The HTPC (Home Theatre PC) Ask-All Thread

Yeah, monoprice.com is really the only way to go for HDMI (and most other cables, really).

As to your xbox media extender question, I haven't tried it...so I couldn't say. From what I understand, though, it handles all codecs that (stock) MCE does...so it might work. I'm a fan of the dedicated HTPC, though, but that's just me.

Ok, here goes!

I currently have a HTPC box set up (Vista Ultimate) and using the Xbox 360 as an extender. Taking my HD content and getting it into a format that the Xbox wants to play back to me is a PITA to say the least. I've crammed seven 1.5 TB hard drives in this poor PC and I'm down to the last 100 meg or so.

Thus the new project:

My plans for the new box include the following:

Windows 7 Build

HDMI Out of the HTPC and into the receiver. (With below audio requirements)

Norco 4020 Rackmount Chassis with 20 Hotswap drive bays: Here It will hold everything I need on data storage.

As you can see, I can add the PC components on the back side of that enclosure. This works out great for me since I have a dedicated equipment room in the basement for all of my home theater equipment, consoles, etc. My goal with this is to be able to take my purchased Blurays and transfer them to the array for backup (legal arguments around this can be discussed elsewhere), as well as my DVD and TV-DVD collections. I want to be able to pass the DTS Master Audio and TRUE-HD to my receiver as well as DTS and standard Dolby. With the ASUS Xonar Slim card (referenced earlier), you get a copy of Total Media Theatre software which will pass the higher definition rate audio options and plug directly into Windows Media Center. Score!

Two questions:

First, in this particular case, I'm torn between ordering full blown hardware raid cards. Something like this? Or I could just go with software RAID. I'm at a loss though on what to do. In fact, is it considered hardware RAID if a RAID controller is built in to a motherboard? I'm assuming though that if I want to maintain a favorable transfer rate, that I'll need some dedicated cards to plug those 20 drives into. (Otherwise I could use the 4 -> 1 SATA breakout cables but I havn't been able to figure out if they mess with the read/write performance of the drives)

Second, in order to accomplish the above audio requirements, I've narrowed down that my only real option is the ASUS Xonar Slim card (referenced earlier in the thread). I know some have mentioned that it is a PITA at times to set up, but has anyone here actually set one up to completion?

Ok. Enough rambling.

Stryker, I think you show the complexity that is the HTPC. My personal opinions follow:

As far as RAID/etc. options go, I did a lot of research and wound up going with unRaid. It's a relatively cheap solution that allows you to use a much higher percentage of total disk space than traditional raid, with unmatched drives and several other advantages. It doesn't necessarily work for everyone, but sounds like it may work for you. It gets me 50-80MB/s read speeds, more than enough to pull Blu-Ray from a home server (assuming a wired gigabit ethernet hub/switch/router). Write is a bit slower but a cache drive speeds it up immensely. It also works with any generic PCI or PCI-E SATA controller (no need for RAID and matched drives). FreeNAS is another solution, although it's more in line with traditional raid 5.

As far as audio, I have FDDShow setup to convert those codecs to LPCM on the fly and pass that to my receiver; maybe not quite the perfect solution you're looking for, but I have processing power to spare and it's a lossless conversion. As you say, Xonar is currently the only card on the market that can bitstream those codecs, but from what I understand is rather a PITA to set up as such (see this thread for reference, mostly filled with complaints). I think Malor may be running one, though; you may want to ask him.

When I ordered my PS3, I got three of these 10 foot HDMI cables for $4.99 each. They've gone up to $8.76 now, but they're quite good, and I'd say would be well worth it.

The Amazon marketplace seems to be about as good as EBay for finding good prices on new commodity items like cables.

I am running a Xonar, btw, but I have been completely unable to get bitperfect audio out of it. Fortunately, the native floating-point conversion routines sound quite good, so I don't miss it too much.

Tigerbill wrote:

Have you tired Play On? It has a 2 week free trial then its a $40 one time fee. I like it infinitely more than Tversity, and you can get a plug in for it to stream Local Files, not sure if its compatible with the formats you listed, but I do know it works with QuickTime, FLV, and Mpeg. As far as quality retention I think its decent, but I'm not a stickler for that.

I've installed this and tried it out. Works pretty good for internet video, though skipping to chapters is hit or miss (seems to work about 20% of the time). However, when I pulled the files from my file server it seems to run at about 15 fps. Just low enough to be annoying, though the picture quality is better. This might be my fault though, since I actually keep my media files on a drobo storage robot, and the latency might be an issue.

I'll try pulling some files down to a SATA drive and see if I get better performance there. If I can get the performance up with the quality where it is right now, it will at least be a couple steps up. Thanks for the recommend.

Just wanted to comment on the issue of the choppy fullscreen video people have seen. Try updating your drivers and see if that solves it. I was having constant issues with Hulu, YouTube and Netflix until I went and got the latest Beta NVidia laptop drivers. I wasn't able to install the Official release NVidia laptop drivers due to a restriction where it wouldn't install because I didn't obtain it from Compaq's website. The Beta drivers don't have that restriction though and since I installed them all fullscreen video has been smooth as butter.

Tigerbill wrote:
Lester_King wrote:

I got one of these the other day. It's an Acer Aspire Revo with a dual-core Atom 330 chip and nvidia ion.

I've got it running XP with XBMC as a front-end. It's pretty awesome.

Nice! I haven't kept up with XBMC since my friend got rid of his modded original Xbox, how is it nowadays? How well/if at all does it play with online content, i.e. Hulu?

It's pretty awesome. I got used to it with my modded xbox, and just continue to use it as a front-end. For HD stuff it works perfectly.

I haven't set up the Hulu scripts or anything like that, but I know they exist. If I get a chance I'll try it out and let you know.

It looks like Microsoft at some point is dropping the OEM requirement for Cable Card Tuners.. combine that with Windows 7 and we might see a small resurgence in Windows Media Center PC's.

So with some poking around today, I discovered that the Radeon HD 5870 does Bitstream audio through HDMI. Audio and video on the same HDMI cable out of the video card? Yes please! Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD Master Audio? Yes please! So I guess the idea of having a graphics controller with a seperate Xonar 1.3 Slim is out the window. It will be nice to have one piece of hardware instead of two!

Tigerbill wrote:

Have you tired Play On? It has a 2 week free trial then its a $40 one time fee. I like it infinitely more than Tversity, and you can get a plug in for it to stream Local Files, not sure if its compatible with the formats you listed, but I do know it works with QuickTime, FLV, and Mpeg. As far as quality retention I think its decent, but I'm not a stickler for that.

From the website:

Currently supported video files:
- common formats
".3g2", ".3gp", ".3gp2", ".3gpp", ".avi", ".dv", ".flv", ".m4v", ".mkv", ".mov", ".mp4", ".mpg4", ".ogm", ".ogv", ".qt", ".rm", ".rmvb", ".vro", ".wmv"
- mpeg/2 containers
".264", ".dat", ".enc", ".m1s", ".m1v", ".m2p", ".m2s", ".m2t", ".m2ts", ".m2v", ".mp2v", ".mpe", ".mpeg", ".mpg", ".mpv", ".mts", ".td", ".tod", ".tp", ".tps", ".trp", ".ts", ".tx3g", ".vbs", ".vob"
- "Not Supported" video (will still show in DNLA player menus and may still play)
".dvr-ms", ".divx", ".tivo", ".wtv"

Tigerbill wrote:

Have you tired Play On? It has a 2 week free trial then its a $40 one time fee. I like it infinitely more than Tversity, and you can get a plug in for it to stream Local Files, not sure if its compatible with the formats you listed, but I do know it works with QuickTime, FLV, and Mpeg. As far as quality retention I think its decent, but I'm not a stickler for that.

Tried it the first time last night watching Office. Played full screen pretty well. Better than my laptop which stuttered like crazy. The only thing I wish it could do is perform like a DVR by remembering what shows [i]I've watched and "delete" them. Doubt its possible via uPnp though.

LockAndLoad wrote:

Just wanted to comment on the issue of the choppy fullscreen video people have seen. Try updating your drivers and see if that solves it. I was having constant issues with Hulu, YouTube and Netflix until I went and got the latest Beta NVidia laptop drivers. I wasn't able to install the Official release NVidia laptop drivers due to a restriction where it wouldn't install because I didn't obtain it from Compaq's website. The Beta drivers don't have that restriction though and since I installed them all fullscreen video has been smooth as butter.

Will give that a shot. I just have the free trial of playon, and its about to expire.

As you can see from this thread I have decided to trash cable TV and it has evolved into me building myself a HTPC.

Could you guys help me build one for under $400?

I have a spare AMD FX-55 , Asus 939 mobo, 2 gigs of ram and a 7200GT lying around but I am not sure if the single core fx-55 will be a bottle neck for HD content. I have built over 60 computers in my lifetime so I know how to build a PC. I don't know anything about TV tuners and how the encoding will work out. So let me know if it's worth using those spares or just buying new parts.

I'm not sure if that CPU can handle hi-def content without stutter, but it probably can. I'd do a quick build and use the utility mentioned here to check it out. But I imagine that's just enough oomph to manage to do it, as long as you have nothing else going on in the background. Technically you are above the minimum specs for blu-ray playback:

AMD
Minimum

* Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2 GHz) or 4000+ (2 GHz)
* Turion 64 X2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz)
* TL-52 (1.6 GHz) or TL-56 (1.8 GHz)

Recommended

* Athlon 64-FX, FX-60 (2.6 GHz) or FX-62 (2.8 GHz), Athlon 64 X2 4200+
(2.2 GHz), 4400+ (2.2 GHz), 4600+ (2.4 GHz), 4800+(2.4 GHz) or 5000+ (2.6 GHz), Turion 64 X2 TL-60 (2.0 GHz).

Then maybe pop in a Radeon HD 4830 or 4850, a 500W power supply, and you're well on your way. Depending on where you live, you may not need more than a $30 antenna (for instance, I live within city limits, so I didn't need a particularly strong antenna).

TempestBlayze wrote:

As you can see from this thread I have decided to trash cable TV and it has evolved into me building myself a HTPC.

Could you guys help me build one for under $400?

I have a spare AMD FX-55 , Asus 939 mobo, 2 gigs of ram and a 7200GT lying around but I am not sure if the single core fx-55 will be a bottle neck for HD content. I have built over 60 computers in my lifetime so I know how to build a PC. I don't know anything about TV tuners and how the encoding will work out. So let me know if it's worth using those spares or just buying new parts.

My machines that play HD content captured via HdHomeRun are 939 Mobos, with a cpu that was 80$ 2 years ago. You're probably fine with those components for OTA capture.

So, when you get the machine built up and want to get a test sample prior to purchasing a capture card, drop me a line and I'll put up a capture from it.

Minarchist, thanks for that link. I was meaning to get a blu-ray drive for my new build, and it will do the job admirably despite it's left-over-bits construction.

Any suggestions on a decent blu-ray drive for the bare minimum of cash? I would like Live support and so on.

spider_j wrote:

Minarchist, thanks for that link. I was meaning to get a blu-ray drive for my new build, and it will do the job admirably despite it's left-over-bits construction.

Any suggestions on a decent blu-ray drive for the bare minimum of cash? I would like Live support and so on.

I use this one to pretty good effect, just because it was relatively well-rated and cheap (<$100) at newegg. Beware that it's OEM, so you'd need software to be able to playback, and I can't speak to BDlive support, since I don't use it. I use it to rip blu-rays to .mkv files on my server so I can stream them anywhere. For that, it's been great. The DVD ripper is also very good. But as to an actual blu-ray player....sorry, I don't know.

Turn out its a GeForce 5700LE which may not be a bad thing considering the PSU's on some of these HTPC cases.

I use a Dell Inspiron 530 as my HTPC (not the slim) and added a AverMedia card to it for the tuner. I put the Vista on it from my technet subscription.
When we went HD about two months ago I bought a 'real' video card for the box that had HMDI out (this one) and updated to Win7 for the built in QAM support.
Any newer dual core box will be able to handle HD tv tuning. Heck, microsoft and the cable companies are getting ready to open up cablecard for everyone instead of just the OEMs.

TheGameguru wrote:

It looks like Microsoft at some point is dropping the OEM requirement for Cable Card Tuners.. combine that with Windows 7 and we might see a small resurgence in Windows Media Center PC's.

Were they or their partners attempting to thumb their noses at the FCC? Because I remember initial specs on their copy protection schemes were just illegal.

Also, I was wondering if any of you proud new owners might have wireless input devices to suggest. In particular, trachball or trackpad keyboards, or air mouse capable remote controls.

Minarchist wrote:
spider_j wrote:

Minarchist, thanks for that link. I was meaning to get a blu-ray drive for my new build, and it will do the job admirably despite it's left-over-bits construction.

Any suggestions on a decent blu-ray drive for the bare minimum of cash? I would like Live support and so on.

I use this one to pretty good effect, just because it was relatively well-rated and cheap (<$100) at newegg. Beware that it's OEM, so you'd need software to be able to playback, and I can't speak to BDlive support, since I don't use it. I use it to rip blu-rays to .mkv files on my server so I can stream them anywhere. For that, it's been great. The DVD ripper is also very good. But as to an actual blu-ray player....sorry, I don't know.

Might I inquire about the name of the ripper?

KingGorilla wrote:

Were they or their partners attempting to thumb their noses at the FCC? Because I remember initial specs on their copy protection schemes were just illegal.

Microsoft in partnership with CableLabs is going to allow users to build cablecard systems with Win7.

The Article wrote:

And then, last night at the annual CEDIA show in Atlanta, Microsoft made a handful of Media Center announcements. Several were expected, but this one was a complete surprise:

Microsoft and CableLabs announced that customers will now be able to add digital cable tuners with CableCARD to a Windows 7-based PC with Windows Media Center. A new tool will be provided by Microsoft that assesses the PC’s ability to support the solution. This tool will analyze the customer’s PC and enable digital cable support if the PC meets requirements, opening digital cable options to Windows Media Center customers across the country.

In addition, a firmware update for existing digital tuners will relax the restrictions that prevent copying some programs.

I generally use the MCE remote that came with my AverMedia card but when I do need to use the PC aspects (Netflix/Hulu) I use this wireless keyboard but will be moving to one with a trackball since the tactile mouse nub on the other one isn't all that. My friend already has one but I don't know which one or else I'd link it. In general if no one is in the way the keyboard works fine but sometimes it drops a letter or two so I've learned to hold the keys down for a bit longer when typing. It also has some other quirks for being MCE capable. The down volume doesn't work but if I hold down shift and down volume it does (the ir codes are a bit off it looks like) which of course brings up the sticky keys enable screen. The keyboard does it's job and is there when I can't find the remote but I generally have to hide it when not in use so the kids (3 and 1 years) don't go playing with it (it does have a nifty child lock feature but I'm more worried about the physical safety of the KB, not them screwing something up on the PC).

taer wrote:

Might I inquire about the name of the ripper?

Well, you have to have AnyDVD HD running in the background, that's a given. It's not that expensive, though, and free updates for life!

I think the best way to get Blu-rays to HDD with any sort of options is a command-line program called eac3to, which is a bit of a pain to deal with. Luckily, the HTPC community has pulled through yet again and there are a few homebrew GUIs. I use two, mainly: ClownBD, which I really like, and which can even integrate a re-muxing process with TSmuxer — which I couldn't use, since I wanted to go to .mkv, not .TS; and HDBr stream extractor if there's an LPCM audio track I want to convert to FLAC, as for some bizarre reason ClownBD doesn't support the FLAC option. Info about all of these (free!) programs can be found here.

Since I wanted to go Matroska (.mkv), as mentioned earlier, I have to go through the additional step of opening a program called mkvmerge and muxing the elementary streams that the ripping creates into the .mkv container. mkvmerge is part of the mkvtoolnix set (also free).

A friend told me a year ago or so that there will be a 360 with cablecard.

So just dabbing into this thread because I'm eventually going the way of a HTPC. However I have a related question for a computer I'm building soon.

My client has asked to watch TV on their computer. They have Time Warner Digital Cable wired to the computer room and would just like to plug it into the computer. Is this feasible? Does TW need to know this? Then what are the differences in cards for just watching TV or recording TV? Do these cards come with software to watch TV or am I on my own? Will something like Windows Media Center recognize what it is and just have a TV option?

I buy my parts from Newegg typically, and there are options like Dual Tuner, Combo Tuner, Digital Tuner, Analog Tuner, Hybrid Tuner, and various standards. *boggle*

trip1eX wrote:

A friend told me a year ago or so that there will be a 360 with cablecard.

Why even bother.. Microsoft is working with AT&T to cut a deal to deliver U-Verse via IP to the 360.

misterglass wrote:

My client has asked to watch TV on their computer. They have Time Warner Digital Cable wired to the computer room and would just like to plug it into the computer. Is this feasible? Does TW need to know this? Then what are the differences in cards for just watching TV or recording TV? Do these cards come with software to watch TV or am I on my own? Will something like Windows Media Center recognize what it is and just have a TV option?

You need a tuner card to watch TV on your PC. Ignore the title of the tuner in the item name on NewEgg. The stuff you need to pay attention to on the Specifications is TV Standards. Lets use this card as an example (I have the older version of this one).
It does three TV standards ATSC/NTSC/ClearQAM. From further down on the specs page it tells that those mean:

TV:
Over-the-Air (ATSC)
Unencrypted Digital Cable (ClearQAM*)
Analog TV:
Cable TV (NTSC)
Satellite with Set-top-box (NTSC)
HDTV quality support up to 1080i
* ClearQAM is only Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008, Windows 7 and AVer ClearQAM Tools

Combo in this cards name is saying that is a dual tuner, ie, it has two coax inputs, only one of them can do digital signals and the other is for analog signals. The only perk of multiple tuners on a single card is the ability to record one thing and watch another. If all you want to use it for is to watch TV then all you need is a software package to do that, this could be a third party program or XP Media Center or a version of Vista/Win7 that has MC as part of it (Home Premium and higher). Media center will also give you the DVR capability.

If your tuner does have multiple inputs you should be able to use a standard splitter to connect them up so you can use all of them for viewing/recording.

Where things can get tricky is if you have a cable set-top box for your premium channels. For this you need to use an IR blaster (the Avermedia card I linked to comes with one) to set it up so that your one MC remote will change the channels. Cablecard coming into play will help a lot with this as it gets rid of the set-top box and allows the PC to decrypt the signals for the premium channels you subscribe to.

Last Edit I promise - You can read a primer of TV on You Media Center PC here.

TheGameguru wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

A friend told me a year ago or so that there will be a 360 with cablecard.

Why even bother.. Microsoft is working with AT&T to cut a deal to deliver U-Verse via IP to the 360.

Yeah that was while ago.

The potential benefit is value-add for consumers while keeping the same pricepoint for MS.

If a software company like MS had some control over the cable box they could do some sweet things compared to the stodgy cable companies.

U-verse? I heard about that. But you need ATT don't you? Some are lucky enough to have that choice. Most aren't.

If you mean ATT is going to deliver uVerse over the internet well that's anoher story. That would be sweet although I have to question how well that would work with hi-def video.

trip1eX wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

A friend told me a year ago or so that there will be a 360 with cablecard.

Why even bother.. Microsoft is working with AT&T to cut a deal to deliver U-Verse via IP to the 360.

Yeah that was while ago.

The potential benefit is value-add for consumers while keeping the same pricepoint for MS.

If a software company like MS had some control over the cable box they could do some sweet things compared to the stodgy cable companies.

U-verse? I heard about that. But you need ATT don't you? Some are lucky enough to have that choice. Most aren't.

If you mean ATT is going to deliver uVerse over the internet well that's anoher story. That would be sweet although I have to question how well that would work with hi-def video.

There was no deal a while ago...its not even close to being done yet.. there are still political and some technical hurdles to overcome.

Here's a MB/CPU that supposedly handles HD with no fan noise.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500028

Source is here

taer wrote:

Here's a MB/CPU that supposedly handles HD with no fan noise.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500028

Source is here

I actually just ordered one of those this past week along with a case, hard drive, and remote (I already had some DDR2 RAM sitting around). The stuff should be here on Tuesday and I'm very much looking forward to putting together a replacement for cable (which I cancelled last week).

According to some comments I've read on that motherboard, it's stable when overclocked a bit, which will allow it to do fullscreen flash videos until Adobe releases an implementation of flash that allows for GPU acceleration.