My DIY Media Center

[PaulDeen]

Hi Guys,

I have today spec'd and will be building my own PC based media center. I searched on here for some advice and while i found good bits of information i didnt find a post that answered all my questions so i decided i would post my story and report how the finished product comes out.

What i want is follows,

A all in one system to stream Divx, Xvid, HDXvid, HDDivx and H264 riped movies from a local and network based storage location. Play HDDVD's and BlueRay Discs and to be fully HDCP enabled for what copy protection is switched on in 2009 (DVD media)

After reading alot of posts about minimum specs i came up with the following spec for my build which i hope will prove upto the job of playing HDDVD and Blueray from a disc ( Playing Xvid and Divx is easy but to make sure you can play HD content from discs you need to spec a decent system to get smooth full frame rate playback)

The Spec

LG DVD , BlueRay , HDDVD player
Gigabyte S775 nForce 630I MATX DDR2 Audio Lan VGA
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 S775 2.2GHz 1mb Cache 800FSB
Corsair Memory 2GBKITT 800MHz DDR2 PC2-6400
Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 250GB S300 8MB
Trust Vista Remote Keyboard KB-2950
ANTEC DESKTOP FUSION BLACK 430


I will be installing Windows Media Center 2005 edition. The total build comes to about £550 which i guess isnt bad if it all works like it should when i put it together.

I will be building the system on Saturday and will post the early results on Sunday.

For those that have noticed the Motherboard has built in HDMI and Graphic GPU based on the Nvidia chipset designed to play HD content whilst not loading the processor too much, fingers crossed it does what it says on the box.

[Andy98765]

Processor and M/Board are the weak links.
Read this as it works.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Silent...iew-29784.html
and consider Vista Home premium 64bit OEM.

[PaulDeen]

I read the tomsHardware guide, the CPU i went for out strips the Athlon buy quite a bit, the side by side comparision can be seen here

But i agree regarding the mobo, inbuilt GPU saves on power, heat and noise from the fans but only if it works as good as a add on card. I guess i went this route because i can still lob one in later if needed but i was trying to do the whole thing on a budget.

I use Vista 64 on my PC but i when for the XP MCE to keep the processor and memory load down so that there is plenty left for the media. I find Vista a little bloaty but i may dual boot before i choose one.

[Andy98765]

Running Power DVD this is what it recommends http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/produ...e_112_ENU.html

[rhubarbe]

There's a whole section for Media Centre PCs elsewhere on this forum. This section is for network media players.

[PaulDeen]

Originally Posted by rhubarbe

There's a whole section for Media Centre PCs elsewhere on this forum. This section is for network media players.

I could not spot it before posting here, maybe a mod could move it.

[rhubarbe]

Our esteemed mod, autopilot, has been conspicuous by his absence recently. Mayhap he is indulged overzealously with Christmas Cheer.

[PaulDeen]

Well the parts are turning up already, i have to say i was blown away with the Antec case. It has to be one of the best built case ive ever seen , the metal used is thick and the edges finished very well. even empty with only the PSU if feels and looks like a good quality amp.

The PSU has all the right connectors for the mobo,gfx,fans and ATA drives. The whole case is top quality.

Here is some pics of the case

Front View

Its also fitted with Silicon feet to keep vibration and noise down

There are 2 low noise fans fitted to drag air over the gfx and cpu chips

Back view (the mobo comes with a panel to ensure the connectors line up)

Inside showing pillars to support mobo

The hard discs sits in silicon bays to keep noise and vibration down.

Finally the DVD bay again fitted with silicon gromits and power supply.


I will post some pictures of the build later, once i get going later today.

The BlueRay/HDDVD drive is comming from Scan and wont turn up until tomorrow so i will only be able to do half the build which is good cause that means i can spend more time getting the cables neat inside.

[SiKBoY]

Vista Home Premium 32 OEM would be more than good enough.

Also try Media Portal (the XBMC PC port)

Ive postponed my build for now due to moving house, but I had decided on the same case

[tony_yates]

Originally Posted by SiKBoY

Vista Home Premium 32 OEM would be more than good enough.

Also try Media Portal (the XBMC PC port)

Ive postponed my build for now due to moving house, but I had decided on the same case

Please keep us up to date with this, I'm very interested how you get on, as your spec is a little up on mine (e.g. HD\Bluray combo drive). I've been playing with mediaportal, but would love to know how you get on with your choice of media software.

One question: are you going to be using this with an AV receiver, if so which one?

[PaulDeen]

Ok next update,

The mobo etc when in nice and easy. All the right connectors was on the power supply so really it was a 10 min job with 2 hours spent running and rerunning the cables.

I didnt know but the fusion case allows you to wire it in a certain way that allows the IR on the front to have power all the time meaning you can boot the machine up from the remote. Handy for me bacause its going to be behind a door as i use a harmany 625 RF remote. To wire it this way was a little tricky and meant taking the LCD panel almost off to fit the wires.

I will be loading Vista 32 today as reading some of the post on here has changed my mind and i want to be able to use MCE from a remote rather than a mouse and keyboard.

Here is some pics of the inside






Some one i think asked the AV kit im hooking it upto.

Sony STG DG730 7:1 Amp
PD9700 42" Plasma Hitachi
HC4900 LCD Projector.

Will post again later once i have the OS up and running.

[Skuffen Huffen]

i have just ordered the dvd, blu-ray, hd combo drive...
looking forward to seeing how you get on with it....!

[PaulDeen]

Your post remined me to come back with my results.

All in all i very happy. I went with Vista 32bit in the end as the Media Cetner has a better gui for using a standad remote.

BlueRay, HDDVD and X264 MKV discs and files all play at 1080i without any stuttering or judder. CPU without PureVideo Hardware encoding is around 80% and drops to around 55% when enabled.

I had a real headache with Vista as the Hitachi TV ive got doesnt work too well with the standard Plug and Play monitor driver that gets loaded as standard with HDMI connections MCE was fine but the Vista desktop looked awful at 30hz.

I down loaded RivaTuner and created a inf monitor driver file just for my TV. Nvidia support was crap but i got there in the end.

I put some addons to MCE to allow playback of X264, TS DVD rips and ISO's and now all my films play in MCE no problem. I also loaded a youtube, google and apple trailers addon and now i dont miss my old XboxMC at all.

If i can help with anyones build drop me a line.

[Bonker99]

Originally Posted by PaulDeen

Well the parts are turning up already, i have to say i was blown away with the Antec case. It has to be one of the best built case ive ever seen , the metal used is thick and the edges finished very well. even empty with only the PSU if feels and looks like a good quality amp.

The PSU has all the right connectors for the mobo,gfx,fans and ATA drives. The whole case is top quality.


I will post some pictures of the build later, once i get going later today.

The BlueRay/HDDVD drive is comming from Scan and wont turn up until tomorrow so i will only be able to do half the build which is good cause that means i can spend more time getting the cables neat inside.

Ooh, that looks decent.

I'd rather stick hot needles in my eyes than have a 'PC' in my living room but I'm totally losing patience with trying to find a 'proper' media player/extender that can stream 1080p H.264 MKV stuff from my multi-TB ninja PC in another part of the house.

Perhaps I should consider such a beast as this? Depends on the cost though I guess and it'd need to be 'silent' ...

[PaulDeen]

Originally Posted by Bonker99

Ooh, that looks decent.

I'd rather stick hot needles in my eyes than have a 'PC' in my living room but I'm totally losing patience with trying to find a 'proper' media player/extender that can stream 1080p H.264 MKV stuff from my multi-TB ninja PC in another part of the house.

Perhaps I should consider such a beast as this? Depends on the cost though I guess and it'd need to be 'silent' ...

The fans when set on low are pretty good noise wise i have my unit in a cupboard using a RF remote so i have to listen close to hear it. The fan mounts are universal and if you want too there are some pretty good low to no noise fans pretty cheap on the market to make it even quieter shown here