Building my first HTPC

[c_hegge]

Re: Building my first HTPC

It might also be an idea to use an aftermarket cooler, as S939 Athlons run a bit hot and the stock coolers can get noisy.

This one looks like it would be good (if it fits in the case)

[Wrog]

Re: Building my first HTPC

Fair enough on the video card. I was only concerned about power/heat/noise -- if it'll be in a noisy environment you won't notice the difference. The Apevia case actually goes on "special" often and you can pick it up for $30-$35 after rebate if you are patient (I actually have 3 of them and love them). I haven't opened the power supplies yet but will be swapping Antec Earthwatts 380s in there since they are on 24/7.

Media Center is in all editions as far as I know (maybe not the Enterprise), but Home Premium, Pro and Ultimate have it for sure. One way you can leverage HDD space issues is to convert from WTV to H.264 using MCEBuddy. It's not uncommon to see HD programming take up 5-6GB per hour in WTV format (used by Media Center).

Not sure about the remotes that come with the tuners, but I think you'll probably want one no matter what you end up going with.

[Deft]

Re: Building my first HTPC

The 5450 card was bought by my uncle back in the spring for that 939 board I have now. Basically, I don't feel like replacing the card since I never paid for it

That case is an excellent suggestion. With shipping it's still $40 cheaper than the one I wanted to pick up locally. I didn't even notice that case even though I had looked at about a dozen different models. If I can't find a better price for the Silverstone then that Apevia might be the best option.

The 250gb HD is there just because I already have it.. also my main PC is always on and has about 1.2TB of storage space that I can stream stuff from. (I was considering adding a 2TB drive to that PC and moving the 640GB drive to the HTPC)

The keyboard I linked to is actually a keyboard with trackball built in. I like the fact that it's small, all in one, wireless and cheap This box will definitely be used for browsing websites and maybe even posting on message boards. Also, I've seen a lot of tuner cards come with remotes.. are they good for anything other than the card they come with?

Thanks for the link to TVFool. Hopefully that'll fill me in on all the details of receiving digital OTA channels.

As for Media Center, I only discovered it existed recently when I started looking into all this stuff. I've tested it out on my other PC and it looks real nice. Is it on every version of Win7? I ask because (this page was no help) and I have a spare license that was bought through a student discount MS was offering when win 7 was first released. Not sure of version that license is for since I never used it and forgot I even had it until I started thinking about building this HTPC. I have several licenses for XP still kickin around too if I need 'em.

[Wrog]

Re: Building my first HTPC

MSI-7125 socket 939
Athlon X2 4400
2GB Ram
Radeon 5450 (1gb)
250GB HD
Sabrent Wireless G PCI card
DVD/CD writer (it's a few years old now and I'm not sure of the speed but it should suffice for backing up dvds/cds)

Components on my wish list:
IOGEAR GKM561R Black 2.4GHz Wireless HTPC Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel ($49.99 w/Promo Code until oct. 22)

ASUS Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model BC-08B1LT/BLK/B/ASUS - OEM

SilverStone Lascala LC17B Black Aluminum Desktop Case

Total Cost including shipping/taxes $317.22

If you plan on using this solely for a HTPC, I would reconsider some of the hardware: the 5450 (while it's a great card) is overkill for a HTPC, look for a cheap 3450 or 3650 (fanless version if possible), all you want the card for is to offload some of the encoding/decoding. If you're going to be recording high definition, you'll want to eventually install a larger HDD (unless you are planning on watching/deleting a LOT). Consider this case (note the size though, it's a little larger than a standard HTPC case). Replace the keyboard/mouse with a remote if it'll just be a HTPC, like this one. That model also has an IR blaster so it can control the TV and/or settop box (to change channels, etc.).

The part I'm hung up on what I need to buy to also make this thing a PVR/DVR. I've looked at tuner cards but I'm not sure if they are right choice atm. Tv stations aren't being forced to broadcast digitally OTA until Aug. 31, 2011 and not many have volunteered to start already. I'm probably going to stick with my satellite provider regardless but it would be nice to be able to record other shows to watch later through the PC.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about broadcast TV in Canada, so hopefully someone else will fill us in. It sounds like you are planning on going solely OTA. I would check out http://www.tvfool.com, it looks like they have info for Canada on distance and direction to transmitters, channel ranges, etc. The card that I ended up getting for OTA (ATSC) and ClearQAM (cable) is the AverMedia Duet, and according to the reviews someone said it can tune Canadian channels OTA (in Montreal). I would seriously consider getting a flavor of Windows 7 and using Media Center, but XBMC is also a popular choice. If you end up installing more than 2 tuners, you'll want to increase the amount of RAM in the system to at least 4GB.

One last thing, if you are connecting 54g wireless, you may not be able to stream 1080p content (link saturation). Good luck and have fun with this!

[Deft]

After years of fantasizing about a PC in my living room to replace/compliment my existing AV equipment, my dreams are finally coming true.

Thanks to hardware donations from family members and pulls from my previous builds, I have a decent starting point for this project. Oh yeah, and this site deserves credit too otherwise all I'd have is a board with bloated vcore caps and a bunch of misc. parts.

So before I begin buying/assembling parts I'm interested in find out who else has built an HTPC and what kind of software/hardware it's running on. Your opinions on what I was planning would be awesome too.

Current parts on hand are:
MSI-7125 socket 939
Athlon X2 4400
2GB Ram
Radeon 5450 (1gb)
250GB HD
Sabrent Wireless G PCI card
DVD/CD writer (it's a few years old now and I'm not sure of the speed but it should suffice for backing up dvds/cds)

Components on my wish list:
IOGEAR GKM561R Black 2.4GHz Wireless HTPC Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel ($49.99 w/Promo Code until oct. 22)

ASUS Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model BC-08B1LT/BLK/B/ASUS - OEM

SilverStone Lascala LC17B Black Aluminum Desktop Case

Total Cost including shipping/taxes $317.22

The part I'm hung up on what I need to buy to also make this thing a PVR/DVR. I've looked at tuner cards but I'm not sure if they are right choice atm. Tv stations aren't being forced to broadcast digitally OTA until Aug. 31, 2011 and not many have volunteered to start already. I'm probably going to stick with my satellite provider regardless but it would be nice to be able to record other shows to watch later through the PC.