My HTPC idea's

**Gordon Moore** · 27 January 2004, 15:37 Tuesday

MEMORY

ya forgot MEMORY

Otherwise......

This.....

Screamer.....

Won't.....

Run....

For that board...dual channel memory might be the way to go.

Liteon is a nice drive....have you considered a DVD-R/W drive....the price on these continue to drop. Or will that be "phase2"?

I think you've made some good choices.

**Andrew Pratt** · 27 January 2004, 15:44 Tuesday

The DVD burner will be phase two...first things first I need to get the basics running then start adding in more components to do the other duties I want.

**Gordon Moore** · 27 January 2004, 15:46 Tuesday

You might want to consider a cheapy raid card....

Raid 1 the O/S

and Raid 0 your media (provided you back that up, occasionally)

Course now I'm talking 4 drives....but hard drives are cheap...

For the O/S and programs the smallest drive you can find will do wonders and for media, the larger drives should work...you may have issues with 48-bit addressing on drives larger than 139 GB but I believe sp1a takes care of this.

**aud19** · 27 January 2004, 19:30 Tuesday

Sounds a lot like the stuff I'm looking at for my buddy's HTPC

Glad to see another AMD man :T

I've been reading lot's of recommendations for the ATI 9600 non-pro as apparently it goes fanless which = quiet. So that may be something you want to look in to.

As for integrating with HD, that's the main thing holding me back from a HTPC of my own. Firewire may fix that in the coming years but it ain't there yet and who knows how friendly it will be if it ever gets here.. :? The Hauppage looks the way to go otherwise for HD. Is there any HD available in Canada that isn't pay services from a Cable or Satellite company though?

From what I remember Lite-on actually makes most of the components for other manufacturers DVD-drives anyways. They seem to always be recommended.

As for a alternative to Logitech (which are very good too) KB/Mice check out these: Gyration Ultra GT Suite

For hard drives the best way to go is a 20Gb (if you can find one) or 30Gb for your OS and as big as you can afford for data as you stated but you can just partition one drive for less $ but at the expense of a little performance.

I'd wait for dual layer drives too as your "phase 2" :LOL: I too plan on seperate drives, one drive for playback and one for recording... if I ever do this.

I'd say go dual channel memory too if you can.

As for the case I was wrestling with that as well. I'm hoping that by the time I get to build one for myself there will be more options from different companies... Otherwise I decided that for the about $200 price difference I'd rather have the nicer looking and smaller D.Vine4 with better cooling abilities.

Jason

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

**JonMarsh** · 28 January 2004, 19:17 Wednesday

Andrew, you've got a nice choice you're working with there. I like the nforce chipsets quite a bit also, that's my choice for my main and bedroom HTPCs.

Gordon's suggestion is a good one if you have the financial where withal; run a high speed drive (like a WD raptor) for the OS and main programs, and setup a raid array for your file serving.

My only point of minor disagreement would be the video card; I've gotten back into nVidia since the NV17 series for HTPC; and with the 5600/5700 series they finished the tweaking and optimizing for MPEG playback, as well as getting VMR to work well. Plus NVDVD is a pretty credible player, and comes free with most of these boards. And everything I hear about the nVidia 3 multimedia release beta sounds like the cat's meow, too. But that's easy to change if you want later.

And while you're at it, download and try out some of the Windows Media 9 video stuff- they're pretty cool, but do take a bit of a CPU to decode.

~Jon

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

**Gordon Moore** · 29 January 2004, 16:25 Thursday

Seagate harddrive(s). Do I need two here or is one big one ok? I've seen a few use one for the OS and another for data storage which makes sense from a performace standpoint.

Well this much I can say...from a performance standpoint...forget anything I said about raid'ing....your o/s drive will require alot less defragging.

If you start PVR'ing with that PC, the media drive/partition will require defragging (due to the large file sizes) and often.

So at the very least get a 2nd drive for media.

I know you are looking at serial ATA but if dollars are tight(er) up front, a solid ATA133 drive with those fancy fluid dynamic bearings plus rounded cable comes pretty close to the performance of serialATA....though that price gap is closing so I'll leave it up to you...

SerialATA II will be when things kick into high gear when the datarate doubles to 300MB/s and the transfer rate doubles to 3GB/s

that happens mid '04 so if there is money to be saved...I'd say save it for now and look into SerialATA II where the performance gains will be measureable (which have been rather nil up until now).

The only bigtime benefit from SATA right now (it would seem) is lower CPU utilization....but I don't believe too many HTPC'ers with P-ATA's have been complaining about that up until now.

**Andrew Pratt** · 29 January 2004, 16:56 Thursday

Thanks for the feed back guys. I just put in an order for the following items from NCIX

Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Liteon DVD-ROM
Antec Overture HTPC case
Seagate 80 gig SATA Hard Drive (this was actually a cheap OEM) I'll add another drive later on if need be.
Zalman CNPS7000-ALCU CPU cooler

I'll get the memory, CPU, and video card locally.

Jon you make quite a case for the nVidia cards...I'll take a serious look at those before I buy the ATI....so on that note which card would you recomend for someone that rarely plays games but needs an s-video out to feed the 32" Sony TV and a regular VGA out to the 1HD projector? And am I right in thinking the GeForce 4MX cards are the one's we're talking about here?

**aud19** · 29 January 2004, 17:39 Thursday

Andrew, you don't have somewhere local that you could get the rest of the gear? NCIX's prices aren't bad but I quickly compared a few of the same bits with my supplier and well.... I hope you didn't pay the prices listed on their web page... 8O

Jason

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

**Andrew Pratt** · 29 January 2004, 18:22 Thursday

Jason yes I did pay list prices...they're cheaper then anything local for those items...the rest I can get locally for about the same price or less.

**Andrew Pratt** · 29 January 2004, 18:48 Thursday

And while you're at it, download and try out some of the Windows Media 9 video stuff- they're pretty cool, but do take a bit of a CPU to decode.

I've already got most of them on my notebook (P4 2.4 Ghz) and they're fantastic:yesnod:

Gord FYI this mobo has onboard RAID. I'm not sure what I'll do yet for the extra drive. I currently rarely record anything on the VCR so I'm in no hurry to get more capacity then the 80 gig unit but when I start ripping my CD's and DVD's to it I could see a larger drive becoming much more necessary.

**Andrew Pratt** · 30 January 2004, 17:36 Friday

Jon after reading some reviews the Geforce4 MX 440 seems to do well for VGA but its s-video output isn't as good as the ATI's...do you concur? I need a decent s-video output as that's the connection I'm running to my Wega for regular TV watching. With their much lower cost the Geforce's are attractive though...provuiding I can find a fan less model

I think though that unless you can convince me I'll likely stick to the norms and get a ATI 9200 or 9600SE

**Gordon Moore** · 30 January 2004, 18:22 Friday

its s-video output isn't as good as the ATI's...

Let's find out this weekend...and see how it is...

**Andrew Pratt** · 30 January 2004, 23:16 Friday

So you're borrowing one from work or is that what you're running in your PC? Maybe i'll get FS to pricematch CB's $134 price on the ATI 9600SE and we can compare the two :twisted:

**Chris D** · 01 February 2004, 04:25 Sunday

Interesting, Andrew. That's pretty much the kind of system I'd love to build right now. One thing I know nothing about though, this Satellite DVB you mention. Is that an onboard Satellite receiver?

CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

**Andrew Pratt** · 01 February 2004, 10:50 Sunday

Yes they're able to receive free over the air signals like all the promo channels and you can buy an external add on that would allow you to use your regular card to legally decode the encoded channels. I think these only work for Bell ExpressVu and Dish though.

**aud19** · 01 February 2004, 14:01 Sunday

Nothing for us poor cable users though....?

Jason

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

**Andrew Pratt** · 01 February 2004, 14:39 Sunday

Sure all you'd need is one of the capture cards like Gord bought (MSI). He has cable and it seems to work very well for him.

**Andrew Pratt** · 01 February 2004, 18:40 Sunday

Well I bought the Saphire Radeon 9200 with video in today and the Barton 2800+ along with a 25 foot VGA cable so I'm nearly good to go when the rest of the parts arrive early this week.

**Gordon Moore** · 02 February 2004, 11:54 Monday

SO some interesting tests over at Andrew's. 1:1 pixel mapping isn't something you can just choose from any menu. To be done right you need to run over to AVS and find one of the wonder techies that as already figured it out for your model of projector and then hammer in the numbers... The difference is pretty dramatic when you hit the magic number versus a default powerstrip setting.

DVD from the pc looks fantastic. From the capture card through DScaler was a little dissapointing but I think the potential is there. The capture should have been calibrated and we didn't do that. so things came out a little dark. Still Satellite looked pretty nice and if you don't have a loose s-vid cable :roll: it's even in colour occasionally.

A projector and HTPC are a match made in heaven. Andrew's going to have a lot of setting up to do, but if the primary focus is DVD movies...it's going to look fantastic.

Another interesting note was that on the 1HD (a 1/4 hi-def projector) 720P looked silky smooth, really nice. 1080i was combing occasionally and didn't look as smooth, whic we found a little weird. We may not have had something set up right as we were really just fooling around, using my pc and parts and his projector.

It apparently takes a lot of high quality parts to play 1080i through software. I know my 2800XP was having SOME hiccups keeping up (but I also have a lot of crap runnning in the background). A clean install and a dedicated HTPC wouldn't have half the things I have running.

"A RONSTER!"

**Andrew Pratt** · 02 February 2004, 12:26 Monday

Yes fun times were had by all

Thanks for dropping by it was a good learning process on just what I'll need to do when I got my HTPC built.

As for the 1080i from what i understand the two big limiting factors are the processor and the video through put. I think your barton has the power but I'm not sure on the video through put on your motherboard...they're saying you should have an 8X AGP slot and fast write enabled over on AVS so perhapse my ATI 9200 might do a bit better on my Asus board given its higher through put potential...time will tell though and to be honest 720P looked fantastic as it was...its too bad TV & DVD's do not look that good all the time:T

The Dish though DScaler was interesting...there's potential there for sure but it wasn't calibrated properly for our quick demo...and from the looks of it the menu's very deep for tweaks so I'll have to reading to do on just what all the settings do.

**aud19** · 02 February 2004, 12:40 Monday

Originally posted by Andrew Pratt

Sure all you'd need is one of the capture cards like Gord bought (MSI). He has cable and it seems to work very well for him.

Sorry Andrew, I should have been clearer. I meant us poor cable users with STB's...

Jason

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

**Daryl Furkalo** · 02 February 2004, 22:05 Monday

Originally posted by Gordon Moore

It apparently takes a lot of high quality parts to play 1080i through software. I know my 2800XP was having SOME hiccups keeping up (but I also have a lot of crap runnning in the background). A clean install and a dedicated HTPC wouldn't have half the things I have running.

Sony 10HT & HTPC @ 1080i For DVD's - Worth The...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=344223&highlight=1080i

Information on 1080i timings at AVS.

There shouldn't be anything particularly difficult about setting up a 1080i timing through powerstrip.

**Andrew Pratt** · 03 February 2004, 15:36 Tuesday

Most of the parts are now on my desk waiting to be put together. The hard drive is still on back order and won't be shipped till the end of the week and I still need to buy some faster DDR memory but I should be able to at least start assembling it tonight. I'll take some pics as I go along too.

**aud19** · 03 February 2004, 17:17 Tuesday

Andrew, or anyone else for that matter, correct me if I'm wrong but your displays native resolution is 964x544 Pixels. Would you not want to scale everything to that resolution? It'a at least pretty close to 540p...

Jason

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

**Andrew Pratt** · 03 February 2004, 17:51 Tuesday

Yes you would and that's where PowerStrip comes into play at least for your projectors or a HDTV TV. Teh Wega will get a feed from the s-video out that's already downconverted to 800 * 600 I think (or is it 640 * 480) The reason that 1080i might be important though is that my PJ's LCD panels are 1/4 HD meaning that its very easy for it to display 1080 material since it doesn't need to "interpolate" the HD image...just scale it down by half in each direction. Everything else has to be interprolated to make it fit properly which can soften the image.....at least that's my take on it.

**aud19** · 03 February 2004, 19:48 Tuesday

I'd still think you'd be best off sending the projector the exact res it needs and doing the conversion in PC, 1080i or otherwise. Besides even 1080i would have to interpolate a tiny bit as exacty half would be 960x540 not 964x544.

(It's 640x480 or 480i for S-vid by the way

)

Jason

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

**Andrew Pratt** · 04 February 2004, 00:45 Wednesday

Hey guys got lauren asleep fairly early so I went to work on the HTPC.

So far I've managed to rip the case apart so that I can try and paint the silver front.

Install the DVD-Rom drive into the removeable drive bay

Install the Asus motherboard

Make the front Audio, USB & 1394 cables as well as the typical reset,power switch etc connections

Installed drive bay into slot and attach ribbon cable. - which reminds me I should pick up a round ribbon cable to keep this a nice clean install.

I took a dremel to the back fan cover and replaced it with a simple metal grill so air flow would be improved and it should have much lower noise now.

I also started to wrap up the various cables as I usually end up with a rats nest in my PC's if I'm not careful :LOL:

Here's a few pics that's I took tonight of the install so far.

**Andrew Pratt** · 04 February 2004, 16:14 Wednesday

I just placed an order for an IRA device to let me control the PC via my pronto. I think I'm going to also try to control it via the wireless lan as well using remote desktop in XP Pro.

Here's details on the IRA unit. Nice thing about this one is that its cheap, its in canada so no duty and its fully supported by girder:T

**Andrew Pratt** · 07 February 2004, 18:01 Saturday

I now have XP Pro installed and all the service packs/updates and the like. I also finished painting the front and have it back where it belongs. I have postes some more pics on my server here

**JonMarsh** · 08 February 2004, 13:03 Sunday

Look's like it's coming along well, Andrew! :T

How long till you do some viewing?

Maybe this will inspire me to get somethings finished with my living room HTPC, including moving the MyHD card to it. However, there remains this problem with not currently having a projector.... :cry:

Regards,

Jon

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

**Andrew Pratt** · 08 February 2004, 17:42 Sunday

Jon it could still be a while before I move it into the theater room. I want to get all the software installed and running smoothly before I move it and its easier to work on where it is that in my rack. I still need to buy some dual channel ram and decide if the ATI card is staying or if I'm going to try the NVidia card.

**Trevor Schell** · 12 February 2004, 23:23 Thursday

Andrew! That's a great looking PC case!
Should look great in the rack!! :yesnod:

You don't like the ATI Saphire video card?
That's the same one I bought for my Second PC..
Incredible price for a 128 MB card.

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**Andrew Pratt** · 20 February 2004, 16:13 Friday

Trevor the 9200's a fine card but the 9600 is a lot faster and is a true DX9 card.

I've started to play with the software a little and had some luck with myHTPC last night getting it to open pictures and Zoomplayer. Its going to take a long time to get this puppy running smoothly but that's the downside of very flexible software....and part of the fun :twisted:

**Steve Goff** · 23 February 2004, 15:47 Monday

Originally posted by jonmarsh

My only point of minor disagreement would be the video card; I've gotten back into nVidia since the NV17 series for HTPC; and with the 5600/5700 series they finished the tweaking and optimizing for MPEG playback, as well as getting VMR to work well. Plus NVDVD is a pretty credible player, and comes free with most of these boards. And everything I hear about the nVidia 3 multimedia release beta sounds like the cat's meow, too. But that's easy to change if you want later.

And while you're at it, download and try out some of the Windows Media 9 video stuff- they're pretty cool, but do take a bit of a CPU to decode.

~Jon

I agree with Jon that the n'Vidia cards have now pulled even and even surpassed the ATI cards in terms of quality, and their deinterlacing algorithms are superior for HD stuff, because they have closely worked with MS in their drivers. But the drivers are also giving many owners of fixed resolution DLPs fits, at least when trying to connect through the DVI port. Many owner has found it impossible to get the FX cards to put out a 1280x720 signal via DVI to a 1280x720 display, though some lately have had better results. It seems the driver is too strict in reading the projector's EDID, and won't put out a signal that the projector recognizes, and also that n'Vidia's 1280x720 resolution is nonstandard. Fiddling with parameters in Powerstrip hasn't provided any cure. This issue forced me to give up trying my FX5600, which I'd modded with a Zalman heatsink and noiseless fan, and go to a fanless 9600 Pro. I'll try the FX5600 again soon with the newest drivers, since it does give slightly superior results with WVM9 hi-def material, such as the Coral Reef supplemental DVD. Also, the n'Vidia cards have substandard DVI transmitters, which cause problems at extreme resolutions, though this isn't a problem with most fixed panel projectors.

For the ultimate HTPC, I'd suggest my setup, which includes a HOH3D deinterlacing card with Faroudja FLI2300 denterlacer/scaler, and the companion HD-Aux card, which gives you analog and DVI output straight from the FLI2300, as well as DVI-D, DVD-A, and component inputs, as companions for the SDI, component, s-vid, and composite inputs on the HOLO3D card. My picture from an SDI modded Panasonic RP82, throgh the HOLO combo, and direct via DVI to my DLP projector, is quite visibly superior to a high-end DVD player via component to the projector, even though the projector also has a Faroudja deinterlacing chip and a great scaling chip.

Steve Goff

**aud19** · 23 February 2004, 16:08 Monday

Steve,

Do you have any links for this HOH3D card? I'd love to read some info on it and the auxilary card.

Jason

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

**Steve Goff** · 23 February 2004, 17:24 Monday

Originally posted by aud19

Steve,

Do you have any links for this HOH3D card? I'd love to read some info on it and the auxilary card.

Jason

Here is a link to the HOLO3D card, which is a product of Immersive, Inc.

Steve Goff

My HTPC idea's

My HTPC idea's

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