Home Theatre Computer

[MickMcGeough]

I've got a custom-built HTPC in an Antec Fusion 430 box.



Cost me about $400 to build (+$65 for Harmony remote). It's nearly completely silent. I hook up my Shaw HD box through firewire and use it as a HD-PVR. The only software I use on it is SageTV; it's the ultimate HTPC software as far as I'm concerned. Videos, TV, pictures, music, online video, etc. Cuts out all the commercials in recorded shows, compresses anything older than a week into h264 files, and simple enough that my girlfriend has no problems using it.

[MickMcGeough]

Also wanted to add: maybe others have had more luck but I haven't been able to get smooth 1080p streaming over wireless (N or otherwise). Maybe it was a crappy router, maybe it's just my place, but everything I've read since trying indicates that a lot of people have troubles with it. Compressed streams might be fine but I needed it for mpeg transport streams and wireless just didn't cut it. Check out ethernet over powerlines if you can't run cables.

[Draug]

That Antec box looks sweet Mick! $400 is nice and affordable too.

I am looking at setting up a HTPC too since I just moved. Previously, I had my main PC close enough to the TV setup that I just directly connected them and used the same wireless mouse/keyboard. At my new place, that wont work.

Do the advantages of a dedicated HTPC (like yours - love the case) outweigh using Win7 and a PS3? What are the advantages? My main PC has over 4TB of storage, so Hdd capacity is not a factor for me.

I already have a PS3. Either way I will have to run network cable across the whole house because, like you, I have had no luck with wireless keeping up to 1080p.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

This is a slightly beefed version of what I'm running, and it's way more convenient because with a good router as well, you can stream video over the network from different computers onto the TV-PC. In that effect, you could opt to run it network only and ask a friend for an old harddrive to run the OS on.

As well, you could just simply collect old parts that work and accomplish this combining them with an HDCP-compliant videocard (like 60 bucks).

A couple questions. Do you need anything else to make a wireless connection, or does the MB have that built in? What about a video card, wouldn't that be required whatever the setup? Also if I didn't want something that looked like a computer sitting beside my TV (like the Antec Mick posted) that MB wouldn't work right? I would need a different sized one correct?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

Asrock Ion 330

Google it

Will that work if I have want a wireless setup?

Originally Posted by Pastiche

Asrock + XBMC Live on a jump drive

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-...r-on-the-cheap

Substitute the Revo for the Asrock (cheaper and better).

XBMC live is the absolute best HTPC front-end GUI.

I really like the look of the XBMC interface. Does that operate within Windows? Do I need an OS for that or will it work on it's own? If I had that software installed and wanted to browse the internet is it simple to switch out of it?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

I've got a custom-built HTPC in an Antec Fusion 430 box.



Cost me about $400 to build (+$65 for Harmony remote). It's nearly completely silent. I hook up my Shaw HD box through firewire and use it as a HD-PVR. The only software I use on it is SageTV; it's the ultimate HTPC software as far as I'm concerned. Videos, TV, pictures, music, online video, etc. Cuts out all the commercials in recorded shows, compresses anything older than a week into h264 files, and simple enough that my girlfriend has no problems using it.

I think that case looks great. And $400 is a good price range to be in. I already have a Harmony remote which should have no problem connecting to it.

Do you have it connected to your home computer as well? Or is everything stored on your HTPC?

[Pastiche]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Will that work if I have want a wireless setup?

I really like the look of the XBMC interface. Does that operate within Windows? Do I need an OS for that or will it work on it's own? If I had that software installed and wanted to browse the internet is it simple to switch out of it?

It does not come with an internal wireless adapter. Can always buy a wireless dongle. The 330bd comes with a blu ray player and an internal IR receiver and remote which is really nice.

What's great about XBMC live is that it is a live OS meaning that if you set the computer to boot from USB you can load XBMC on a 4gb jump drive and anytime you turn the computer on it boots right into XBMC. If you want to use windows just take out the jump drive and it boots like normal.

The great thign about XBMC is that it is also compatible with multiple plugins like a youtube plugin. So you can browse youtube from within XBMC you don't need to start up firefox. I can watch ATDHE.net hockey streams from right in XBMC. Great feature.

Anyway just look for XBMC videos on youtube, there's a bunch that show off the interface and functionality.

[Burninator]

So lets say I am using XBMC on my HTPC. Would I do the majority of my file storing on my desktop computer or on the HTPC itself? Well I assume I could do either, but what would be the best?

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Burninator

I think that case looks great. And $400 is a good price range to be in. I already have a Harmony remote which should have no problem connecting to it.

Do you have it connected to your home computer as well? Or is everything stored on your HTPC?

That just runs standalone. I download any movies or TV shows that I don't record directly on to it using uTorrent's web interface from anywhere.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Draug

That Antec box looks sweet Mick! $400 is nice and affordable too.

I am looking at setting up a HTPC too since I just moved. Previously, I had my main PC close enough to the TV setup that I just directly connected them and used the same wireless mouse/keyboard. At my new place, that wont work.

Do the advantages of a dedicated HTPC (like yours - love the case) outweigh using Win7 and a PS3? What are the advantages? My main PC has over 4TB of storage, so Hdd capacity is not a factor for me.

I already have a PS3. Either way I will have to run network cable across the whole house because, like you, I have had no luck with wireless keeping up to 1080p.

I've never used Win7+PS3 so I can't really say how it compares to that.

The biggest advantages to having a custom SageTV (or MythTV - I hear that's good) build that might be harder to get with most setups:

- Auto commercial cutting and video transcoding/archiving
- Auto DVD importing/ripping
- Customizable UI
- Full HD PVR
- Stream your TV to the web (real-time transcoding)
- Cheap extenders (SageTV client extenders are $200 for other rooms - pause your show in one room and finish watching in another)

Streaming TV is one of the coolest things. SageTV natively supports streaming to a browser so you can watch all your recordings and live channels through a browser from anywhere. I've got Orb installed which does the same thing but it streams anything - recordings, live TV (analog only though), etc. to my iPhone.

The only real disadvantage I can think of is that the setup isn't for the faint of heart. It's incredibly powerful but you've got to be prepared to put some time in to get everything set up the way you like it.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

I've never used Win7+PS3 so I can't really say how it compares to that.

The biggest advantages to having a custom SageTV (or MythTV - I hear that's good) build that might be harder to get with most setups:

- Auto commercial cutting and video transcoding/archiving
- Auto DVD importing/ripping
- Customizable UI
- Full HD PVR
- Stream your TV to the web (real-time transcoding)
- Cheap extenders (SageTV client extenders are $200 for other rooms - pause your show in one room and finish watching in another)

Streaming TV is one of the coolest things. SageTV natively supports streaming to a browser so if you've got a TV Tuner card you can watch all your recordings and live channels through a browser from anywhere. I've got Orb installed which does the same thing but it streams anything - recordings, live TV (analog only though), etc. to my iPhone.

The only real disadvantage I can think of is that the setup isn't for the faint of heart. It's incredibly powerful but you've got to be prepared to put some time in to get everything set up the way you like it.

F'n brilliant man. I could yak your ears off for hours over this setup.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

What's great about XBMC live is that it is a live OS meaning that if you set the computer to boot from USB you can load XBMC on a 4gb jump drive and anytime you turn the computer on it boots right into XBMC. If you want to use windows just take out the jump drive and it boots like normal.

The great thign about XBMC is that it is also compatible with multiple plugins like a youtube plugin. So you can browse youtube from within XBMC you don't need to start up firefox. I can watch ATDHE.net hockey streams from right in XBMC. Great feature.

Anyway just look for XBMC videos on youtube, there's a bunch that show off the interface and functionality.

I checked out the videos, the XBMC forum and website and I will be definitely giving the program a try. The program looks like it will suit my needs pretty darn good. I think you have sold me on XBMC. I am still unsure about the hardware aspects of a HTPC though.

Originally Posted by Pastiche

It does not come with an internal wireless adapter. Can always buy a wireless dongle. The 330bd comes with a blu ray player and an internal IR receiver and remote which is really nice.

Ok so setting up the wireless with a dongle is easy enough.

It comes with a 320GB drive which wouldn't be enough to hold all my DVD's, music, pictures, TV shows etc. So I am assuming that I would host all the stuff on my main desktop computer and stream it to the ION-BD. Would this work smoothly? I am planning on buying a dual-band N router to handle the load and the distance from my computer to the HTPC isn't very far (but hard to a run a cable). Would this setup work? Or should I go with a custom setup like Mick has?

I see that he uses his to connect to his cable box. I'm not really interested in doing that as much as I am interested in using a HTPC as a media organizing device. Is there any advantage in building a custom HTPC and loading all my files onto the device itself versus streaming them from my computer? I can see it being more convenient to have all my all files on my one desktop computer, but is the performance much different?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

It does not come with an internal wireless adapter. Can always buy a wireless dongle. The 330bd comes with a blu ray player and an internal IR receiver and remote which is really nice.

Well I solved one of my problems. They make a 330HT (with or without Blu-ray) which has a built in WLAN for 802.11 b/g/n wireless.

[Pastiche]

I checked out the videos, the XBMC forum and website and I will be definitely giving the program a try. The program looks like it will suit my needs pretty darn good. I think you have sold me on XBMC. I am still unsure about the hardware aspects of a HTPC though.

Well, I use an Asrock myself with XBMC and it works great. Boots up in about 30 seconds. Plays all media I throw at it and outputs pretty good sound. The other nice thing about it is that the power consumption is quite reasonable. 25 - 30W on average. It's pretty quiet. The new bios allows you set how much the fan blows. I have it on silent and rarely hear it.

It comes with a 320GB drive which wouldn't be enough to hold all my DVD's, music, pictures, TV shows etc. So I am assuming that I would host all the stuff on my main desktop computer and stream it to the ION-BD. Would this work smoothly? I am planning on buying a dual-band N router to handle the load and the distance from my computer to the HTPC isn't very far (but hard to a run a cable). Would this setup work? Or should I go with a custom setup like Mick has?

This is where you and I differ. I have all of my media stored on a 4TB windows home server box. The Acer Aspire Easystore. That server is connected to the htpc through a lan. So, I can't comment on how well wireless would perform with larger movies. Although, I'm sure you can run a search and see how wireless N performs streaming various mkv bitrates. It *should* be able to stream an 8gb h.264 mkv. But wireless is funky, depends on where you are etc. I would recommend using a lan cable. I'm not even using 1000mbps lan and the streaming is totally fine.

I see that he uses his to connect to his cable box. I'm not really interested in doing that as much as I am interested in using a HTPC as a media organizing device. Is there any advantage in building a custom HTPC and loading all my files onto the device itself versus streaming them from my computer? I can see it being more convenient to have all my all files on my one desktop computer, but is the performance much different?

I don't record tv either I just download it so I wont be able to comment.

The one thing I will caution you with is that XBMC live is great and all but it is still a project in development meaning that it can crash and things can go wrong. You'll have to scour the forums to find help and you'll have to sometimes go into the guts of the linux command line to make fixes. Also, if you want to add new skins or plugins you'll likely have to ftp to the unit and upload them. I guess what I'm saying is that it isn't idiot proof, you need to know how to use computers in the event that things go wrong.

[HeartsOfFire]

With the advent of Microsoft offering streaming or video downloading service to the 360 console in 1080p, feel a sense of curiosity and a desire to test something.

In another thread, I made mention of a program that makes DVD movie compression into a viable video file a breeze for AppleTV: Videora AppleTV converter. As any videophile will tell you, the AppleTV is only capable of HD video playback at 720p (for now). However, the XBox 360 is capable of 1080p high def projection, it seems. Videora also happens to have an XBox 360 video converter. I have downloaded it, and am going to test its ability today.

[HeartsOfFire]

So I've finished my experiment. In this experiment, I tested the ability of the Xbox 360 to output a video file in 1080p resolution. However, I must concede that my experiment may not be very accurate given the source I used.

The source, in this case, was a DVD of Ice Age.

Let it be known that my XBox 360 doubles as my DVD player when streaming from my PC or AppleTV is not an option. My Xbox 360 is connected to my media receiver via HDMI cable, so I get HD upscaling on DVDs. The Ice Age DVD does not look any different than an Ice Age Blu-Ray, with the exception of slower framerate (the usual 30 fps).

First, I converted Ice Age using Videora AppleTV converter. It took the ripped source file and converted it into MP4 using maximized quality conversion.

Source file size: 3.1 Gigabytes
Converted file size for AppleTV: 2.3 Gigabytes, presumably 720p HD

Visually, it was exactly the same as the DVD upscaled to HD. It looked superb.
Audibly, it retained the Dolby ProLogic II encoding and played in 5.1, but the bass was noticably quieter than the DVD source file version. This was remedied by increasing the gain on the Subwoofer

Next, I converted the same source file using Videora XBox 360 converter.

Converted file size for XBox 360: 2.8 gigabytes, presumably 1080p HD

A myriad of problems assaulted me.

First, Windows Media Player -- the software which streams video to your 360 -- wouldn't recognize the MP4 file. A simple google search told me that barebones Windows Media 11 doesn't support MP4, that you would have to download a 3rd party plugin in order for it to work. All 3rd party plugins from the Microsoft website cost money, so I said 'nay' to that option. Alternatively, there was also a suggestion to change the file extension from *.mp4 to *.avi. Naturally, Windows warned me this may corrupt the file, but I did it anyway. Windows Media Player accepted the new Avi file as valid and put it into the library, but naturally it wouldn't play the file. On the other hand, the XBox 360 would. But first...

The XBox 360 would not allow me to play the video without first downloading the optional media update, which allows it to play videos off an iPod as well as MPEG-4 videos. I downloaded the update, turned the 360 off and on again, and tried to play the video. Again, it wouldn't let me. Again, it said I needed to download the media update. Curious, I logged into Live, and then tried to play the video. It worked. I signed out of Live and tried to play the video from start again. It worked.

For giggles, I turned the 360 off, then on again, and tried to play the video. It didn't work. Said I had to log in to Live to download the media update. I logged in to Live, logged out, tried to play the video. It worked. I suspect that the media update will not run unless the user logs in to Live first, possibly to receive an 'Okay' code from Microsoft authorizing the box to play MP4 files.

Visually, again, no different. Though when pressing the 'info' button on my TV remote, it acknowledged the signal that it was getting was 1080p, compared to the signal it was getting from AppleTV at 720p

Audibly however, things went ugly. The Xbox 360 would only play the video in Stereo, so the surround speakers and subwoofer were not used at all.

I offer no conclusions aside from Videora XBox 360 converter is no better than Videora AppleTV converter, despite proclaiming being able to convert files in 1080p resolution. However, I acknowledge that because my source was a DVD and not an actual Blu-Ray, my conclusion may very well be flawed.

[Bill Bumface]

Get yourself a NAS that you dump all your media on, and a WDTV Live for your TV.

Having a NAS means you don't have to leave a computer on all the time. Also a great place to backup all your machines, and store any files that you might want to access on all computers in your house (if you have more than one).

I personally use an XBox 360 in my living room to stream from the NAS, and a WDTV Live for my bedroom. The WDTV was ~$130, uses less power, and comes up quicker than the xbox. It's also very small so I can hide it behind my wall mounted TV. It works with lots of wireless USB adapters.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Anyone with a Windows Home Server in their house, I just discovered with SageTV, there is a WHS add on. Free 2 week trial as well.

To simplify matters, SageTV also offers these units:

http://sagetv.com/hd_theater.html

Seems like a very nicely priced extender to go with the SageTV software.

As far as I can tell, you only need to connect your HD box to the WHS via firewire.

Could be a simply solution for those that already have the hardware. I have not had the chance to test this out myself but certainly intend to.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Anyone with a Windows Home Server in their house, I just discovered with SageTV, there is a WHS add on. Free 2 week trial as well.

To simplify matters, SageTV also offers these units:

http://sagetv.com/hd_theater.html

Seems like a very nicely priced extender to go with the SageTV software.

As far as I can tell, you only need to connect your HD box to the WHS via firewire.

Could be a simply solution for those that already have the hardware. I have not had the chance to test this out myself but certainly intend to.

I hadn't seen the price drop on those. Should also mention that the Sage HD Theatre works as an extender but is just as good standalone. Quite similar to the western digital boxes (with LAN).

[NoWorries]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

I've got a custom-built HTPC in an Antec Fusion 430 box.



Cost me about $400 to build (+$65 for Harmony remote). It's nearly completely silent. I hook up my Shaw HD box through firewire and use it as a HD-PVR. The only software I use on it is SageTV; it's the ultimate HTPC software as far as I'm concerned. Videos, TV, pictures, music, online video, etc. Cuts out all the commercials in recorded shows, compresses anything older than a week into h264 files, and simple enough that my girlfriend has no problems using it.

Hey Mick,

I was looking at building my own HTPC, but I keep coming up with a bit more than $400...do you mind my asking which components you used? Does your system play bluray no problem?

Thanks!