New HTPC For HD Content

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Sat, 08/02/2008 - 6:31pm

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

New HTPC For HD Content

I currently have 2 HTPCs running well but neither can handle high definition and neither of them are coming with me to my new location. This is what I have currently:
HTPC 1: MSI K8NGM2-FID, AMD 64 3000+, WD 200gb HDD, 1gb ram, Antec NSK2400, PVR-500, HVR-1600, Logitech Harmony 659 Remote
HTPC 2: ASUS M2NPV-VM, AMD 64 3200+, WD 250gb HDD, 1gb ram, nVidia DualTV MCE, NSK2400, D-Link Wifi, Harmony 720 remote

I intend to run GB-PVR as my software as that is what I've been using and I like it.

Anyway, I figured out I need to order the components while I am stateside since and shipping is very expensive to Alaska.

Desired Capabilities
- Output HD quality TV
- Record 2+ streams (at least one of which is digital)
- Cut out commercials/encode to xvid
- Send out shows to an extender
- Optical audio out

Currently Have
- High-def LCD tv (LG)
- HVR-1600 (coming out of HTPC 1)

Largest issues:
- I have never had good luck with ATI video cards; everytime I get one I hate it for some reason or another.
- With the motherboards I'm looking at it looks like the 780G by ATI beats the GeForce 8200...

Components
Motherboards
- GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (newegg)
- GIGABYTE GA-M78SM-S2H AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (newegg)

Can anyone tell if either of these motherboards have H.264 hardware acceleration?

Case
I'm really sad that they don't make the NSK2400 anymore so I'm open to suggestions. Cool and quiet are paramount. Currently I'm thinking the:
- Antec Aluminum Veris Fusion Black 430 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case with IR receiver (newegg)

Ram
Just gonna pick up 4gb of RAM compatible with whichever motherboard that way I can dedicate 512mb to the videocard (or the max I can).

OS
I'm hoping to run WinXP Pro but I can run Vista Business (have a copy from school). Opinions?

Processor
I'm thinking that going with a 45W dual-core processor will cut down on the power bill; will I still have enough power to watch tv, do processing, etc? Normally processing is done overnight the biggest "issue" would be recording digital and streaming to an extender.
- AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor (newegg)
or the one that takes more power:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor (newegg)

Extender
Popcorn Hour A-100 (opinions anyone).

Hard Drives
Standard SATA, probably start with 500-750gb (all recorded shows will be made into HD xvid overnight).

Optical Drives
some sort of SATA drive most likely

Tuner
- HVR-1600 to start; then once I get to Alaska I'll either add another one (any issues with two 1600s?) or get an HD-PVR.

So, opinions, help, etc? Everything has changed since the last two... not to mention the ATI vs nvidia thing is really getting to me.

Thanks for any help you guys can give.

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 7:27pm

captain_video

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Joined: 6 Jul 2007

Make sure your dual core is running at 2GHz or better and you should be fine. Don't waste your money on 4GB of RAM. XP Pro will only be able to see 3GB at best. I think Vista 64-bit is the only OS that can use 4GB. Besides, anything over 2GB for an HTPC is overkill. I don't understand your rationale for converting HD to xvid. It sort of defeats the purpose of recording in HD when you realize that any conversion process to another format results in loss of quality.

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 7:44pm

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

The only reason I convert it is to not run out of hard drive space. I may leave it in full quality if I notice the picture (haven't actually had an HD tv before).

I may go down to 2gb of ram, that'll save a little.

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 8:04pm

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

something different between the two motherboards. the nvidia allows for multi-lpcm via the hdmi and the amd one only has 2-lpcm (stereo) via the hdmi.

Right now I don't have anything that reads hdmi audio so I guess that's a thing that plays in.

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 10:21pm

Crim

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Joined: 30 Sep 2006

They still make the NSK2400, they added a better PSU and now it's the 2480.

Sun, 08/03/2008 - 12:04am

autoboy

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Joined: 15 Mar 2007

Whats wrong with your current builds? They should be capable of handling HD video for anything except BluRay. I don't see BluRay on your list. If you want better video quality add a cheap video card. A ATI 3450 is $20-$30 and it works very well on one of my builds.

My HD - HTPCs are nothing but Athlon 3200+s and a 7300GS / 3450 and they work great for HD video.

If you want BluRay, you might consider an upgrade to a Dual Core and a ATI 3450 or Nvidia 8500GT.

Your new builds are nice, but I don't see much difference from your older builds. BTW, while 8 channel PCM is rarely supported on motherboards, AC3 and DTS are fully supported by all HDMI connections which should satisfy most people with stereo equipment not capable of handling 8 channel PCM. So you still get surround, just compressed surround which still sounds awesome.

Your concern here in this quote "Normally processing is done overnight the biggest "issue" would be recording digital and streaming to an extender." is unfounded. recording digital takes almost 0 cpu since the stream is already in a format like mpeg2 for OTA / QAM HD, or h.264 for the HD-PVR and all the computer has to do is write the stream to disk. Sending the stream to extenders is only processor intensive if you get a older extender that cannot handle your file formats. Most extenders today can do just about any video format naively, leaving the server with only network traffic load.

Also, you say you want to transcode everything. That is a waste of time. Harddrive space is cheap nowdays. Go get yourself a 1TB drive. You can find them for $120 now. That is much cheaper than buying a new computer just to have the power to transcode.

Sun, 08/03/2008 - 9:24am

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

autoboy,

thanks for your reply. HTPC 1 listed above was always glitchy when playing the unencrypted QAM stream so I assumed I just needed a better video card. The main issue is that I am giving that media pc to my brother for his birthday (since I moved and left it there anyway) so I need to make a new one regardless.

I have never used an extender before so I'm very glad for the insight.

Maybe I will go with a 1TB drive, I was gonna start with 500gb then get another one down the road.

Crim: thanks for the link to the case... I think I'm gonna go with the fusion just so I don't have to create another homemade IR sensor (although they have always worked amazingly).

After reading a ton of reviews it appears the ATI vs Nvidia thing is a lot of preference and the audio. Also ATI appears to continue to upgrade their XP drivers while Nvidia only really upgrades Vista drivers. Both motherboards have all the necessary hardware acceleration.

Sun, 08/03/2008 - 12:20pm

autoboy

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Joined: 15 Mar 2007

I think you will have good luck with either board. I think you will also be fine with the 2.5ghz 45W processor.

I don't have any experience with the popcorn hour extender. I use the SageTV HD-100 and it works beautifully. It sounds like they just added Netflix watch it now to it as well. A bummer since I just broke down and bought the Roku box when I learned I needed a gold account for Netflix on my Xbox360.

Sun, 08/03/2008 - 9:41pm

bbig119

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Joined: 21 Jan 2007

Ox,
As Autoboy has mentioned, have you tried or considered Sage? I've only heard good things about the HD-100 as a well integrated extender that will playback just about anything you throw at it. I see you didn't mention Bluray-- reason why not?

Have you considered building a dedicated HTPC server that you can toss in a closet-- out of sight somewhere? It can be big, loud, and hold plenty of hard drives if you need them, so that you can then use extenders or smaller client machines dedicated to just playback at your displays.

Sun, 08/03/2008 - 10:20pm

#10

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

I haven't tried Sage; I may be willing to give it a try. I just ended up going with GB-PVR and making some modifications for it.

I didn't mention Blu-ray because I have no blu-ray movies. The more I read though the more I'm thinking I have to prepare for it. Both of those motherboards can handle blu-ray.

I have long considered a server but at this time the WAF is not gonna tolerate "another stupid computer" so by making it a media pc similar to the ones she is used to I can create the new one.

Way off in the distance I do want to have a server or NAS full of HDD and rip all my DVDs so that I don't have to find the one I want, put it in, etc; just pick and play anywhere.

I will look a lot more into Sage because of their extender.

Here's an issue: the nvidia outputs more over HDMI (multi-lcpm) but Nvidia hasn’t implemented Dolby True HD or DTS-HD which ATI has. The receiver I will get will be taking the audio from the HDMI just to hopefully make my life easier.

Mon, 08/04/2008 - 1:24am

#11

autoboy

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Joined: 15 Mar 2007

The point of the server is that she won't ever see it tucked in the corner of your office, or closet, while the cheap, silent, and small extenders just do their work pretty much hassle free. The point of the server is not to just stick it next to the TV.

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 1:45am

#12

Matt

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Joined: 30 Sep 2006

OzTheory wrote:

Here's an issue: the nvidia outputs more over HDMI (multi-lcpm) but Nvidia hasn’t implemented Dolby True HD or DTS-HD which ATI has. The receiver I will get will be taking the audio from the HDMI just to hopefully make my life easier.

Both NVIDIA (GeForce 8200/8300 only) and ATI (Radeon HD 4850/70 only) supports multi-channel LPCM, no solution bitstreams TrueHD or DTS-HD yet. They are all decoded by the player into LPCM and then sent across HDMI.

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:57am

#13

Tim A

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Joined: 9 Oct 2006

Mobo:
I considered both of those motherboards but went with the AMD solution because both should have been able to do what I wanted under Windows but supposedly the AMD video drivers were going to have hardware video accelleration first under Linux. Right now, I haven't been able to use the closed source ones from AMD under Linux but that's not an issue for you. If I were to have both boards in front of me, I may decide to go with Nvidia. Not that I see much difference between them really but just from my history with them. Under Windows Vista Home Premium, everything has been working fine with the AMD board. The only issue I've had with this board is that my network connection dies when I unsuspend the board. I have to reconfigure the network properties for it to work again...

CPU:
I went with the 4850e. It can handle all of my OTA/QAM HD just fine (so could my 6150 really but I never used that one under Windows and only displayed at 1024x768 in the past - now it's 1080i under Windows). I considered an X2 5000 Black series but went with the 45W for energy savings.

RAM:
XP and Vista (32bit) can both use 4Gigs of RAM. That is way overkill though for most applications, especially an HTPC. I put 4GB in my system because I was going to dedicate some of it to Virtual Machines (which hasn't happened yet). For your setup, I'd just go with 2GB personally unless the price difference is small.

OS:
You mentioned XP Pro or Vista Business. I currently have mine running Vista, but that's just because I had an unused copy sitting around the house. I don't really have a preference between the two at this point because I've been hiding in Linux for quite a while. I will say that thus far everything has been running fine for me though.

Case:
I've got both the Fusion Black 430 and the NSK2400. They're both great. I like the fusion because of the integrated IR receiver and it's abiltiy to power up the system via remote. The LCD screen I could live without since I don't actually even have the drivers for it loaded at this point.

Good luck. I think you'll be happy with either solution.

HTPC addict

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 8:32pm

#14

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

thanks to everyone.

I am glad for your input lothar. The fusion case is on its way. I'll probably go with the nvidia motherboard just because I've had issues with ATI before and each time I went back to them I regretted it.

I'll post back in a month when I'm in the same place as the new htpc and everything is hopefully setup.

Wed, 08/06/2008 - 10:53am

#15

autoboy

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Joined: 15 Mar 2007

if you go with Nvidia you should run Vista. Nvidia has halted their work on Purevideo on XP.

Wed, 08/06/2008 - 11:40am

#16

OzTheory

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Joined: 2 Aug 2008

good to know... guess I'll have to learn vista (had to happen sooner or later)

Wed, 08/06/2008 - 12:04pm

#17

cgsheen

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Joined: 2 Oct 2006

OzTheory wrote:

good to know... guess I'll have to learn vista (had to happen sooner or later)

It's not as bad as the rumour mill would have you believe...

Dude... How old IS this FusionHDTV3 ???

Wed, 08/06/2008 - 3:16pm

#18

autoboy

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Joined: 15 Mar 2007

I'm perfectly happy with Vista. Mine is a little slow to boot but I think that is my slow laptop drive and 1.5 ghz processor that is the culprit. On my new desktop, it runs well and even supports all 4GB of ram I have.

New HTPC For HD Content

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