HTPC Question/Advice

[Treebeard]

Thinking about building a HTPC. I dont plan on using as a tv tuner/recorder. I want it for watching videos/ playing music collection, surfing internet and playing occasional game such as tiger woods golf.

I do not own a HDTV so I would be connecting this to a standard TV (USA).

My biggest question is whether this is worth time/money since I dont have an HDTV? anybody have experience with HTPC's. I've read tons but want opinions of people who have or seen results of what I am looking at.

Thanks all.

[ROF]

A home theater system is becoming quite common today. I built one two years ago and like most PCs I've been adding different items to it ever since. You'll want make sure you pick up at least two hard drives. a relatively small one(40-80GB) for all software installation and another uch larger one for recording and storage. You may even want to acquire third for music and misc. storage. Another consideration is the form factor. Remember this isn't a tower that sits below and nobody notices. It's going to be the center of your entertainment universe. The look is important but they way it's designed is much more important. You might initially want to consider a solitary DVD drive and maybe adding a BD/HD drive in the future. You might also depending on your usage want to have dual optical drives today. When deciding on your case you should consider not only today but tomorrow as well.

Have you thought about the different components you'd like to use? How about a case for it all? Do you currently own a home theater system?

[Treebeard]

I know how to build computers, looked at tons of options, cases, cards, etc....

My main concern is display on the TV since its a standard TV. Is this gonna be worth it if I dont have an HDTV?

[ROF]

The display will be no different then what you are experiencing today. I don't really understand your concern? If you are in need of a DVR with DVD capability, Music storage, and home film storage, then a HTPC would be a perfect fit for you. If having this all in one box is important then again I'd consider building one. In most cases, it's people with large screen LCDs or Plasmas that have HTPCs but it's not uncommon to find these in homes where there are still CRTs.

[Treebeard]

well I have not personally seen the quality of a PC connected to standard TV. I know that the resolution will be maxed at 800x600 b/c its not HDTV. Im just looking for opinions on how it looks, thats all really. I have a flat CRT 27" TV. How will games/movies look, quality wise?

[reboot]

An HTPC without a tuner and PVR software is a waste of space.

[ROF]

On such a small CRT Television you shouldn't have a problem enjoying the experience of an HTPC. If you currently own a VC with TV Out you may want to try it with your current PC or perhaps someone will chime in who has connected one to a CRT before or plays games via the TV Out on their CRT television.

[Treebeard]

I've thought about lugging my pc to connect to my TV, just been to lazy to drag the big beast through the house Thanks for your opinion, anybody else have first hand experience?

[ROF]

Visual preference can only truely be decided by the individual. It might be worth the time to try this. You'd only need the tower, mouse, and keyboard to see if the display is worth it.

[Treebeard]

You'd only need the tower, mouse, and keyboard to see if the display is worth it.

Yes, but I have a full SOHO server case, very large and heavy. I probably will do it before committing to spending money on a HTPC

[Treebeard]

An HTPC without a tuner and PVR software is a waste of space.

Well that is opinion. I watch DVD's all the time, not cable or satellite. I love to have music on all the time, but play it from my PC's 5.1 system, would like the music in the the room w/ tv. so not a waste IMO. and I can add tuner/pvr later if need be

[ROF]

You are 100% correct on the usefulness of PVR Software and Tv Tuners. I've never seen an HTPC without one but I'm sure if those functions were unnecessary for your particular experience you wouldn't actually need one. At $20 for TV Tuning/PVR, I'd recommend adding this functionality anyways. You may find it is more useful than you'd imagine.

[rallynavvie]

If you're using it to play DVDs the output quality to TV will be comparable to what you'd get from a DVD player. Watching videos you downloaded or otherwise obtained will depend on the quality when encoded. I've noticed that older DivX files seem to suffer from more noticeable artifacting when output to TV than newer version. If it's a direct DVD rip it should look just like it would from a DVD player. I ripped my favorite DVDs to a storage array to playback in Windows MCE at my cabin (so I don't forget a movie I'd like to see back at home). The plugin that plays the ISO file basically uses Daemon to mount the DVD image so it's basically like having a huge DVD changer that doesn't have lag while it searches for the correct disc. It even shows you IMDB information on each title.

Granted it is also handy to have the PVR to double its usefulness, but having that sort of access to so many different videos is very worthwile IMO.

[greymalkin]

IF you are wanting to use it specifically for music/movies then then the pvr software usually has large/smooth fonts so that it will look good even on a SD TV. Trying to use it for regular computer work will not work well because the usual small text meant for PC monitors will be blurry, but for dedicated PVR you should have no problem using it with your tv. make sure you use s-video to connect to your tv when you do. Games, TV, and music will be fine.

You might not think much of it now, but if you were to buy a $50 tv tuner and get one of the good free packages to play with ( like gb-pvr) you might find that you really like having the flexibility of recording and watching what you want when you want to. You can have your regular cable running into the tv for normal viewing and then the HTPC connected via s-video with a seperate cable connection running to it for recording/playback of media.

[Treebeard]

I decided to haul my case over to the tv and do some tests on my standard tv. worked great for movies/music. Games are a no go b/c the resolution is too small the computer wont run them. So I have decided I dont want an HTPC unless I can get a tv that is at least HD ready so my pc will have more real estate on screen.

[ROF]

Most people do not consider a home theater without a really nice display unit to show it off anyways. You can take solace in knowing that the longer you wait the cheaper the theater parts will be. Right now RAM and Hard drives are quite expensive. I've told most people looking today to wait until after the new year to build their new machine.

[greymalkin]

you can get a barebone bundle at tigerdirect right now for 139 after rebates. It's a microATX case(black) a motherboard with a CeleronD 2.93 ghz processor and 512mb DDR memory!

I know you might turn your nose up at celeron's but they are alot better than they used to be and for what you are doing it might just fit the bill.

[Treebeard]

This has nothing to do w/ computer hardware. Im talking about TV's. the computer to standard TV did not satisfy what i wanted. So gonna wait to build an htpc till I have an HDTV.

[ROF]

A Home Theater PC is a computer. It's just not in the office.

[greymalkin]

yeah man...time to switch to decaf!

[reboot]

Games are a no go b/c the resolution is too small

Video game output to a TV is a matter of setting up your TV out functions of the video card, nothing to do with a standard tV.
I play Doom 3 on my TV, with a GF Ti-4400 at fullscreen.

[Treebeard]

Games are a no go b/c the resolution is too small

Video game output to a TV is a matter of setting up your TV out functions of the video card, nothing to do with a standard tV.
I play Doom 3 on my TV, with a GF Ti-4400 at fullscreen.

Then how have you set yours up? And how can you even play that game with that old of a card, your missing all the eye candy

[rallynavvie]

Yuck, how can you even play Doom 3 at 800x600 res

You really do need those 1920 res HDTVs to really get a decent picture out of an HTPC when gaming. As for home theater stuff a regular set is fine if it was fine for you when watching a DVD from a set-top player. I don't have an HDTV yet but I took my HTPC over to a friend's place to sell him on the idea of an HTPC for his new 16:9 HD set. It was pretty impressive. I still enjoy my 1280 res LCD projector for movies though. If I want to watch TV in the daytime I'll just do it on a plain old TV set. When it comes to watching movies I wait until dark and use the projector to get a good picture on a 6' tall piece of wall dedicated to my projector. It does better than a TV set but not quite as good as an HDTV.

[reboot]

Games are a no go b/c the resolution is too small

Video game output to a TV is a matter of setting up your TV out functions of the video card, nothing to do with a standard tV.
I play Doom 3 on my TV, with a GF Ti-4400 at fullscreen.

Then how have you set yours up? And how can you even play that game with that old of a card, your missing all the eye candy

I have the card set to dual-mode display, TV resolution at 1024x768.
Doom 3 sucks on the TV, no matter what video card you use, the TV just can't output the resolution needed to really see the eye candy anyhow.
Even with my 6600GT in my other system, the image quality is not noticably better, and this is the TV's fault, not the video card.

[Treebeard]

Then why are you trying to tell me that playing games on standard tv works good then previously, your not making sense.

[reboot]

I wasn't the one that said it works good. I didn't even say it was excellent, or recommended it really. I just said it could be done.
If you're willing to give up the resolution/detail, in order to get large size, then playing through a PVR to a large TV works. If you want the detail, forget playing on a TV. Even a $5000 HDTV doesn't have the detail of a good CRT monitor.
If you want to play games, play them on a big standard CRT monitor.
If you want a PVR, then anything will do.