HTPC Musings

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

I have been watching PCs for some time and waiting to determine when a HTPC would actually be viable and cheap. That time is now. Here are my thoughts on a “virtual HTPC” I have built in my mind. Let me know what you guys think, any changes or additions you might employ. My entering argument is that I want a machine that will do the following:

1) Be quiet. I don’t want some do it all dongle that whines from spinning hard drives/cruddy DVD players/numerous fans.
2) Draw as little power as possible(goes along with being quiet because the more watts you pull the more fans have to exhaust the heat)
3) Store all my music/movies/photos(i.e. no more watching my kids/wife destroy my media by leaving it out or improper handling)
4) Don’t care about playing PC games at all
5) Have a front end that will allow me to access all of my media with a wireless keyboard

Based on those assumptions here is what I think would work best and why. Let me know if you agree/disagree(if you disagree please provide an alternative solution or state that there is none and the HTPC is not really ready for prime time yet):

Case-Antec M FusionRemote 350(microATX HTPC case w/350w P/S that is 80% efficient, room for one HDD and one Optical Drive)$89
M/B-Asus M4A785TD-M Evo(has onboard ATI Radeon4200 that can pass 1080P video and uncompressed 7.1 audio via HDMI)$94.99
Ram-4GB DDR3 1600(DDR3 runs at 1.5v not 1.8v like DDR2 so less power draw and it has twice the buses of DDR2) $85
CPU-AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7Ghz single core(only draws 45w, needs no fan only heatsink, still pretty fast, cheap)$35.99
HDD-Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB(big, cheap, low power draw)$85
O/S-Windows 7 Home Premium(comes with Windows Media Center, easier to run than XP or Vista which were hogs)$105
Wireless Keyboard w/trackball or touchpad-IOGEAR GKM561R(this seems kinda spendy may be able to find better)$49.99

[PhyrraM]

Everything sounds good to me.

My recommendations would be:
1: Make sure your IR sensor/software is compatable with the Microsoft MCE standard remote. This is because all of the better universial remotes have the Microsoft functionality built in.

2: In the "once you start, you can't stop" mindset, consider the possibility of building a server to stream all the media. By taking away the large storage requirements, it allows you to build the "living room" box to be really efficient and silent. Also setting it up as a server opens the possibility of using a PS3 or Xbox as the front end box instead of a dedicated PC, but I'm not sure if the "experience" is a good as I've never done it that way.

3. Consider a dual core CPU unless the one you chose is proven to work. Decoding HD media can be taxing on a CPU if the graphics card cannot handle it all or the codec won't run on the video card alone.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Thanks for the guidance. After looking into it I can get a 65watt dual core AMD chip for only about ten more dollars. This is not a lot of extra heat load and without an add on video card the heat this will generate should not need any extra fans.

[Industrial]

What about the AMD athlon Dual Core 5050e 2.60ghz runs off of 45watts
Its what I use...

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Any hiccups with streaming 1080P?

[Industrial]

I tested this 1080p youtube Trailer of AVATAR and it ran perfectly full screen with my CPU displaying 84% on my small LCD display thats on my Antec Fusion Case (I don't know if it means one core, or both etc). But either way, it played it with some power to spare.

Avatar Trailer in 1080p

This links directly to the 1080p version so no need to switch it, I did that for you

[Industrial]

BTW, what power supply you going to using? If its a stock Antec, I have to warn you they get noisy and have a higher failure rate (subjective). I had one die on me this year and a buddy of mine had his die not long after getting one.
I tried the Antec Earthwatts PSU a couple of months ago and it it made a high pitched whining sound . If you want to see my specs just dig out our last HTPC convo on here

[aarsoe]

I would not recommend to use anything that needs 84% load to display a 1080P video stream. NO matter how you setup your system there will be background activities being run by all operating systems - so with 84% load you will hit the ceiling.
Also - why build a system that can only just run the stuff you need today. Tomorrow there will be something that requires a bit more computational power than what you have...

Finally - try to make a comparison between the processors you are thinking about now and the ones from Intel - in say de-compression. Something you would need for such a system.
Also - should you require trans coding then I would really ask you to look at something else.
In other words - I would rethink what you are about to do..

[impala454]

Just to give a little perspective my monster machine ran that trailer at about 12%. It's probably way over the scope of what you're talking about but worth comparing. Here's the quick specs:

Intel Core i7 920 CPU
Intel DX58SO Motherboard
8 GB RAM
2x Western Digital Velociraptor 300GBs striped
2x ATI 3870 HD video cards (not crossfired though)
Windows 7 64 RC

Ran it in the Chrome browser, and had outlook, three browser windows, trillian astra, and a few other small tray apps open.

I don't know what the best CPU would be to go with but I definitely wouldn't skimp on that part. There's a lot of software processing going on when dealing with decoding media. I definitely agree that you should go at least dual core. Also try to get one with as much L2/L3 cache as you can. That, more than anything else will help determine how fast the system ends up being (you can pretty much directly correlate the CPU prices with cache amounts ). Hope this helps.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Higher clock speed or multiple cores for HTPC?

Thanks a lot for your help. I am trying to balance heat output(lower wattage chips for lesser airflow requirements i.e. quieter) with performance. Based on what you guys have told me the 45watt Sempron is far too low performance to operate well. The lowest power chips I am currently looking at are(all 65w):

Quad Cores
AMD Phenom II X4 905e Deneb 2.5GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 65W Quad-Core Processor($184)

AMD Phenom 9150E 1.8GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 65W Quad-Core Processor($89.99)

Triple Cores
AMD Phenom II X3 705e Heka 2.5GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 65W Triple-Core Processor($129)

Dual Cores
AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor($76)

Which is better for HTPC(not intending to game, but stream 1080P and audio) a dual core with a higher clock speed(Regor 3.0Ghz) or a Quad or Triple Core with a lower clock speed(i.e. Deneb 2.5Ghz/Phenom 9150E 1.8Ghz/Phenom 705e 2.5Ghz)

I am building to a budget so the lower cost chips are appealing, but if I am giving too much up I will spend more.

Based on the Antec power supply I mentioned above being loud and failure prone what would you suggest that will be able to supply enough power for four hard drives, motherboard with onboard video, 4gb of ram, and a BD-ROM. Looking for the lease expensive model that will reasonably do this and be quiet.

[aarsoe]

Looking at Newegg you can rigth now find deals for Intel E7400 - for $ 117. 65W TDP, 3 MB cache and SSE4 for HD playback.
Or even do Q8300 for $ 149. It is rated at 95W but dont think you will have an issue with that. 4MB L2 cache and SSE4.1 that includes media streaming support functions.

Nothing against AMD but be careful with their ratings. They have created their own standard called ACP. Not the same as TDP - which is an indication of how much power/heat a processor can generate. This needs to correspond to the enclosure rating. If not you risk the whole thing will become to hot and not only is there a chance to fry your cpu (No thermal shutdown on AMD) - but the rest of your components will have their lifespan reduced.

But hey - your choice..

I would also not recommend to have all you HDD's in your HTPC. I know this is a more expensive solution, but putting your disk's in a NAS and reducing the disk needed in your HTPC will do several things for you.
1: Less noise - less heat as you only need one HDD.
2: You can access the data from all you devices without turning your HTPC on.
3: The NAS - or even better Windows Home Server (try it out for free for 30 days) can be really designed to run 24/7 and do all the downloading stuff in the background.
4: What kills a HDD today is not the time it is running but more the number of power cycles..
5: When you get some extra money left over - buy a SSD for you HTPC - believe me. HDD's makes a lot of noise.

Finally - you can get away with a passive cooled power supply as you don't need that much power.
Suggestions? Sure - I would go with Zahlman, but they are a bit pricey. Otherwise it all depends on your local market availability.
OR you could just go with the powersupply that comes with the case. Rip out the fan in it and install a new silent fan instead. Will most likely also do wonders for the stability of the power supply as you can most likely get more airflow but less noise..

[littlesaint]

Remember that power consumption is spread out over the cores, so assuming power management is setup to shutdown cores not in use, a 90w quad-core could potentially be more efficient than a 65w dual-core cpu.

[aarsoe]

>I would add that power consumption is a very hard thing to explain. Example: Say you have a 45 watt cpu that in order to do a given task needs to run at full speed for 30 min - and you have a 95 watt cpu that you do the same task in 4 min. So it will consume more power for 4 min, but then go back to idle and consume almost nothing. The other one will consume max power for a long period of time leaving the end result being that the lower powered one uses a lot more power..

Again - I think the most important thing for you is to get something that has reduced instruction sets (SSE) that can help with the typical task's that you will be doing - and that has enough headroom so that you dont end up with something that wont make it when the first service pack for Windows 7 is released. (Or when we want to do HD decoding for 3D etc...)

[impala454]

I can throw in a quickie that the absolute hottest machine I have run thus far has been a small form factor with an intel atom processor. Mainly for the reasons aarsoe is describing.

[Gianluca]

Although HTPC is a good solution I found that running a PS3 with PS3 Server does all of what a HTPC can do except maybe acces the web. The Ps3 can access the web but i believe in a limited way as to the media content (codecs and plugins). The new Ps3 slim is quiet and draws less power than a computer I think. I am able to stream any type of media (FLAC, MKV etc...) The PS3 server takes care of converting to a supported PS3 media.

My 2 Cents

Luca

[aarsoe]

Gianluca

What PS3 server are you ref to? Twonky?
I agree that a PS3 is a nice device - but have never found anything that can make it play ISO or IMG files. Hence my interest in what you have found.

[Gianluca]

Gianluca

What PS3 server are you ref to? Twonky?
I agree that a PS3 is a nice device - but have never found anything that can make it play ISO or IMG files. Hence my interest in what you have found.

Here is the link http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

Current features
Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there's an automatic refresh also.
Real-time video transcoding of MKV/FLV/OGM/AVI, etc.
Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
Remux H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer when H264 is PS3/Level4.1 compliant
Full seeking support when transcoding
DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
Thumbnail generation for Videos
You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
Simple streaming of formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG)
Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
Basic Xbox360 support
FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support
Windows Only: DVR-MS remuxer and AviSynth alternative transcoder support

Works wonderfuly for me... It does ISO just no menu.

Luca

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

PS3 May be the best option

Thanks for the guidance on power consumption.

I really appreciate the PS3 idea. I will look into that hard.

Thanks for all your help.

[aud19]

I will also second the NAS recommendation. I'll even suggest a solid state drive to run the OS/software. Faster, quieter and cooler. Perfect for a HTPC.

Another suggestion would be to get a full ATX capable case even if you only mount a mATX board. Better air flow, allows for bigger (hence quieter) case fans, more room for expansion etc, etc.

I also agree with the CPU comments as well.