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bomb posted:The reasoning behind the video card was for games that were a little bit older, emulators, and whatever else might be GPU intensive. Does the Gigabyte motherboard provide sound over HDMI? I'm going to take a guess and say that you can probably do SPDIF audio over HDMI, which gets you DTS/DD 5.1 or PCM 2.0 at best.
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Sep 16, 2009 21:22
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mod sassinator posted:I would get a micro ATX 780g motherboard like one of Gigabyte's boards. Unless you absolutely need 4-5 peripheral cards it's just wasted space. With a smaller mobo you can get a much sleeker HTPC case like an Antec Fusion. I've never heard of XCLIO brand powersupplies so I would be a little leary--the Fusion comes with a decent Antec supply anyways. Just put together a rig with this case and beware: it is quite large, maybe even a bit bigger than my mid-tower. If it was 3" less wide it still wouldn't fit in my entertainment center. It's vertical on the stand behind the TV, so not the end of the world but not quite what I was hoping for.
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Sep 16, 2009 21:22
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I'm getting ready to build my first HTPC. I took a look at the parts buying guide in SH/SC but it looks like it hasn't been updated in awhile. If someone has a second to give me some quick recommendations that would be great. Here is what I know : - Price ceiling is about $500 - I want to use this case iStar USA 2U Rackmount Server Case - The main function of this PC is running XBMC with the Aeon skin. I'm running it on my AppleTV and the performance is underwhelming even with the "lite" version. Video playback is good but the menu system and the time it takes to start playback is a little laggy. - I'm using a Runco CW-61 as a display. Native resolution is 1365x768. I have the option of using HDMI or the PC/RGB input. Which will give me the best results? - I am going to be using a wireless keyboard/mouse a wireless gamepad. Do these talk directly to Motherboards nowadays or do I need a card or USB dongle? - If I could spend a little extra to allow me to play some semi-current games I wouldn't mind doing that. - I know with the micro-ATX PCs running XBMC you are supposed to run Linux to take advantage of the video hardware's capabilities... Is that a concern with full size PCs? Thanks in advance
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Sep 17, 2009 19:34
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Legdiian posted:- I know with the micro-ATX PCs running XBMC you are supposed to run Linux to take advantage of the video hardware's capabilities... Is that a concern with full size PCs? As long as you have a powerful enough CPU, you don't need to rely on GPU video decoding at all. An E5200 or better is good enough pretty much.
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Sep 17, 2009 22:02
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Legdiian posted:HTPC This is probably a bad idea. I don't know about this case in particular, but rackmount systems are intended to go places where noise isn't an issue, so they're usually pretty loud, which is not something you want with an HTPC.
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Sep 17, 2009 23:57
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Kreeblah posted:This is probably a bad idea. I don't know about this case in particular, but rackmount systems are intended to go places where noise isn't an issue, so they're usually pretty loud, which is not something you want with an HTPC. That is a good point. Reading through the comments one person said they were quiet, but I guess that could be relative. All my gear is in a Middle Atlantic rack in the hallway adjacent to my living room so I would love to be able to just mount my HTPC in there and be done with it. If I did find the case was loud there must be quieter fans that I could install right?
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Sep 18, 2009 00:07
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Hey guys. Ready to see my epic super leet home theater machine? I KNOW I AM. Specs: Case: Some off brand case that is the most perfect sized ever sized. Sold as the IPSG 5.1L at microcenter. CPU: Intel Atom 330 (Dual core, 1.6ghz) Motherboard: Zotac ION Graphics: Integrated Nvidia ION graphics Ram: 1x2GB DDR667mhz HDD: 2x1TB Western Digital Caviar Black TV Tuner: ATI TV Wonder 650 USB (Yes, USB. This board has nothing but a mini pci-e slot. Although, there are tuners for this popping up) OS: Windows Vista Ultimate X64. I was TRYING for weeks to get myth tv to work properly, but there are so few supported USB tuners that do analog for Myth. I currently am using this full time in my dorm room, hooked up to my 28" monitor (yes, it was my monitor at first) via DVI to HDMI cable. Sound works fine over integrated speakers until I buy some speakers for it. While my system is no where close to as beefy as some of the others in this thread, it can play 1080p videos flawlessly, while recording in the background. This is thanks to the ION graphics, which does ALL of the video decoding. CPU usage hovers around 10%. Here's a picture of the complete build sitting on my desk at home, just so you can see how tiny and cramped this thing is.  Click here for the full 1280x960 image. I'll have more pictures and information tomorrow, for I am lazy, and just found this thread today.
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Sep 18, 2009 03:10
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Legdiian posted:That is a good point. Reading through the comments one person said they were quiet, but I guess that could be relative. All my gear is in a Middle Atlantic rack in the hallway adjacent to my living room so I would love to be able to just mount my HTPC in there and be done with it. If I did find the case was loud there must be quieter fans that I could install right? Dunno. Maybe? I've never looked for replacement fans for a 2U case, so I have absolutely no idea what sizes they come in. If it uses a similar size as a desktop would, yeah, no problem, but if not, you might be stuck. I'd research that case and find out before buying it. Alternately, a fan controller might work if it ends up being too loud. Obviously, though, you'd want to keep an eye on temperatures to make sure you've got adequate cooling that way. blankooie posted:Hey guys. Ready to see my epic super leet home theater machine? I just built one using the single-core IONITX board and I've been very thoroughly pleased with it. I'm just using it for XBMC, not recording anything, but I've been surprised at just how well the hardware decoding on it works and the whole thing fits in a case smaller than an NES. It's pretty much exactly what I've been looking for for the past few years: cheap, good for HD (including audio decoding, as I haven't sprung for a receiver yet), small, and with HDMI output. I really can't say enough about the ION platform for HTPC use.
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Sep 18, 2009 08:08
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Kreeblah posted:Dunno. Maybe? I've never looked for replacement fans for a 2U case, so I have absolutely no idea what sizes they come in. If it uses a similar size as a desktop would, yeah, no problem, but if not, you might be stuck. I'd research that case and find out before buying it. Alternately, a fan controller might work if it ends up being too loud. Obviously, though, you'd want to keep an eye on temperatures to make sure you've got adequate cooling that way. It uses standard 80mm fans so it should be fine.
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Sep 18, 2009 11:06
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Got my Newegg and Monoprice orders in the mail today, and just finished updating my build With the fall season of shows coming up, and relying solely on OTA capture, I made the following changes: I pulled the old pcHDTV 5500 card and replaced it with a Hauppauge 2250 (I may put it back in later to give me a third tuner, but for now two with multirec support should suffice) I also took the opportunity to replace the three 80mm fans (one intake, two exhaust) on the case with Enermax Marathons. For 5 bucks a piece, you really can't go wrong. They use magnetic-barometric design (instead of regular bearings) so they run pretty much frictionless and therefore silent. The old case fans were starting to get a bit noisy so the time was right Got the kernel modules compiled and tested that it does in fact record two shows simultaneously with no glitches. Changing the tuner config in MythTV was pretty painless since the input source didn't change, just swapped out the tuners themselves. It's pretty bitchin'  Now I just need to clean some space as my 1.5 TB array has like 10 gig free
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Sep 19, 2009 04:42
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Posted this in SH/SC but figured I should ask here too I've recently acquired a mac mini I want to use as an HTPC, however after hooking it up with an HDMI>DVI cable to my Samsung HDTV through my Denon receiver, the colour is very... "off" and the fonts are awful, as if anti-aliasing isn't on. I can't seem to fix any of it through the colour profile thing. Any ideas?
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Sep 21, 2009 01:28
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got dat wmd posted:Posted this in SH/SC but figured I should ask here too I don't know about the color but if the fonts look bad, it is likely because you aren't running 1:1 pixel mode (I think Samsung calls it "Just Scan"). Play around with the available aspect ratio settings and see if you can enable 1:1.
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Sep 21, 2009 02:29
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220016&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL092209&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL092209-_-DesktopPC-_-L0D-_-83220016 Would this be a viable HTPC? E: I'd like the option to play 1080p, but it isn't a requirement. I would be OK with 720 only if the 1080p video would be mega expensive. code:Regnevelc fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Sep 22, 2009 |
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Sep 22, 2009 15:22
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Those integrated graphics won't cut it for 1080, and I am skeptical about 720p. For $60 more, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158007&cm_re=ion-_-56-158-007-_-Product the System uses less power, therefor less heat and noise. It is also far more capable graphics wise.
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Sep 22, 2009 18:02
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How does this look for my first HTPC? After thinking about it, I'm going to go with a cheaper (lower capacity hard drive) since this won't be used as a file server very often. My main concern is the graphics. My TV is 720p so I don't need this to handle 1080 but I don't know if the onboard GPU can handle what I need.
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Sep 22, 2009 18:23
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two_beer_bishes posted:How does this look for my first HTPC? If your just using it as an HTPC i would swap the GFX card for an Nvidia one that way if you go 1080p in the future you will definately be covered. The CPU should be able to handle all you playback needs with out the GPU doing anything so you could do away with it all together and put the extra cash towards an even faster CPU. Or just save the cash. (I would put it towards a bigger HDD cause you can never have too much storage). Other than that it should be fine. Ive found that when it comes to HTPC's, when in doubt, raw CPU power is the most reliable thing you can spend money on.
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Sep 22, 2009 18:34
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Bigsteve posted:If your just using it as an HTPC i would swap the GFX card for an Nvidia one that way if you go 1080p in the future you will definately be covered. The CPU should be able to handle all you playback needs with out the GPU doing anything so you could do away with it all together and put the extra cash towards an even faster CPU. Or just save the cash. (I would put it towards a bigger HDD cause you can never have too much storage). Other than that it should be fine. Ive found that when it comes to HTPC's, when in doubt, raw CPU power is the most reliable thing you can spend money on. That graphics card is more than capable of 1080p output via dxva hardware acceleration. You don't need an Nvidia card unless you are trying to use hardware acceleration under linux. Honestly, like you say I much prefer throwing more CPU at video decoding and not having to deal with hardware acceleration at all.
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Sep 22, 2009 18:47
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evilalien posted:That graphics card is more than capable of 1080p output via dxva hardware acceleration. You don't need an Nvidia card unless you are trying to use hardware acceleration under linux. Honestly, like you say I much prefer throwing more CPU at video decoding and not having to deal with hardware acceleration at all. Is the Athlon II X2 250 $15 better than the 240?
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Sep 22, 2009 19:05
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evilalien posted:That graphics card is more than capable of 1080p output via dxva hardware acceleration. You don't need an Nvidia card unless you are trying to use hardware acceleration under linux. Honestly, like you say I much prefer throwing more CPU at video decoding and not having to deal with hardware acceleration at all. I tried the ATI DXVA method and it was a watse of time and money, the card is now sitting in my cupboard. Most HD stuff is h.264 and the ATI stuff is very, very particular about what h.264 stuff it plays and its not much better for HD WMV's. It also makes stuff like subtitles a pain in the rear end. Its what pushed me to just building a new system with a buily in Nvidia (lets you use Coreavc with CUDA acceleration if your CPU is not beefy enough). I also put in a cheap as chips 2.9ghz AMD processor. I currently dont touch any codecs apart from Fddshow and my 1080p plays flawlessly. Seriously, going the DXVA route is a waste of cash. Throw CPU at the problem and you will be ok. The Mobo he mentions should be fine for displaying up to 1080p no problems. But go for as much CPU grunt as you can.
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Sep 22, 2009 19:24
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blankooie posted:Those integrated graphics won't cut it for 1080, and I am skeptical about 720p. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll look into the ASRock.
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Sep 22, 2009 20:23
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This ASRock 330 is looking very promising. Looks like you can run XBMC on it.
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Sep 23, 2009 12:37
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Regnevelc posted:This ASRock 330 is looking very promising. Looks like you can run XBMC on it. I wouldn't doubt it. My machine is just about the same specs, and runs Vista with Vista Media Center flawlessly. I also run a good deal of programs in the background, and while loading my not be the fastest, it never has a lack of processing power. BTW, Whats the big deal with XBMC? I tried it, along with MythTV, and none of them has been as good as VMC in terms of features or ease of use. Edit: Not that its a good idea, but you can overclock the processor a good bit too. Also, it looks like a few people are having "some" success in getting OSX running on it. I may have to try that with my atom/ion system soon, since the other HDD has nothing on it. blankooie fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Sep 23, 2009 |
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Sep 23, 2009 14:13
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blankooie posted:BTW, Whats the big deal with XBMC? I tried it, along with MythTV, and none of them has been as good as VMC in terms of features or ease of use. XBMC probably isn't as easy to use as VMC (though I still find it fairly easy to use), but you are so dead wrong about features. The only major advantage I give to VMC is that it supports TV recording natively while XBMC has to use a separate backend to do so and the feature is still a bit buggy. evilalien fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Sep 23, 2009 |
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Sep 23, 2009 15:00
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I ordered a new ASRock Ion 330 from eWiz for $334 shipped. Free Shipping, Coupon Code of FUN15 took $15 off of the original price of $349.99 Awesome....
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Sep 23, 2009 17:10
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evilalien posted:XBMC probably isn't as easy to use as VMC (though I still find it fairly easy to use), but you are so dead wrong about features. The only major advantage I give to VMC is that it supports TV recording natively while XBMC has to use a separate backend to do so and the feature is still a bit buggy. I probably used XBMC for a grand total of 30 minutes, so my opinion isn't without error. I'll probably look back at it if I can get OSX running properly on my HTPC. Regnevelc posted:I ordered a new ASRock Ion 330 from eWiz for $334 shipped. Good stuff. I'm really a fan of the ION platform for HTPCs and CarPCs. It is just all around awesome at general computing and media. I may even order one of the Asrock systems. But really, where these systems shine is their power consumption. It just can't be beat by anything offering similar performance... Which brings up the question: Where the hell is AMD/ATI in all this? These are obviously selling like hotcakes selling hotcakes, why haven't they released a low power platform yet, or announced plans to?
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Sep 23, 2009 17:32
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blankooie posted:
XBMC can take a lot to really customize to your liking, but it blows away VMC in features in most areas. Also, it's got Aeon.
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Sep 23, 2009 18:21
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Does the ASRock 330 support audio over HDMI, or would that require a separate output?
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Sep 23, 2009 19:07
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blankooie posted:Where the hell is AMD/ATI in all this? These are obviously selling like hotcakes selling hotcakes, why haven't they released a low power platform yet, or announced plans to? Actually they have. Congo platform and Vision branding. http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Unveils-Tigris-and-Congo-Platforms-New-VISION-Branding-121306.shtml Basically its not an exact clone of a netbook but somewhere between netbook and a notebook.
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Sep 23, 2009 19:13
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blankooie posted:BTW, Whats the big deal with XBMC? I tried it, along with MythTV, and none of them has been as good as VMC in terms of features or ease of use. I have been using XBMC for years on my XBOX and I used to think it was sweet. Then I loaded the Aeon skin and learned how to use the library functions on it and it is amazing. Right now I am running the "lite" version of Aeon on my AppleTV just for TV shows and it is just plain awesome.
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Sep 23, 2009 20:00
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Blowupologist posted:Does the ASRock 330 support audio over HDMI, or would that require a separate output? I've read it supports audio over HDMI. Although I'll be running optical to my receiver.
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Sep 23, 2009 20:01
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Blowupologist posted:Does the ASRock 330 support audio over HDMI, or would that require a separate output? It definitely supports full HDMI audio (and by that I mean it can do full on 7.1 PCM or bitstream Dolby/DTS HD audio formats; none of that crappy SPDIF over HDMI junk).
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Sep 23, 2009 20:08
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Huh. I guess I've found my reward for when I lose 6 more pounds then. Fantastic.
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Sep 23, 2009 20:21
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Blowupologist posted:Huh. I guess I've found my reward for when I lose 6 more pounds then. Fantastic. I'll let you know how it works when I receive it. Although I won't be doing 7.1 audio, my receiver is only 5.1 capable.
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Sep 23, 2009 21:00
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The Aeon skin is why I use XBMC. The library function is just awesome. Click here for the full 800x450 image. Makes the nerds squeal 
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Sep 23, 2009 21:05
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Regnevelc posted:I'll let you know how it works when I receive it. Although I won't be doing 7.1 audio, my receiver is only 5.1 capable. I'll be pumping mine into the HDTV speakers until I get a cheap 5.1 system for my birthday. Any suggestions on a good low cost speaker setup for an apartment? I was thinking of getting a cheap computer speaker system (like the Logitech setup I have on my PC right now).
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Sep 23, 2009 21:57
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Blowupologist posted:I'll be pumping mine into the HDTV speakers until I get a cheap 5.1 system for my birthday. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2869085 I'd look in this thread for a good receiver. Then start looking at speakers. Other people may have different opinions, but I'd get a receiver that will last then upgrade the speakers as you can.
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Sep 23, 2009 23:03
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Regnevelc posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2869085 I was thinking something more in the $150 range, but maybe I'll just hold off and stick with the HDTV speakers for now. It's not really a huge deal for us.
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Sep 23, 2009 23:40
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I am looking for a very small factor HTPC, and I don't want to build it myself. I am wondering why do people not like AppleTV with XBMC+Boxee. It's small, cheap, am I missing something? What would you recommend as an alternative to it? All I want is for it to see files on my network and play them - basically a cable to my computer, without the actual cable... Also I don't need 1080p, just 720p. Pinkied_Brain fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Sep 24, 2009 |
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Sep 24, 2009 03:58
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At the price of an AppleTV, there are better alternatives. If you don't care about libraries or skins in XBMC, then you should maybe look into a popcorn hour/WD TV or other similar device. They aren't too expensive and will play just about everything.
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Sep 24, 2009 11:02
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Pinkied_Brain posted:I am looking for a very small factor HTPC, and I don't want to build it myself. ASRock ION 330 Is this not small/cheap enough? Seems to be a very popular choice with the HTPC crowd.
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Sep 24, 2009 11:51
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