100 controller for UltraDMA/100.

-60GB IBM 75GXP ATA 100 7200 RPM Deskstar HD

-Pioneer 16X Black 105S Slot load DVD

-Teac Blk Floppy Drive

-(512MB Ram) 2 x PC133 SDRAM 256MB 168PIN

-All-in Wonder Radeon 32MB Video Card

-M-Audio AP 24/96 Sound Card

-Airboard IR Key board

-Linksys wireless Adapter & Wireless PCMCIA card

This system has been flawless and stable, and maybe a little overkill at the time but, now its out dated!!!


Rick




The Home Theater
DVD Collection

[JonMarsh]

Rick,

Outdated? I don't think so! Class *NEVER* goes out of style!

Nice to see the pictures. Looks a bit like the one ThomasW has. I'm building a new system in November, it may look pretty similar, since I may give either my current desktop or HTPC to my daughter. I told her it depended on how good her progress reports this quater were....

Let us know how it proceeds, Johan!

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[JohanK]

I got the mobo/chip/memory today. I put it together, loaded software and can now watch progressively scanned DVDs. I am really impressed even though there is much setup/tweaking that needs to done.

Rick, I love your case. Is the Pioneer drive quiet?

What software DVD player is everyone running? I tried the ATI player but I'm currently using PowerDVD.

[Bing Fung]

Damn that's one nice PC Rick!

Johan, I use Power DVD, and also have the Interactual DVD player as well.




Bing

[JonMarsh]

I "have" PowerDVD, SoftDVD, WinDVD, and the ATI player; I use the ATI player, with an occasional fallback to WinDVD.

I use PowerDVD for installations for folks not into messing with their PC. It's robust, easier to setup, but doesn't have quite the same image overlay quality. Still looks pretty good compared with a STB DVD player.

IMO, the ATI player (based on the Cinimaster enginer, with modifications to support IDCT from the ATI chips) has the best video quality once setup; it usually needs a little tweaking in the gamma settings. There's a new version to be released soon with the next gen of boards and Windows XP; a lot of us have our fingers crossed that it will resolve some of the quirks.


Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[JohanK]

Jon, the HTPC is working well. The picture is beautiful with DVDs. Thanx for all your help.

I have one problem. When the HTPC is hooked up to the projector, I am not able to vary the refresh rate (with a computer monitor hooked up to the HTPC, I am able to vary the refresh rate). Any ideas? Thanx.