HTPC ... Help me pick the parts! :)

[aud19]

So I'll be building a HTPC for\with a friend of mine in Feb-March. I understand a lot can change in a month or so but I'd love to know if I'm on the right track, also if anyone knows of some great technology right around the corner...? :P I've built quite a few PC's in the past mostly for my home office or my work but as you can imagine they didn't require 5.1 audio and TV outputs etc. So I need some help on the components, as well, I'll need to ask some surely obvious and stupid questions :LOL: Let me give you some background...

At this point he's just got an OLD 2-channel receiver (HK I think..) and a pair of Pioneer towers (I know... :? I'm working on him..) He's got a 27" Panasonic TV with component(480i), s-video and composite inputs. To begin with I think we'll just be connecting the PC to the existing stereo set up. I know he wants to expand to 5.1 in the near future, so that has to accesible as well. What I'm envisioning so far, is this:

-ATI Radeon 9600 ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO
I figure he can use the s-video connection to the TV and if he wants can also connect a small monitor to the second VGA. If he ever gets an HD capable TV, he can always get the VGA-Component adapter later. I personally don't find that component makes that big of a difference over s-video at 480i, especially on a 27" TV. Can somebody please explain the connections to me though... Do they act as both ins and outs?

-Asus A7N8X-Deluxe
It has 5.1 analog outs (I think?) and digital outs so it seems he could connect it to a receiver (digital) or straight to an amp (analog) using the PC as a pre/pro. All the rest of the boards cred's seem to be there and I prefer Asus' boards to other manufacturer's anyway. I'm worried that they don't mention DTS or DPL II anywhere and what's with those analog outs? The centre and sub are the same output :?: How does that work? I get the surrounds being the same output...it's just a stereo mini-jack. Does the centre/sub output work the same way? Two signals on a "stereo" jack? Should I just get some seperate gear from Creative\Soundblaster? If so, what? If I do, can you even get any motherboards without on board audio nowadays from the major manufacturers or would the on board audio just go un-used?

Other than that, I'm looking at a cordless mouse\KB probaby from Logitech, an AMD Barton 2600+ to 2800+, 512Mb DDR 333, Maxtor 160Gb 7200RPM ATA133, probably Sony combo DVD\CD burner as well as a seperate DVD drive and maybe a printer. Anything I'm forgetting?

Thanks for your help and patience.

Jason




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[Gordon Moore]

Weeeeeeell,

The All-in-Wonder Pro would not be my first choice....I've been doing the research (see thread below) and just about any graphics card these days has S-Video out....it won't look good...your resolution is stuck at 640X480.

Text is pretty unreadable. The best cards with s-video were the Geforce cards with a Conexant chip (I have one) and even then it's not that great, It's pretty good for games ,though.

Can somebody please explain the connections to me though... Do they act as both ins and outs?

Sorry I'm not following what you mean.

I guess my question would be why the All-In-Wonder...what's its intended purpose?


I think you would be better served to get a dedicated gaming card and add either an internal tuner/capture card or an external box... That way all your eggs aren't in one basket as it were.

Though if you are not doing that much gaming....a GF4FX 5200 128MB will probably fit the bill. The 5200 series if designed properly can get by without a fan. So they are the ultimate in quiet.

In fact futureshop has the XFX 5200 AGP on sale for $99.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10030704&catid=10524&logon=&langid=EN&dept=18&WLBS=fsweb15

XFX is solid hardware...don't anyone tell you different (even if it is a division of Pine) it reviews very well as a low dough solution. To keep cost down they don't bundle it with much software or extras. It will go toe to toe with PNY, MSI, ASUS and others...

http://www.xfxforce.com/product_view.php?sku=PVT34KNA

Add a:
A Hauppage PVR-250 (if you are looking for trouble free Tivo like abilities)
or the cheaper AsusTV, Flyvideo2000, MSI TVAnywhere will give good results on the cheap you may have to look for better software


BeyondTV works well in Canada (has a Guide+ type menu) and is only something like $60 US, they even offer PVR-250 bundles

http://www.snapstream.com

With the DVD burner, watch the specs...the 8X are out but it's the +R camp only right now...though I think NEC has one that does 8X +/- R Check into that (Sony is alittle overblown in price).

I'm worried that they don't mention DTS or DPL II

That's a software thing not hardware....I can't recall anyone offering a hardware DTS decoder. (PowerDVD, WinDVD, most of them offer DTS decoding now...ususally in the bundled software). Or use the spdif connector and let your receiver take care of it (if it has digital in's, usually optical cable)

The special thing about the Nforce series of boards is that it does 5.1 Dolby on the fly (encoding).

If you were going to use the pc as a pre (not recommended for critical listening because there is way too much RF going on) you would need 1/8 to stereo RCA connectors. For Movies this works pretty good (I done it for fun). Think of like having a truely upgradeable pre. (Probably too noisy on really high end gear unless you can find a way to shield you sound card (unlikely).


Your 5.1 connectors are as follows:

left/right front (a)
left/right rear (b)
sub/front (c)

Each channel is a seperate source so that's why they piggy back the sub with the center channel.

you would need a 1/8" - stereo rca (female)

Rat shack (approx 5 bucks each and you need only 3)

I would suggest the M-Audio Revolutions 7.1 as a better sound card for DVD's and it give you 7.1 channels and true 24/192 much higher dynamic range.

The Nforce chip still has its place for gaming as it encodes positional 5.1 on the fly (ala x-box).

[Gordon Moore]

Also...Maxtors are not known for being Quiet, reliability etc...

The HTPC hard drive of choice is the Seagate Barracudas...bullet-proof drives (not as fast as Maxtor possibly, but definately more reliable)...

I've had some good success with Vantec Stealth fans for case and CPU cooler. Panaflow is the fan to get though (I just couldn't get it locally)

Get a big heatsink...like a Thermalright that will support a 92mm fan and you can keep things quiet.

Cases that natively support a 120mm intake and/or exhaust fans are better choices (because you can slow them down). If you are handy with a dremel...anything is possible.

Also, for your graphics card choice go over to Zalman.com and see what cards will get by with their graphics card heatpipe solution and you can nix the screamer fan that comes stock.

Don't neglect the PSU. Get a quality power supply. I've had good success with the Antec TruePower supplies but there are more exotic solutions that offer single fan and are really quiet.

http://www.quietpc.ca

It's a balancing game especially if you want to play games on this beast, you will have to give up heat at the expense of being quiet or give up a little noise at the expense of keeping things cool.



You will have to prioritize what your HTPC will be doing the most.

The guys are the gods of everything quiet.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php

Don't rule out mini-itx....for HTPC it may be up your alley in a really nice tight little unit...

http://www.mini-itx.com/ You can stuff their boards in literally anything...have a look around that site and you'll see what I mean

My favorite is this one:

http://www.htguide.com/CFBoards/index.cfm?fuseaction=Threads.viewthread&Tid=55911&Forum=12&StartRow=1&CFB=1

"A RONSTER!"

[Andrew Pratt]

Panaflow is the fan to get though (I just couldn't get it locally)

I bought mine from Princess Auto for under $10

[Gordon Moore]

Well since Princess Auto is the farmer store that is, there's no guarentee that they will have it. I'm guessing it was a used fan ripped from a business repo like they so often have there. If it was new then you got a good deal....Good luck finding one now I bet, since their inventory changes weekly depending on what they are re-selling.

Not a bad place to look if you know what you are looking for/at.

TNS (The Northern Shop ) is another similar store...sometime junk, sometimes not. I'll find out when I fire up my HPLV, cheapy, paint sprayers this summer.

[Andrew Pratt]

Yeah those are two great stores. I didn't know you got a HPLV sprayer though...I might need that to redo my screen soon?

[aud19]

First I guess I should say noise isn't a "huge" concern for him. I mean he doesn't want it screaming loud but he's not audiophile picky either. He originally asked me to just make him a "standard" PC and I convinced him he could do an affordable HTPC and be able to watch TV, movies and music etc through the PC as he doesn't currently own much in the way of A/V gear and it would be better then what he had and likely better and more flexible than a cheap HTIB. So as you can imagine I'm not looking for top of the line here. More for ease of use and affordable while retaining decent but not top notch quality.

Gordon, the comments on the ATI kind of surprised me. I'd heard pretty good things about their All In Wonder cards... especially the newer ones. Also the max resolution of the TV is 640x480 is it not? Would the TV even be able to receive a higher resolution signal?

Quote:
"Can somebody please explain the connections to me though... Do they act as both ins and outs?"

Sorry I'm not following what you mean.

Well on the ATI site they state the cards has ins and outs for s-video and composite but I only see the output cable with 2 vga's, 1 rca, 1 s-video and the stero mini-jack. There's is a second rca on the cable and an s-video jack on the card itself are those the inputs?

It seems we'll probably be using the HTPC as the pre/pro and either using the analog outs to an amp or powered speakers.

The comments on the Maxtor kind of surprised me as well. I've found their drives to be both good performers and good quality in the past. Plus the drive I'm looking at has an 8Mb buffer and 3year warranty which would seem to be pretty reliable if the manufacturer is offering a 3 year warranty...?

I also figured if down the line he wants a better capture card or quieter fans or a soundcard with more audio features and better sound quality he could easily upgrade them. I plan on getting a good 350-400W power supply with the PC.

So if I understand it correctly, all the gear I picked will work, just not in the upper echelon of HTPC's. The other gear might perform a little better/quieter etc but would cost more and for a person who will be happy to just have the added functionality would probably be overkill.

Mine only concern left is the s-video, 640x480 "problem". If he was to connect it via the component cables are you saying the TV would be able to produce higher resolutions even on a 480i input? That doesn't make sense to me but I'd love for someone to explain to me that it does actually work...lol

Thanks again

Jason




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[aud19]

One other question?...

Why do you need a stereo audio out on the video card when you've got them on the soundcards/motherboards onboard audio?

Jason




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[Gordon Moore]

All-inWonder uses a breakout cable for your outs...



Don't get me wrong...ATI is a great Canadian company. I'd be proud to have them in my box...I just think that the All-In-Wonder Pro is priced a little steep personally and I think it can be done just as good while saving a few bucks...

If you like the All-in-Wonder Pro by all means go for it...



Same comments with Maxtor (except they're not CDN)....One of the top selling drives out there....not my personal favorite but if you like them, that's all that matters. You definately save cash by buying Maxtor. Thing is I hang around a lot of computer stores and do my fair share of reading and when I ask the question "what drive gets RMA'd more often than not" The response is overwhelming "Maxtor".

Now a couple of things to that....when you sell as many drives as they do, Your going to have a few more duds than your competitor (For example: If there are more of a certain model of car on the road, there's a higher degree of certainty that, the particular model in question will be involved in accidents...Does that make the vehicle less safe than any other?)

So again if you like Maxtor...by all means...In fact, look around find your best price on the size of drive you're buying and buy that.

Even Western Digital Raptors will get the job done in a really quick way, but would break the bank. 10,000RPM serial ATA :drool:



It all depends on what level of HTPC you are trying to build. I made an assumption that you were going for a hi-end HTPC with all the trimmings and I now realize that this isn't the case. So based on your requirements...absolutely, all your picks will get the job done.

There's really nothing much seperating a HTPC from a PC. From the sounds of things you are building more of what would be in line with a Media PC... Like the ones from HP. You may save some dollars and effort looking into one of those, since it bundles with a lot of decent software. Just plug it in.

I don't think HTPC has ever been fully defined...but I think it encompasses everything: fit, finish, function. A HTPC to me (IMO) looks no different than the rest of your AV gear and blends in perfectly. You wouldn't necessarily notice it on the rack.

What kind of case do you have in mind?


You're right, the beauty of building it yourself is that you can upgrade it as well...unlike a commercial piece of hardware you're not limited to just firmware updates.




"A RONSTER!"

[Gordon Moore]

Whoops I should read closer

Yes, all-in-wonder has a AVinput box and an AVoutput cable




The manual should answer your questions

http://www.atitech.ca/support/manualpdf/AW9600Pr.pdf?type=pc&cardType=ALL+IN+WONDER&prod=aiwPCproducts&submit.x=13&submit.y=9

a buddy of mine has the all-in-winder 7500 and it works pretty well...The picture seemed soft to me (out of the box).


To answer your question about NTSC TV, no, you will not achieve a higher res than 640x480 even with component in. Don't forget that components cables simply seperate chroma one, chroma two, and luminance on to individual wires thus eliminating interferance. They don't give you a higher resolution (that's the job of the output and input device), they do however allow you to move up to HDTV res's, because most input devices do 480P and 1080i through component in's. DVI allows for this as well but DVI seems to be more about HDCP (Hi-Def Content Protection) than anything else. That is less of an issue if you use a HTPC.


You could send a progressive signal if the TV was able to accept 480P and even better res at 1080i like an HDTV, Projector, LCD, Plasma etc....

But good ol fashion NTSC SDTV is stuck at 640x480 computer res
and a vertical freq of 59.94 Hz...it's the best that you can do. Your card can squish the desktop smaller to 800X600 and possibly 1024X768 to show more on the screen but the end result of output is 640X480.

Your vcr outputs at a TV rez of 330 x240 so it looks okay for not having much info there, Blow that up to a bigger screen (bigger than 32") and the lacking lines of resolution start to show the deficiencies. To output to TV the best image is usually 640x480 and use large fonts.


I don't know about the current crop of cards but I know that at 640x480 computer res (on my Geforce2 Pro) against a STB DVDplayer the STB DVDplayer beats the computer hands down everytime (through S-Video)...

Now if you use a VGA -component breakout cable and use 480P or higher from the HTPC against S-video out from the VGA card versus s-video or even progressive component out from a progressive player, the HTPC starts to shine! And will beat $1000 DVD players, from what I understand....never seen that kind of match up.

The beauty of an HTPC is it's ability to scale an image to much higher resolutions for low dough. Or in the case of a fixed pixel device (like an LCD projector) you can natively match the projectors resolution (1:1 pixel mapping).

I'm sure Jon Marsh could better explain this than me.


Here's a review of the All-inWonder 9700 Pro:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_10_2/ati-aiw-9700-pro-6-2003.html

This should clear up most of your questions...

[aud19]

I'm looking at getting the Chenbro PC61166(Metallic Gray) with optional 120mm rear fan http://www.chenbro.com.tw/product/product.jsp?p=1&s=102 I'd looked at some of the "Desktop" style cases and didn't figure the compromises were worth it to make it look more like an A/V component...

To be honest with you I'd probably prefer he get an Asus video card as I've always preffered them and I just went on their page and noticed they have new Radeon based cards 8O Have you guys heard anything on how they compare to ATI's cards and how they compare to Asus' Nvidia based boards? I'm also going to recommend he get a video card and seperate capture card if he can afford it but I think it may be beyond his budget or mean we'd have to take away from somewhere else. But he'll have the final decision on an all in one, two piece or video card now and capture card later.

Sony is a little overblown in price

LOL...Sony's are always overblown in price! My brother has one though and he did TONS of research and found the software etc and functionality of the Sony was worth the extra $ so I'm considering it... I've actually been looking at the LG Dual drives too which do DVD+/- R/RW AND DVD-RAM!

I think we're going to make due with onboard audio for now but the M-Audio card (firstly) and Audigy card (secondly) look like good upgrade paths.

Now I just don't know what I'm going to do about his TV..... :? I don't think he wants to or has the funds to get an HDTV at this point in time. So he's going to have to either make due with mediocre picture on his TV or buy a small HDTV or big monitor...lol

Jason




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[Gordon Moore]

Jason, I'll caution against one more thing. You'll want to be very careful of burn-in. You don't want a stationary part of the desktop up on screen for too long. You'll need to be careful of that if you are using the PC as a dedicated HTPC box.

[aud19]

Thanks Gord, I'm aware of the burn in issue, though I've yet to experience it myself yet (knock on wood)

So last night I sent him off an email recommending the following:

-Chenbro PC61166 (metallic gray) with optional larger fans and 350W PS
-AMD 2800+ (333Mhz, Bartton) CPU
-512Mb - 1Gb of 333Mhz DDR memory
-Asus A7N8X-Deluxe motherboard
-16X DVD drive + Dual DVD/CD burner to be determined later (and a 3.5" floppy..).
-For the mouse/kb theLogitech Cordless Navigator Duo as a good option or Gyration Ultra GT Suite as a better option.
-For standard video cards I recommended the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro or Asus Radeon 9600SE (which he could upgrade later with a seperate capture card)
-The ATI Radeon 9600 AIW Pro if he wants an inexpensive option now that does "everything".
-The Asus Radeon 9600XT for an intermediate option that offers video inputs but without the full flexibility of the All In Wonder or a seperate capture card. (Could still upgrade to a full capture card later).
-Maxtor 160Gb, ATA133, 7200RPM hard drive with 8Mb buffer and 3 year manufacturer's warranty
-I've let him know that a good upgrade for the audio would be the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy/Audigy 2 cards or the cream of the crop M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and even followed it with a "droooolll"...lol

As for his TV I've let him know the limitations of his current set and recommended he upgrade to even a small HDTV as soon as he can. At the very least he may still have to purchase a small monitor for web-surfing/computing and just use his TV for games, DVD's etc.

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide