1st time HTPC - No drives in the case.

[Bronx]

First of all, what a great community this is.

Here is my shot at my first HTPC.

Specs:
Case: Ultra Microfly Case with Imon Ultra Bay
(Still working on the remote) I think I found a plug-in for it.

MediaPortal 1.0 RC2

Base processor
Pentium4 630 (P) HT 3.0 GHz:
800 MHz front side bus
Socket 775
Chip set
Intel 915GV
Motherboard
Manufacturer: Asus
Motherboard Name: PTGD-LA
HP/Compaq motherboard name: Goldfish3-GL8E
Memory Installed 2 GB (4 x 512)
Hard drive
200 GB SATA
500 GB SATA (For media)
Video graphics
Integrated with up to 128 MB allocated video memory
Sound/audio
Integrated High Definition audio
Realtek ALC 880 chipset
8-channels for Full Dolby 5.1/6.1/7.1 surround sound support with Dolby Pro Logic IIx
Wireless Network Connection (G)
Video Card Radeon 9200 or 9600 (cant remember at the moment )
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Your advise on how to improve this machine would be great.

I don't have the optical drives connected. Is there a way that I could built my own 2 bay enclosure?

Thanks



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[minidv2dvd]

you can use usb drive enclosures for the optical drives and plug them in as needed.

i'm not sure it's up to spec for a HiDef machine but you can probably play up to DVD spec with it.

[FulciLives]

The main problem with that system is that HD video files like 720p or 1080i/p will probably NOT play smoothly.

This is based on the fact that most of that stuff is encoded in H.264 which requires a lot of CPU muscle to be decoded for playback. You should be fine with H.264 if it is standard DVD resolution like 720x480 or 720x576 but you can forget HD resolutions.

However you may find that HD resolution files will play back A-OK if you re-encode them to DivX or XviD.

Case in point: I have an Intel P4 540 3.2Ghz processor (Prescott) and I cannot smoothly play back even 720p H.264 files little alone 1080p H.264 files. That is OK for me as I have a Sony PS3 that can play such files (I either stream to the PS3 or copy to a DVD disc as a DATA DISC and play that back on the PS3). However as a test I took a 720p file with a resolution of 1280x720 and re-encoded it using XviD and bear in mind I left the video at 1280x720 (I did not resize down) and the XviD file did indeed play back smoothly on my computer even though the original H.264 encoded version would not play back smoothly. Again this is due to the fact that XviD decoding is not as CPU intensive as H.264 decoding. I would expect DivX to work the same as XviD in this regard. In fact DivX might even decode better than XviD based on things I've read.

I mention this as a "work around" for you when it comes to playing back HD video files because smooth playback of HD video files using H.264 would most likely require a whole new system (well at least the CPU and motherboard and probably RAM).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I used the program XVID4PSP to do the MKV (with 720p H.264 video and 5.1 448kbps AC-3 audio) to AVI (with 720p XviD video and the same 5.1 448kbps AC-3 audio) conversion. I used the "XviD Q2.0 Extreme" video encoding option. Bear in mind this creates a file larger than the H.264 video file yet it does vastly minimize any quality loss due to re-encoding.

Based on my CPU usage while playing back this 720p XviD I have a feeling that a 1080p file would have to be resized to 720p for smooth playback on my computer. Since your computer is around the same speed as mine ... well there you go.

[Bronx]

Thanks FulciLives,

I use Fairuse wizard and XVID4PSP to encode my videos. I only use xvid and divx for my videos. 720p XviD looks good enough to me. I am slowly saving up to build another HTPC so that it can handle 720p or 1080p (no rush).

One question,

What usb digital tv tuner would you recommend?

[redwudz]

That motherboard appears to have 4 SATA connections. You could get a external e-SATA enclosure if you wanted better performance than USB for your external drives. All you would need is a e-SATA PCI slot adapter with cable to plug into your MB.

For a USB tuner, what do you want to receive? OTA HDTV or just SD from a cable system or similar?

[Bronx]

I would like to receive OTA HD.

[redwudz]

If you haven't done this, I would check with AntennaWeb to see what HDTV stations are available at your location and how strong the stations are. This somewhat determines which tuner may work best and definitely determines your antenna needs. http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Unfortunately, my local cable setup has no HDTV stations available; Maybe in the future.

I have three OTA HD tuners at present, a older non-functioning DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV PCI tuner, which was great till I broke it. A MyHD MDP-130 HDTV PCI card that I use mostly for SD cable reception. And my newest one, a HDHomeRun LAN dual tuner that I can share with all my computers on the LAN. They all work well, but even in this area with 23 HDTV stations fairly near, I need a better antenna.

I'm really not that familiar with the USB HDTV devices. One place to look to is NewEgg, as they have a fair selection. They are most commonly used on laptops. I would treat the 'reviews' there with a bit of skepticism, though there is some good information there. If you also had SD cable available, then it gets a bit more complicated as you would likely need a dual tuner to get both formats.

[FulciLives]

My understanding is that the MyHD MDP-130 was made for slower computers in that it has some sort of hardware encoding/decoding built-in so something like that may be essentially with such a slow processor.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[MysticE]

One thing folks should realize that you don't have to spend much money to get a fine running rig.

I have this all in one MOBO (HDMI, HD audio):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128090

With this cpu (actually I have the Black Edition):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103211

Plays any of the HD/x264 files floating around beautifully.

[redwudz]

MysticE, that's the same MB I use in my front room HTPC. I'm using a early model 9500 Phenom. Audio out is coaxial to my surround amp and VGA video goes to a 22" LCD monitor, and HDMI to a Sony projector and a 12' screen. Works very well with HD.

FulciLives, yes, the MDP-130 has a hardware decoder. The card works well, though with Vista the remote doesn't.

My other HTPC with a mini-ITX motherboard only has room for one PCI card and I use that for a upgrade video card. If I needed TV, I would have to use a USB input. But that's one reason I got the HDHomeRun LAN tuner. The mini-ITX is really not capable of processing HD or H.264, but I use it with DVDs and videos from my server. The projector for it is 800 X 600, so HD is not really a option.

[Bronx]

My PC is actually an HP a1120n. My next upgrade (maybe by next spring) I will upgrade the motherboard and other components.