Home Theatre PC

[beardy]

I need some advice and would welcome all contributions. I would like what I think is called a Home Theatre PC. I want to play (&maybe rip) DVDs (& maybe Blu Ray,) to record freeview and to play BBC iplayer downloads, it would also be the access point for my digital music collection. I have a Panasonic 42" plasma with both a PC and HDMI input. I also have quite a reasonable stereo audio amp to connect to. Download speeds out here in the UK sticks are slow, so streaming TV/Films doesn't really come as a viable option. I would be happy to build/order or buy a PC. Whilst I read good things about W7 I would also be happy to use some iteration of Linux. She wants it to be aesthetic too! Oh and budget of £500 ish.

Any thoughts?

[green granite]

She wants it to be aesthetic too!

Didn't someone post a IT porn picture on here recently?

Ah yes young Sprogget http://i49.tinypic.com/24glziu.jpg

http://www.pprune.org/computer-internet-issues-troubleshooting/403210-pc-case.html

[Sprogget]

Someone call?:)

If you're building for freeview, you need a dvb-t tuner card. The good thing is that Freeview comes down the aerial by and large, but it is compressed bandwidth, so you will get some artifacts and macroblocking in practice. Also, your tuner card can only decode one stream at a time, unless you buy a dual tuner, which you really should if for example, you wish to watch one channel whilst recording another. As for audio output, you can connect your mobo output to your stereo, assuming your motherboard allows onboard sound, but remember you will get higher quality audio from a dedicated soundcard - I wouldn't buld without that, I also use a graphics card as I find it superior to onboard again, but I do go for passively cooled - noise is everything on a home theatre pc.

You can pick up a blu ray drive for around £70. I upgraded my drive to an LG one & I like it a great deal. backwards compatible of course with dvd & cd, but to run Blu ray on windows seven, you will need additional software - I use power dvd 9 for mine & it works pretty faultlessly.

Bearing in mind that you will need expansion cards to get the best from a media pc, i would strongly recommend that if you're building from the ground up, be very rigorous in your selection of motherboard. You can get away with a reasonably modest processor - mine is an E600 dual core intel number - old hat by today's standards, but fine for a non gaming box. However, what you don't want is to end up compromising your tuners/sound cards etc because your mobo doesn't have the slots you need. Think carefully on your cards & go from there.

Also, the nature of media boxes means that you will be usb port hungry. One for a wireless keyboard, one for the remote IR blaster and a couple for media use. Mine has four & they're in use every day, two permanantly, so be sure to have enough for your needs; The box in the picture also has a firewire dv port on the front - great for importing video from a camcorder - it's all in the planning.

For the record, my cards are:

Creative xfi xtreme music
Hauppauge Nova T-500
XFX 9400gt silent
Hauppauge HVR1700 for Virgin analogue cable box input.

HDMI is the way to go. If you're setting up in a living room/theatre room scenario, and I assume that's the point of it, then you need the microsoft remote which is very good, comesd with IR blaster & red eye for talking to cable/satellite boxes.

I also use a wireless keyboard and mouse, so essentially I loaf about on my backside typing, surfing & doing all the media bit without moving.

[beardy]

Sprogget,

Thank you so much for sharing your set up. If you had to choose again, would you change anything?

[fmgc]

I use a Mac Mini, it is brilliant.

You can play all your ripped stuff and buy stuff on iTunes, it outputs HDMI and surround sound.

Doesn't look too bad either.

[Sprogget]

The only thing I would do different if I was starting again would be to build the thing into any old box & hide it away somewhere in the house. My place is an old victorian terrace, so for me that wasn't an option, hence the aesthetically saucy case, but in truth, I don't actually want a box in the front room per se, what I want is the benefit conferred.

My brother has a bespoke rackmount system in his place that is squirrelled away under the stairs & cable networked to screens & ceiling mount speakers all over his house, using xp media centre. The upshot of that is that he has a tv and a remote in every room, where I have to have a box in my front room. I do however have a couple of Linksys extenders that network my media centre round the house via powerline networks. Still boxes in each room, but far more discreet than a pc per room.

The thing about extenders though is that they were a little under powered and under developed and thus not all that popular with media centre heads and so have been discontinued. as time goes by, they're getting harder to find. Still ok in my view though

[hellsbrink]

Not as "pornographic", but at under £440 +p&p is maybe worth looking at

OP3 HDMTV Home Theatre PC - Aria PC (http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Mediacenter+Range/Pandora/OP3+HDMTV+Home+Theatre+PC+?productId=38850)

http://www.aria.co.uk/dynres/cHJvZHVjdF9pbWFnZS53aWR0aD0yMDA=/bWFpbmltYWdlcy9DU0UtRFNLLVMtMzYwLmpwZw==.jpg

[MG23]

The one thing I would say is that if you're recording TV shows then get more disk space than you think you'll need. We started off with 1TB, but we're now up to 2.5TB because going through and deciding which shows to delete is much more of a pain than telling the computer to store 20 episodes and delete them after that. Not sure what Windows has to offer, MythTV on Linux works pretty well most of the time but is broken often enough by upgrades that I'm reluctant to recommend it to anyone who doesn't know what they're doing :).

[TURIN]

I have just the setup you are looking for and by the sounds of it you have come to the same conclusion I did.

Windows Media Centre is a very good system, XP is by all accounts the most stable but VISTA seems to have settled down now.
Not sure about BlueRay though as I don't use it as yet.

Have to agree about the storage (HDD) although running separate portable drives is simple and convenient. At least 600gb is required.

I also have to agree about the passive cooling. Mine had 5 cooling fans buzzing away at one point. Got that down to 3 now but they do quickly clog up with dust in a living room environment when it's running for the bestpart of 20 hrs a day, once out of baance they make a hell of a row.

Oh and don't forget to back up your data. :ok:

ParaPunter is yor man. He's built a few.

What is it with freeflyers and Media PCs??

[Ant]

Did someone mention IT porn? You want some??
Then see here (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/123032#).
Press the orange 360 degree button. Hard core or what!!!
The design guys burnt the midnight oil, and this beauty presses the right buttons for me. I WANT ONE!
Shame our 8 yr old Compaq had to go to computer heaven BEFORE I saw the Elonex!

[Sprogget]

Xp media centre is very good, stable and works full stop as Turin says.

It does get a little more complicated from there on the windows platform. 7 media centre is also great and very good looking & the interface is designed specifically with widescreen tv's in mind in that the various menus scroll horizontally whereas in xp they run vertically - seems a small point but in use it makes a difference.

With Vista, the media centre app is slightly more flaky (as you might expect) than in xp or 7, but and it's a fairly big but, there is an add on called tv pack which adds a lot of functionality to the thing, most notably automatic subtitling on demand for live tv, so that if you mute the sound, subtitling begins and interactive services which in the uk means the red button again on live tv. Conditional access modules are also given support in tv pack.

So if you're thinking of going with Vista, I would definitely seek out tv pack as an add on, but sense suggests avoiding Vista altogether and going with 7 if windows is the route you're going down.