Making My Own Playback Unit

[homerpez]

OK... I suspect Baldrick will shove this to "Software Playing", but I'll leave this to his discression.

The reason for this post is I need some serious advice.

I want to make a "standalone" PC playback unit. I have two issues keeping me from doing this, and only two. Ultimately, I want to place my PC box very close to my TV, while still hooked up to a separate monitor, etc. for work. Then, just use a software player to playback DVD/SVCD/VCD's on my TV.

Here is what I need to do, and please be as specific as you can. This is using an AMD 1Ghz Athlon processor, 2 Hard Drives, 512MB RAM.


1) I NEED "DELL" QUIETNESS FROM THE PC.

Right now, my PC sounds like an airplane on takeoff, and it's deteriorating. I've narrowed down the problem to my power supply fan, and CPU fan. I can deal with my hard drive noises, they're not too loud.

What Power Supply or CPU fan would emit nearly NO noise? I'm looking for silence out of these. "Dell" kinda silence!


2) I NEED A TV-OUT CARD WHICH ACTUALLY CAN DO PROPER OVERSCAN.

Yes, I would LIKE the card to properly be adjusted to overscan just a little on each edge, so display is much like a regular DVD player. I have an ATI AIW Radeon currently, but my problem lies in the fact I can never get the screen to the right zoom/position to have it overscan properly. The result is a nice-looking picture, but one side will be bent one way or another (along the non-overscan edge).

Or, is this a TV issue? I just replaced the TV, but haven't tested the Computer's behaivior on this one...


Any and all help is appreciated in advance!

[Mirror_Image]

Info on makes/models/prices of low-noise components here:

http://www.directron.com/silence.html

You can also get a lot of hits if you type"silent pc" into your search engine.

When building a PC, it's easy to ignore the noise factor, because we naturally want all the performance we can get within our budget amount. 3DMark scores, framerates, etc. I feel it's worth spending a small portion of the system price budget to obtain quieter components. Power supplies (the internal PS fan) and cooling fans. Low-speed, high volume fans aren't as cheap as high speed fans, so they don't get used when trying to hit a price point.

[MITSUI_1]

Best solution: The Shuttle SV24 mini-cube PC.

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001173379

It has TV out.

It has S-Video Out.

It has tiny power supply fan.

It is a little puter. Add a "silver" DVD drive, and maybe a better soundcard solution in the PCI slot and its the ultimate home entertainment center computer system.

My buddy has one with the video out hooked to one of those automatic RF adaptor switches that only switch on when there's a video signal (sort of like the old Nintendos did). Then has that going into his INPUT 1 on his TV. He sets the 'puter to turn off the video signal (power management) after one minute. He switches the TV to INPUT 1, puts in a DivX disc with autoplay (which causes the display to switch on and the picture to display on the TV), and watches the movie.

He's also got a wireless keyboard and mouse for goofing off with the TV. It is super cool.

I think the Savage video chip on that box does overscan slightly (or can be set to do so).

(MITSUT_1 = jealous).

[Nelson37]

I have built three old pentium 200 or 233's with a Creative Labs DXR3 or a Hollywood Plus, using a CD drive for SVCD's. Works well, quiet, cheap, has s-video.

[Mirror_Image]

That Shuttle is a neat litttle box! Not for a bleeding-edge game system, but for building a websurf/email/wordproc/etc machine. It looks good, it's small, and can be pretty quiet (especially with a fanless big-heatsink middle-of-the-road CPU). You could get a Radeon AIW PCI card and a DVD drive and you'd have a nice toy.

Here are some reviews on the Shuttle SV24:

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q4/shuttle-sv24/index.x?pg=1

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1572

[homerpez]

All the talk about that box is interesting, but I already have my box

The page with the Enermax quiet power supplies and various CPU fans is real helpful, thanks... I think this is the way I'll go... I was hoping someone would just say "get these", but I guess there's satisfaction in good, hard research

Still not sure what to do on the video card, the AIW Radeon is a pretty good one that I'd hate to part with (for capturing especially), but that'd give me an excuse for a new box to install it into!

Looks like I'll have to dig deep on the "overscan" issue, but dig I shall. Thanks for all the info everyone! (More is welcome)

[Mirror_Image]

As far as case fans go, the Panasonic "Panaflo" 'liquid bearing' fans are the quietest case fans I have ever heard (or not heard).