HTPC Project - My Build Story

Thanks mate.

Actually my HTPC is also a jack of all trades.

I will be doing video encoding/ ripping DVD's/ playing games etc and therefore it might worth me considering this option.

You have worried me about the noise level however, although thats the reason I chose the Samsungs as they are supposed to be very quiet.

Decisions decisions...........

Anybody running a similar set up??
 
Plasma Update:

Just popped into JL Sheffield with my undersales letter and MBNA vouchers, no problem. Ordered my Panasonic TH37-PX70 and PED stand, paid for it and getting delivered next Friday (could have had it as early as Tuesday, but can't due to work!)

Matched Empire Direct Leeds at £799, but had to match the £25 ED delivery too, so a final price of £824. Ordered my 800 quids worth of JL Vouchers on Sunday for £720, they arrived this morning by special delivery.

So it cost me £720 + the £25 delivery. Fantastic!! :clap:
 
OS Build Update:

Installed Vista Ultimate, fresh install, installed updates etc. Used CD that came with card and rebooted, then got the following message on restart from Catalyst.

"no ATI graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for your ATI hardware".

If I go into device manager, I see the Asus EAH2600 listed, but it has a Yellow Exclamation mark along with the message:

"Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problem. Click "check for solution" to send details about this device to microsoft and see if there is a solution available."

Clicked it, to no avail.

Tried uninstalling and installing the latest drivers from both ATI and Asus sites, same message.

Upgraded the motherboard bios to latest, played about in the BIOS, still no good.

God was i frustrated. So i whipped out the SATA drives, found an old PATA drive and installed MCE2005, installed the drivers on the supplied Asus CD and guess what....... worked first time!!!

At least its not the card thats faulty. Its either Vista or the drivers.

Grumble, Grumble..... no one said this was gonna be easy!! :eek:
 
I hope the raid 0 works for you might just be one of the many foibles with my mobo.
Oh & Cheers for the heads up on MBNA lifestyle -I think my wife will melt her card tonight!
 
Thanks for the tip about MBNA lifestyle. I might consider getting a new credit card. This would give me both interest free period as well as the ability to buy these discounted vouchers.
 
OS Build Update:

Installed Vista Ultimate, fresh install, installed updates etc. Used CD that came with card and rebooted, then got the following message on restart from Catalyst.

"no ATI graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for your ATI hardware".

If I go into device manager, I see the Asus EAH2600 listed, but it has a Yellow Exclamation mark along with the message:

"Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problem. Click "check for solution" to send details about this device to microsoft and see if there is a solution available."

Clicked it, to no avail.

Tried uninstalling and installing the latest drivers from both ATI and Asus sites, same message.

Upgraded the motherboard bios to latest, played about in the BIOS, still no good.

God was i frustrated. So i whipped out the SATA drives, found an old PATA drive and installed MCE2005, installed the drivers on the supplied Asus CD and guess what....... worked first time!!!

At least its not the card thats faulty. Its either Vista or the drivers.

Grumble, Grumble..... no one said this was gonna be easy!! :eek:


Sorted it, but what a pain in @rse!!

I'd built the machine complete with the 2600 in and installed vista straight away. So i tried uninstalling all the drivers, taking out the card and booting vista using the onboard graphics. That was fine. But curiously it said it had installed a driver for a Standard VGA Device!! So powered off again, re-installed the 2600Pro and started vista. Vista instantly recognised the card and worked fine. I've now installed 7.7 and it all appears to be well and i confidently put the top back on the HTPC! LOL.

For those interested, the Aero scores in Vista for my machine are as follows:

Processor: 4.9
Memory: 4.6
Graphics(aero): 5.4
Graphics(gaming): 4.9
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

So my memory is the weakest link and my hard disk(s) the best bit!! :eek:

Hopefully bring you some proper thoughts and performance figures soon about the 2600 card and the whole box in general!! :clap:
 
Software Update:

Vista installed and looking very nice with all its Aero bells and whistles.

Downloaded and installed ffdshow for all the codecs required
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/
ffdshow is a DS filter and VFW codec for many audio and video formats, such as DivX, Xvid and H.264. Over 60 bugs have been fixed, codecs have been updated, and support for a few new formats has been added in the tryouts. Windows Vista is now supported.

Downloaded and installed MediaPortal as my Media Centre Front End.
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

Also installed PowerDVD 7.3, but i think i will remove this tonight to see if the above 2 freebie downloads do everything i want.

Mediaportal looks EXACTLY what i'm looking for. You just points the "movies" directory at a folder on your hard disk and it just looks in there for compatiable files, you can browse the files, hit the button it plays them. So far its played 1080p wmv and 1080i mpeg2's that i've sourced from usenet and some dvds that i ripped as files using dvd decrypter.

I will try and get some performance stats posted for you with regard playback of the HD content too.

With MediaPortal able to handle DVD playback, internet radio, pictures, music straight away with little configuration, it seems like an amazing freebie package. On top of that you've then got all the available plug-ins that i've not even looked at yet.

Currently watching and testing all this stuff on my 17" LCD Monitor! :thumbsdow Can't wait to get the Plasma in and working a week today! :clap:
 
Major Recommendation:

If you're going to build a HTPC and are going to watch .mpg or .wmv HD rip files, make sure you get at least 2GB of RAM.

I was plyaing some clips last night and task manager was reporting around 1.2GB of mem used. (Vista, Mediaportal and ffdshow)

With the price of RAM so low it should be a no brainer really, but worth mentioning. :smashin:
 
For Marcus's benefit, here's a recap of the final hardware that i bought to put this HTPC together:

From Ebuyer
1 x Foxconn P4M9007MB-8RS2H Socket 775 P4M900 onboard VGA DDR2 mATX 126717 Not Allocated £27.82
1 x Intel E4400 Socket 775 2x2.00GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 127326 Not Allocated £73.52
1 x Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-12) Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty 98710 Not Allocated £58.71
1 x Antec Fusion V2 MATX MediaCenter Case - Aluminium Front Bezel with 430W PSU 129281 Not Allocated £93.60
1 x KeySonic 2.4Ghz Wireless Compact Keyboard with Integrated TouchPad 104608 Not Allocated £25.12
2 x Belkin PureAV Blue Series Optical Audio Cable 1.8m 72811 Not Allocated £16.56
1 x Ebuyer Extra Value HDMI To DVI-I Dual Link (Black) 1m 88444 Not Allocated £2.54

From Scan
2 x 17225 320G SAMSUNG SATA2 HDD HD321KJ £74.98
1 x 19297 256MB ASUS EAH2600 PRO HTDP £51.49

Which is £424.34 ex VAT and £498.60 including VAT

Only thing i didn't buy that i used is a SATA cable as the motherboard came with only one.
 
:clap:Cheers Mickwall

If ur even down Oxford way (bring a canoe!) or Im in sunny Sheff' I' will hunt you down and buy you a pint or two.

Right some shopping for bits me thinks.

Like the look of the case you have used, may be a duplicate of your machine in Oxford soon. I will follow your lead a post some pics.

Again, thanks mate you saved me bundles of time

Marcus
:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:
 
AH Mickwall, just before I order that pint (pints)..........

whats all this techno chat about Raid ???? I think I get the basiscs of it but whats the difference between that and my thinking of having a primary drive with OS and software in partition 1 and data (pics, music, vids etc) in partition 2 --- all with a seperate HDD that I will back up the data and settings to. ??

just d/ling the media software etc but how does this interface with email and tinternet access? Just say I was watching a dvd and teh enemy wants to spend more of my hard earned online shopping at Next, is it simple to switch between the two, does the media software have ' buttons' to select net access etc etc


also I plan on running XP as I am confortable with it and vista is still to young for my liking ( i remember the windows me saga and that being bug full and quickly replaced so wanna hang fire). I see you like vista, what build did u get and how much.

Really that's it I wont hog any mpre of your day.......well......


Cheers


Marcus

Oh yes, how did you get the wireless keyboard to ' connect ' is there wireless built in somewhere in your shopping list as I want a similar keyboard to you (surprise surprise) and also to connect to the wireless router that is presently installed elsewhere in the house
 
AH Mickwall, just before I order that pint (pints)..........

whats all this techno chat about Raid ???? I think I get the basiscs of it but whats the difference between that and my thinking of having a primary drive with OS and software in partition 1 and data (pics, music, vids etc) in partition 2 --- all with a seperate HDD that I will back up the data and settings to. ??

just d/ling the media software etc but how does this interface with email and tinternet access? Just say I was watching a dvd and teh enemy wants to spend more of my hard earned online shopping at Next, is it simple to switch between the two, does the media software have ' buttons' to select net access etc etc


also I plan on running XP as I am confortable with it and vista is still to young for my liking ( i remember the windows me saga and that being bug full and quickly replaced so wanna hang fire). I see you like vista, what build did u get and how much.

Really that's it I wont hog any mpre of your day.......well......


Cheers


Marcus

Oh yes, how did you get the wireless keyboard to ' connect ' is there wireless built in somewhere in your shopping list as I want a similar keyboard to you (surprise surprise) and also to connect to the wireless router that is presently installed elsewhere in the house

If you want one drive for backup purposes then forget about raid. just have them as 2 drives and 2 drive letters if that is what you are comfortable with.

basically with raid 0 you turn 2 physical disks into 1 logical drive letter in your OS as everything is spread across the 2 disks.

the keyboard comes with a little wireless usb dongle to connect to. i haven't used the keyboard yet as the htpc is still up in the computer room as the plasma doesn't come until next Friday. This keyboard DOES NOT connect to your wireless router, its not "wireless" in that sense, not wireless in the networking sense. Just wireless connection between the keyboard and PC.

If you want to connect the htpc to your wireless network you would either need a PCI wireless card (waste of a valuable PCI slot) or a usb wireless dongle (deffo a better option as you've got loads of usb on the motherboard)

i'm not sure mediaportal has internet and email access built in, you might have to minimize MP and go into IE and outlook etc. (haven't really looked at all that yet)

If you're happy with Win XP and confident with that, stick with it, Vista is "different" in many ways, it "looks" good/better, but more difficult to find things you are used to and Media Portal works fine with XP i believe.
 
cheers mate, how many usb's are there and where are they located on the finished item? cant see from your pics.

Are the usbs pre-wired in the case or will Ihave to solder them !!!!!!! Did you need to solder anything for the build?


as i will need to buy an os i may look at vista and compare the costs, just to future proof the beast.


Good luck with the panny - I have a TH42PH9 i got on a deal from the forums and it is stunning such a fantastic piece of kit. I have a sony KV32FQ86 that was a pile of dung (if ur ever bored search my posts on it !!!!!). I just wish Id gone panny ages ago it looks nice on the wall and has a fantastic picture quality. Is yours a panel or a tv - I went for the panel as I wanted an element of future proofing and didnt need/want the speakers on the side as i had the DAV-SC5 - basicall all the money Ispent went on picture quality and not gadgets I ll never use (teletext etc etc). I hope you enjpoy your panny as much as I do


Cheers


Marcus
 
No soldering whatsoever, all simple plugs. 4 on the back and 2 on the front if i recall.
 
sorry mate me again!!!!!!!!

currently my sky box and DAV SC5 are loacted away from the panny which is on the wall. there is a single (quite long) scart lead connecting the pannel. with the HTPC how many connections are there to the monitor/tv? from your posts and pics I guess there is just the one being the " 1 x Ebuyer Extra Value HDMI To DVI-I Dual Link (Black) 1m 88444 " . damn will also need to buy the HDMI board to go in the panny as i didnt get it with the initail purchase. at least its a simple plug in block under the panel so going panel is paying dividends already.

just googled your panny - looks nice mate : almost excited for ya.



Marcus
 
Hi Mickwall

Got all the bots as per your spec and started my 1st build !!!!!!!

Few questions if you can help :-

The manual states " 3 pin fan signal with blue and black wires to PWR Fan or PSU Fan " ----- I cant see the cable !!!

The MOBO has nothing connected to the System Fan header, its white and next to the blue SATA Connection ---- Should something be connected here ??

As last but to the SPDIF --- what do I connect here ???

Same again to the IR connector --- what connects here ???

Also I have GND and M/BOARD SW cables free at the mo, where on earth do these go !!!!!


Tried to look at your post pics but cant see any of these clear enough


Any chance of some pointers


Cheers


Marcus

PS - The Fusion in silver is stunning - good tip
 
HI all

I brought pretty much the same setup but a ASUS Pk-5vm mobo, because of the faster CPU

I got the 2600 PRO card the same as you, but when trying to play DVD's or HD movies off the HD there all green. Seems like a codec problem..

Do you have any problems with the video card?
 
Apologies for length of post..
----------------------------

Hi,:hiya:

I've been reading your HTPC thread and just wanted to say thanks first for the help you've given everyone and the many pics (which always speak a thousand words).
:clap::thumbsup::clap:



I've bought myself a nice home cinema system:-

In 76 proj
Yamaha 2700 av amp
Denon 1930 DVD
Kef 3005 speaker set
Grandview tab tensioned electric screen
Qunex hdmi cables
:smashin:

Dell dimension 4500 (or something around that)
upgraded slightly but generally just a games machine, with a little bit of inet browsing.

and I've not yet decided what I'm going to do for TV/Sat/Freeview, and obviously I'm going to wana use my pc on my new system.



The obvious options are -
1. sky (probably hd)
2. decent dvd recorder with dual tuners
3. streaming from inet (but I can't get more than 1mb inet conn)
4. HTPC (getting more interested the more I read about it)


This is where you and the others on AVF come in...


I just wanted to know how your HTPC is going now youve been using it for a bit, and to take advantage of any research you'd done before building.

1. Did you find out about HD-dvd/BR pc drives? are they coming out any time soon? (to read, burn, generally fondle and play with the HD format disks)

2. As everyone does ive had plenty of spam about software claiming to work with the hd formats, and some even claiming to rip of the protection for rippage... have you any info on this? any reccomendations?

3. Is it worth trying to salvage parts from my current dimension? I mean, obviously the HDD but apart from that...?

4. Tips or ideas on connection to my system, I'm thinking just putting the HDMI into one of the 3 in my amp, and the sound in through optical (not sure)???

5. I'm assuming because of the case your htpc is powered on using the keyboard, or a remote..

6. If you were given another 100quid where do you think it would be best spent?


Can't think of anything else right now...

For all who read this post, thanks! ;D


John
 
All,

Apologies for going quiet on the thread.

I've got the HTPC up and running (to a fashion), the Plasma has arrived and i've got it all hooked up to the surround kit.

There are plenty of niggles to report and pictures etc to post. I'm hoping to get back on the thread again over the weekend, so please bear with me, work has been manic!!! :thumbsdow
 
Well done Mick - i know what it s like....finally got mine working (in a fashion) so will post some pics asap.

My BIG BIG issue is that I can not get the sound to work - im using spdif from the mobo to my davsc5 yet nowt - if i watch tv through the card (what a battle that was) I get the sound but it doesnt sound too clever.

If i play a pc stored music or video file its silent!!!

ANy tips guys


Marcus
 
Right, here goes, i've been jotting some notes as i've gone along and took some pics too. So here's the latest installment.

Firstly the pics. Apologies for the quality of some of the Plasma shots. Its just not very photogenic. The flash comes back off the screen something terrible, the last 3 i took tonight, look poor in half-light!!

Anyway, here goes.


The Old Sony in place with the SKY+ box and DAV SC5 Surround.

1 - Old Sony.JPG



Wow - An empty space! It needed a bit of clean back there!! :(

2 - Empty Space.JPG



The Stil Stand in Place, all shiny and new!

3 - Stand in Place.JPG



Good job I did all the measuring on the graph paper as it only just fits!

4 - Stand Just Fits.jpg



Waiting for the Plasma to Arrive!! Surround Amp, SKY and HTPC in place!

5 - Amp SKY HTPC.JPG



Its Here! One Panasonic TH37-PX70 Plasma!

6 - Its Here.JPG



Tuner Setup

7 - Tuner setup.JPG



Up and Running on the Net!

8 - On The Net.JPG



We don't like Cricket, We Love it!! (thru SKY-HD)

9 - Cricket.JPG



It will always be the Charity Shield to me!! (not community!)

10 - Footy.JPG



How it looks tonight

11 - Setup Now.JPG



The VFD isn't reliable to be honest!

12 - Crap VFD.JPG



Star Wars in HD playing thru MediaPortal.

13 - Star Wars.JPG



Related text in next post!!
 
Here's what i've jotted down since install.

Fusion Case.
Great inside, easy to put together, would recommend.
Pretty quiet, can obviously hear it though if you stick your ear next to it.
I decided to unplug the 2 internal fans to make the box even quieter as the system isn't under load and the temps look ok without those fans and the noise obviously benefits too. :clap:

The VFD is pretty crap for me. The HTPC requires the power lead taking out of the back to reset the damn thing quite often. Because after a while it just appears to "crash". (see pic in previous post).

The power light on the front is WAY too bright when watching films at night. I must disconnect that next time i open up the box.


Software

On top of Vista i installed the following.

FFDSHOW (Video and Audio Codec Pack)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/

and

MediaPortal (Media Centre Front End)
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/download.html

Within minutes i was able to play all sorts of music and video files i had. Video files being HD .mpg and .wmv etc (x264)

At no point has the ASUS/ATI 2600 Pro graphics card gone above 50% processing and the C2D CPU at around 40% when playing all types of files.

I have also ripped some SD DVD's to the hard disk (VIDEO_TS etc) and they look great thru MediaPortal and i setup the upscaling as per the instructions here: http://www.projecthtpc.co.uk/software3.html

Keyboard

The Viewsonic wireless keyboard is great. Really light and responsive. The USB dongle is plugged in round the back of the Fusion and i have no probs from 8ft. One thing to watch is that when using the touchpad that you don't stray to the right hand side and catch the "slider" bar.... that can take some getting used to.


Sound

Worked straight from the Vista install. Plugged the Toslink cable in the back of the motherboard and the other end into the DAV-SC5. Switched to Video 2 and no probs, sounds great. I upgraded to the latest Realtek drivers, but made no real difference. http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

You do have to play about in MediaPortal with the audio options to make sure you are outputting to the right device, but its pretty straightforward.


Vista

I am contemplating scapping Vista and using MCE2005 as i'm having a few problems.

Powerstrip is not doing what i am wanting it to do and from the powerstrip forum i think it might be Vista related.

Plus, vista blocking powerstrip and Riva Tuner on startup is annoying. Plus, all the "are you sure you want to run this?" messages.

I'm not using any of Vistas features, so i might rebuild the box over the weekend to MCE2005.

The Wireless dongle i bought isn't much use either, the config utility won't work under vista and i had all sorts of trouble installing and getting it to work in the first place.

With the wireless dongle playing up i've not used the "my music" part of MediaPortal much as the connection is so unreliable. I have plans to feed an eithernet cable down the living room shortly, so that will sort all network access problems out! :clap:

Conclusion so far

MediaPortal and FFDSHOW appear to do everything i want them to do with regards playing ripped and downloaded video files of ALL types. Plus you can hook it upto your pictures collection as well as point it at your Itunes directory on another machine on your network.

The hardware in my HTPC is more than upto the job. So you could use lesser components in your build (ie slower CPU). But i wouldn't scrimp on memory is you're using Vista, its a bit of a beast!

Vista is very fussy about programs, internet connections, hardware and software. If you don't need the Vista shiny bells and whistles, then i think MCE should do you fine. I'll have more of an idea after the weekend if i decide to rebuild.

Hope that gives you some idea of the problems etc involved.
 

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