The HTPC Thread - Dont buy an HTPC - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The HTPC Thread - Dont buy an HTPC

SnatchRabbit: Feb 23, 2006; by sebmojo

I'm thinking about slapping together a combo machine for the bedroom HTPC/Media Server/Dolphin emulator. I'd hook it into my 720p LCD so I shouldn't need to much horsepower. Could I get away with spending around $400? I figure something like:

i3 540 from Microcetner
H55 microATX mobo
ATI 5670 (will this be enough to run dolphin with SSAA?)
4GB DDR3
500GB-1TB Spinpoint F3
Wireless/Bluetooth dongles
Rosewill R379-M Slim MicroATX Computer Case with ATX12V Flex 300W Power Supply
Already have a copy of Win7

I'd also like something with an IR port for my harmony remote but I that may be asking a bit much. Was also considering Shuttle but their 1156 offerings start at $200+. Worth it?

# ? Sep 13, 2010 15:16

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# ? May 10, 2024 20:46

eddiewalker: Apr 28, 2004; Arrrr ye landlubber

GateheaD posted:

On the plasma in the living room I have a nice HTPC setup with Media Portal TV Server, In my room im using a 900mhz netbook with a no name graphics to run xbmc on my small LCD.

Looking at getting atleast 720p out of the TV in my room, so I'll probably get the WD Live TV for <$200 aud.
Would really like to use XBMC (Darwin), other than a $500 Acer Revo what options do I have?

The WDTV Live is a buggy piece of garbage. I sold mine for $50 after I got sick of having to pull the power every time it froze.

I guarantee you'd be happier with the $200 Revo 1600, which will do 1080p just fine from XBMC. The Revo 3160 is about $330 if you want a little more power for "general computing."

I don't know where you got the $500 number, unless you saw the MSRP for the just-announced Revo that isn't even for sale yet, but you don't need that much power. Anything ION-powered will do HD fine with DXVA.

# ? Sep 13, 2010 16:09

Jedi425: Dec 6, 2002; THOU ART THEE ART THOU STICK YOUR HAND IN THE TV DO IT DO IT DO IT

eddiewalker posted:

I guarantee you'd be happier with the $200 Revo 1600, which will do 1080p just fine from XBMC. The Revo 3160 is about $330 if you want a little more power for "general computing."

Right, but who the heck still has the $200 Revo? Newegg deactivated it, Frys has it out of stock.

# ? Sep 13, 2010 16:57

GateheaD: Sep 27, 2005; Gatorade me bitch

Only one I can find in AUS is the ACER REVO R3610 which is about $570aud, which is pretty much $570 your money

# ? Sep 14, 2010 02:06

eddiewalker: Apr 28, 2004; Arrrr ye landlubber

GateheaD posted:

Only one I can find in AUS is the ACER REVO R3610 which is about $570aud, which is pretty much $570 your money

You didn't mention that you weren't talking US dollars. The r3160 is easy to find for $330 here.

Either way, the WDTV drove me up the wall. As much as I wanted it to work, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now.

# ? Sep 14, 2010 03:11

savesthedayrocks: Mar 18, 2004

Jedi425 posted:

Right, but who the heck still has the $200 Revo? Newegg deactivated it, Frys has it out of stock.

I got mine from Best Buy a week ago. It was $250 but had a wireless card built in.

# ? Sep 14, 2010 03:55

GateheaD: Sep 27, 2005; Gatorade me bitch

code:

S-ION330-BK ASRock ION330 Mini Barebone, Intel Atom 330, Nvidia ION, DVD-RW, GBL, VGA/HDMI, Black  $275
E-HM160HI 2.5", Samsung 160GB, SATA 5400rpm, 8MB Cache, HM160HI   $51.94
C-VS2GB667D2G Corsair Value Select, PC-5300 DDR2, 2GB, non-ECC, 240-pin DIMM, VS2GB667D2G   $53.52
Subtotal: $380.46

Looks good to me, might purchase one asap.

# ? Sep 14, 2010 07:35

Citycop: Apr 11, 2005; Greetings, Rainbow Dash.

I will now sing for you a song that I hope will ease your performance anxiety.

Amazon is taking pre-orders for the Boxee. From what I have seen you would be hard pressed to find 1080 hdmi with audio, hulu and netflix for the $200 price.

# ? Sep 14, 2010 08:42

supdns: Nov 1, 2004

Citycop posted:

Amazon is taking pre-orders for the Boxee. From what I have seen you would be hard pressed to find 1080 hdmi with audio, hulu and netflix for the $200 price.

Now to wait for the remote to go on sale separately.

# ? Sep 14, 2010 09:24

Ryokurin: Jul 14, 2001; Wanna Die?

Question for the people using Revo's or basically any retail HTPC unit. Are any of you running it on a SD set, and if you are what equipment are you using to do it? I've been thinking about building a small system to replace my current ATX based system (since Comcast killed off unencrypted channels) but If I build one small enough to take when I travel I need something that can at least support s-video out and that's starting to get rare.

I thought about getting a WDTV, but most of my media is on discs, and my understanding the DVD drive mod still requires a hard drive to be connected and I rather not have wires all over the place. I've seen DVI/VGA to Svideo adapters but I'm not for sure if any are good for video. any suggestions?

# ? Sep 15, 2010 18:27

GateheaD: Sep 27, 2005; Gatorade me bitch

I'm using an old Dual Core Sempron to run my HTPC, also uses a G210 for cuda rendering via CoreAVC.

Just had my first problem yesterday, 1080P Stuff Works (Jurrasic Park), about every 720P tv show works but then I put on a 720P episode of 'Sons of Anarchy' and some scenes looked weird, some stuttered slightly.

I know its not a high powered machine, but if 1080P content was working fine, I don't understand why this one was weird, anything I can check?
(Guy I Work with said that with high HZ tv's like my plasma sometimes if a tv show 'cheats' scenes it can look like they're moving too fast and its not actually rubber banding.

Tried MPC w/ CoreAVC, XBMC Dharma w/ DXVA(?) and the new VLC fresh install.

# ? Sep 16, 2010 04:58

chef: Nov 18, 2001

Ryokurin posted:

I've seen DVI/VGA to Svideo adapters but I'm not for sure if any are good for video. any suggestions?

I use one of these with my Revo 1600 and I just bought a cheapo adapter. I get a horizontal artifact that moves from top to bottom every 5 minutes which is annoying but not terrible, which I blame on the adapter.

GateheaD posted:

Just had my first problem yesterday, 1080P Stuff Works (Jurrasic Park), about every 720P tv show works but then I put on a 720P episode of 'Sons of Anarchy' and some scenes looked weird, some stuttered slightly.

I had the same issues with the 720P release of S3E2... the SD version worked fine in XBMC. The 720P version worked fine on Medial Player HomeCinema as well, not sure what the problem was.

chef fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Sep 16, 2010

# ? Sep 16, 2010 05:03

GateheaD: Sep 27, 2005; Gatorade me bitch

S3E1, shaky cam looked really fast (could be the tv refresh rate I've been told) and the scene where they tear out on the bikes at the docks was stuttered to poo poo.

Hopefully there isnt a new standard h264 setting that my lovely PC cant cope with.

# ? Sep 16, 2010 08:03

Mujaji: Oct 2, 2004; "The Transformers soundtrack is quite probably the greatest single album in the entire history of recorded music"

GateheaD posted:

code:

S-ION330-BK ASRock ION330 Mini Barebone, Intel Atom 330, Nvidia ION, DVD-RW, GBL, VGA/HDMI, Black  $275
E-HM160HI 2.5", Samsung 160GB, SATA 5400rpm, 8MB Cache, HM160HI   $51.94
C-VS2GB667D2G Corsair Value Select, PC-5300 DDR2, 2GB, non-ECC, 240-pin DIMM, VS2GB667D2G   $53.52
Subtotal: $380.46

Looks good to me, might purchase one asap.

where did you see this? I'm another Australian looking for a htpc

# ? Sep 16, 2010 13:08

vyst: Aug 25, 2009

Would building a HTPC be the way to go if I *just* wanted something that I could play my movie files from a networked home server? I'm well versed in PC building if that matters at all. It would be wired on 100 MBit, but I'd like to play HD mkv's as well as the standard DVD Rips. I really don't care about being able to access things like Hulu or use it as a TV-DVR. I'd like something that had a blu-ray player on it, but with that said on the list of things I *need* this is at the bottom. A pretty front end would be nice as well as being able to control it with a remote.

Basically trying to find the most cost-effective solution. I do have a license of Windows 7 so if that changes the prices on some things, then so be it.

# ? Sep 16, 2010 21:03

Citycop: Apr 11, 2005; Greetings, Rainbow Dash.

I will now sing for you a song that I hope will ease your performance anxiety.

vyst posted:

Would building a HTPC be the way to go if I *just* wanted something that I could play my movie files from a networked home server? I'm well versed in PC building if that matters at all. It would be wired on 100 MBit, but I'd like to play HD mkv's as well as the standard DVD Rips. I really don't care about being able to access things like Hulu or use it as a TV-DVR. I'd like something that had a blu-ray player on it, but with that said on the list of things I *need* this is at the bottom. A pretty front end would be nice as well as being able to control it with a remote.

Basically trying to find the most cost-effective solution. I do have a license of Windows 7 so if that changes the prices on some things, then so be it.

Well you can buy a WD HD Live for $99 or a Boxee for $200 (pre-order) You can also look at the options from Popcorn Hour. All of these are under the $300 entry price point for a PC that can play HD Content. The PC option is really only good if you want to do more than just play content on your TV. You can spend as much as you want on a media center PC. There are quite a few options for just playing that are cheaper.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog

http://www.amazon.com/The-Boxee-Box-by-D-Link/dp/B0038JE07O

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...N63RH2RPJCPBRFG

Citycop fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Sep 16, 2010

# ? Sep 16, 2010 22:21

Fist of Fury: Dec 3, 2004; THIS TITLE CAN'T POSSIBLY BE AS OBNOXIOUS AS MY POSTS

vyst posted:

Would building a HTPC be the way to go if I *just* wanted something that I could play my movie files from a networked home server? I'm well versed in PC building if that matters at all. It would be wired on 100 MBit, but I'd like to play HD mkv's as well as the standard DVD Rips. I really don't care about being able to access things like Hulu or use it as a TV-DVR. I'd like something that had a blu-ray player on it, but with that said on the list of things I *need* this is at the bottom. A pretty front end would be nice as well as being able to control it with a remote.

Basically trying to find the most cost-effective solution. I do have a license of Windows 7 so if that changes the prices on some things, then so be it.

If you don't want to stream TV to it or bother with Hulu or Netflix, but want Blu Ray capabilities, then you are almost in the realm of just buying a PS3 and using that as a media center.

Blu Ray drives for PC have come way down, but the math still works out to something like

- Ion Motherboard -> 130-150
- 2 gigs minimum of DDR3 or DDRR2 RAM, both expensive as poo poo right now -> 50
- HTPC case -> 50
- Blu Ray drive -> 50-60
- Hard drive -> let's say 60ish if you wanted a decent capacity

Building your own would still end up costing a little more than the $260-on-eBay price tag of a PS3. Kind of up to you.

# ? Sep 16, 2010 22:27

Citycop: Apr 11, 2005; Greetings, Rainbow Dash.

I will now sing for you a song that I hope will ease your performance anxiety.

Don't you have to pay a monthly fee to Sony now to access this content on the PS3? If so, that's BS.

# ? Sep 17, 2010 00:04

GateheaD: Sep 27, 2005; Gatorade me bitch

Mujaji posted:

where did you see this? I'm another Australian looking for a htpc

shopbot.com.au the botherboard/case and piece the rest together from their stock.

# ? Sep 17, 2010 02:16

gabensraum: Sep 16, 2003; LOAD "NICE!",8,1

Fist of Fury posted:

Building your own would still end up costing a little more than the $260-on-eBay price tag of a PS3. Kind of up to you.

I've had a PS3 for bluray/media for a year now. I'm not a gamer, I bought it for that alone. It works well with ps3ms but I really miss XBMC (which I used to run on the original xbox).

I'm planning on giving up bluray entirely and getting something that will run XBMC and play 1080 content over my gigabit network. My only other requirement is that it needs to support VGA out so that I can hook it up over component. From what I've read the Revo 3610 (on linux) or the 3700 (if I can wait for it) seem to be able to do this. Am I right?

# ? Sep 18, 2010 03:41

Fist of Fury: Dec 3, 2004; THIS TITLE CAN'T POSSIBLY BE AS OBNOXIOUS AS MY POSTS

deep square leg posted:

I've had a PS3 for bluray/media for a year now. I'm not a gamer, I bought it for that alone. It works well with ps3ms but I really miss XBMC (which I used to run on the original xbox).

I'm planning on giving up bluray entirely and getting something that will run XBMC and play 1080 content over my gigabit network. My only other requirement is that it needs to support VGA out so that I can hook it up over component. From what I've read the Revo 3610 (on linux) or the 3700 (if I can wait for it) seem to be able to do this. Am I right?

Should work fine, but be advised that you may run into playback hiccups with 1080p content if you're on a wireless setup. On paper, gigabit bandwidth is generally more than capable of playing back your average .mkv file, right? So one would think it wouldn't be an issue. But the only way we've been able to get it to work reliably, without spikes in playback, is by using corded ethernet setups on the same exact network.

# ? Sep 18, 2010 05:40

EC: Jul 10, 2001; The Legend

Citycop posted:

Don't you have to pay a monthly fee to Sony now to access this content on the PS3? If so, that's BS.

Netflix is free, but you have to use a disc.
Hulu on PS3 is only available if you're a Hulu subscriber, and I think you have to be a PSN+ subscriber as well.

It's similar to the 360, where you have to be a gold member to use Netflix.

# ? Sep 18, 2010 14:48

gabensraum: Sep 16, 2003; LOAD "NICE!",8,1

Fist of Fury posted:

Should work fine, but be advised that you may run into playback hiccups with 1080p content if you're on a wireless setup. On paper, gigabit bandwidth is generally more than capable of playing back your average .mkv file, right? So one would think it wouldn't be an issue. But the only way we've been able to get it to work reliably, without spikes in playback, is by using corded ethernet setups on the same exact network.

Thanks for that. Am using corded gigabit so that sounds good.

# ? Sep 18, 2010 16:12

Hob_Gadling: Jul 6, 2007; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Grimey Drawer

After looking at ION-based machines, WDTV and similar boxes, ready-built HTPCs and other, more exotic solutions for three months the only way to get what I wanted was to build it myself.

Sempron 140, Asus M4A78-EM, 2 gigs of memory, 5400rpm EcoGreen 1TB disk and Antec case with Earthpower PSU. No optical drive, installed OS from USB stick and network. It's quiet (I can't hear it over the background noise), has ample disk space, uses very little power and does 1080p smoothly.

Price was about �340 with about �50 going towards wireless keyboard and cables. I'm looking into getting a DVB-C adapter so I could consolidate some of the stuff into that PC.

# ? Sep 19, 2010 14:35

Kynetx: Jan 8, 2003; Full of ignorant tribalism. Kinda sad.

Nice. Did you use a front end?

# ? Sep 19, 2010 21:13

Hob_Gadling: Jul 6, 2007; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Grimey Drawer

Yes, I'm still testing out between XBMC and Boxee. This far looks like XBMC is winning but it sure has a lot of annoying little things like most of the plugins either not working in XP or simply being very slow.

# ? Sep 20, 2010 04:02

DR FRASIER KRANG: Feb 4, 2005; "Are you forgetting that just this afternoon I was punched in the face by a turtle now dead?

Hob_Gadling posted:

Yes, I'm still testing out between XBMC and Boxee. This far looks like XBMC is winning but it sure has a lot of annoying little things like most of the plugins either not working in XP or simply being very slow.

Why are you running XBMC on XP? It runs far more reliably on 7.

# ? Sep 20, 2010 04:29

Hob_Gadling: Jul 6, 2007; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Grimey Drawer

I don't have a license for 7 yet and don't want to shell out for one for this purpose only. In a vacuum I'd have used Linux but I want my SO to be able to do use the box when I'm traveling. It's in the plans to store all our pictures on the machine and she wants to use some strange proprietary camera software for editing.

# ? Sep 20, 2010 05:38

illamint: Jun 26, 2005; According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term.

Just bought a new LG 50PK550 plasma to go along with my HTPC, which has a new Ceton Infinitv 4 on Optimum iO:

I'd be glad to field any questions about the Ceton card. It works flawlessly, even using 2 XBOXes as extenders and watching 3 channels at the same time.

# ? Sep 22, 2010 00:45

wolfbiker: Nov 6, 2009

someone shops at ikea! jk, nice place/tv.

# ? Sep 22, 2010 01:06

LtDan: May 1, 2004

How long ago did you preorder the Ceton card?

# ? Sep 22, 2010 01:54

illamint: Jun 26, 2005; According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term.

wolfbiker posted:

someone shops at ikea! jk, nice place/tv.

gently caress yeah, IKEA.

LtDan posted:

How long ago did you preorder the Ceton card?

Didn't. My boss preordered it but then switched to AT&T Uverse, so I got it from him for what he paid for it, which is lucky I guess, because apparently they're pretty hard to come by and are commanding a hefty premium on eBay.

# ? Sep 22, 2010 02:44

clockworx: Oct 15, 2005; The Internet Whore made me buy this account

I like your view, where is it? :3:

# ? Sep 22, 2010 02:47

Kynetx: Jan 8, 2003; Full of ignorant tribalism. Kinda sad.

illamint posted:

gently caress yeah, IKEA.

Huh?

# ? Sep 22, 2010 02:49

niss: Jul 9, 2008; the amazing gnome

illamint posted:

I'd be glad to field any questions about the Ceton card. It works flawlessly, even using 2 XBOXes as extenders and watching 3 channels at the same time.

How is the picture quality, can you tell any difference over using a STB. I would like to get one when they are more readily available. How quick are channel changes over the STB, a few videos I have seen made it appear that there was a bit of lag before the show was 100%.

niss fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Sep 22, 2010

# ? Sep 22, 2010 14:33

illamint: Jun 26, 2005; According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term.

niss posted:

How is the picture quality, can you tell any difference over using a STB. I would like to get one when they are more readily available. How quick are channel changes over the STB, a few videos I have seen made it appear that there was a bit of lag before the show was 100%.

Picture quality is at least as good as the lovely cablebox I had before. There's probably a second or two of delay between changing channels, but the set-top box took at least that, and I think it's just the fact that QAM modulated/encrypted channels simply take longer to tune than the NTSC channels of yore. Overall I'm very satisfied with it. I only have a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz with 2GB RAM, but it plays to the TV and streams to 2 XBOXes simultaneously with no problems whatsoever.

# ? Sep 23, 2010 22:56

sp00nman: May 14, 2004; All this Christmas spirit is gives me a raging boner!

illamint posted:

Picture quality is at least as good as the lovely cablebox I had before. There's probably a second or two of delay between changing channels, but the set-top box took at least that, and I think it's just the fact that QAM modulated/encrypted channels simply take longer to tune than the NTSC channels of yore. Overall I'm very satisfied with it. I only have a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz with 2GB RAM, but it plays to the TV and streams to 2 XBOXes simultaneously with no problems whatsoever.

What kind of network is it on? Gigabit?

# ? Sep 24, 2010 18:45

illamint: Jun 26, 2005; According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word "snapshot" was originally a hunting term.

sp00nman posted:

What kind of network is it on? Gigabit?

Gigabit to everything but the XBOXes themselves, yeah.

# ? Sep 24, 2010 23:31

Nam Taf: Jun 25, 2005; I am Fat Man, hear me roar!

GateheaD posted:

code:

S-ION330-BK ASRock ION330 Mini Barebone, Intel Atom 330, Nvidia ION, DVD-RW, GBL, VGA/HDMI, Black  $275
E-HM160HI 2.5", Samsung 160GB, SATA 5400rpm, 8MB Cache, HM160HI   $51.94
C-VS2GB667D2G Corsair Value Select, PC-5300 DDR2, 2GB, non-ECC, 240-pin DIMM, VS2GB667D2G   $53.52
Subtotal: $380.46

Looks good to me, might purchase one asap.

Tell me what the performance of this is like for you. I found myself in the exact same position, wanting an R3610 but looking at $570 and thinking that was stupid. If you're happy with the performance as a HTPC platform with 1080p capabilities, I might grab one too.

# ? Sep 25, 2010 02:55

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# ? May 10, 2024 20:46

DR FRASIER KRANG: Feb 4, 2005; "Are you forgetting that just this afternoon I was punched in the face by a turtle now dead?

illamint posted:

Gigabit to everything but the XBOXes themselves, yeah.

How are you interfacing the streams with the Xbox?

# ? Sep 25, 2010 09:13

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