Windows Media Center Box...

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:30 am

Anyone done some serious shopping for one of these guys?

Right now I'm looking at a few options, including a Dell, a Cyberpower one, and a Toshiba laptop.

With Vista around the corner, I'm a bit concerned I may be buying something that won't be worth jack in a year.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:30 am

Lemme find the one i'm drooling over

ps, i'm building it myself, but the case itself is the win~

http://www.nmediapc.com/htpc200.htm
and yeah, wait 9 months before you buy a new mobo

IMO right now tho, get the case, and slap in whatever you've got kicking around, cause it's going to take you easily 4 months to get the pc set up the way you want it

so start with proof of concept, and build out the system as you go

ie, you'll want a vid card with passive cooling, you'll only really need 1 drive if you've got a fileserver already
you'll want a capture card that does HARDWARE encoding (i can't stress that enough)

nice touches to add:
card reader
dvd burner
sound card with optical audio out (assumign you have a receiver, otherwise you can turn the PC into the receiver/amp but not cost effective)

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:33 am

How does this compare, Tik?

Also, I was reading Windows Media Center locks your content. How does that work, and are there workarounds? If I can't share it on my LAN, that'd definitely be a dealbuster for me and this, versus MythTV

Captain Insano · Post by **Captain Insano** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:37 am

If you build your own get a hauppauge PVR 150 or better for Media Center Edition. Onboard MPEG2 encoding and works flawlessly.

Most modern computers and CPU's already have the ability to run 64 bit operating systems, so anything you buy now will work well with Vista. Personally I don't intend to use Vista until service pack 1 is released. IMO Microsquash's releases aren't out of beta until the first service pack goes out the door.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:47 am

lyion wrote:How does this compare, Tik?
Also, I was reading Windows Media Center locks your content. How does that work, and are there workarounds? If I can't share it on my LAN, that'd definitely be a dealbuster for me and this, versus MythTV

I don't like that setup for a couple of reasons, but I need to ask a couple questions 1st

Do you intend to game with this machine?

Do you intend to hook it to an existing receiver?

Do you want to use it as just a Home Theatre PC?

Will you be recording TV with it?

ps, don't worry about using Media centre. just use regular XP, and google up Media Portal. it's an open source version of Media center, and works great (Nattil uses it too)

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:58 am

I'm not sure if I'll game with it. I have a dedicated gaming rig built, already. It's something I'm considering, though.

I plan to hook this up to my Cable Companys box into my LCD HDTV I'm getting next week.

This is going to be a Home Theatre PC, for recording things and sharing it on my LAN.

Hmm, checking out Media Portal. Thanks for the tip. I hadn't heard of that before.

Any TV Tuner suggestions? The Hauppage works with MythTV, and I may look at that. I'm reading up on Media Portal, and this looks pretty snazzy.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:14 pm

hauppage is pretty much the cream of the crop for the home encoders

You can spend big bucks on others if you're so inclined, but hauppage 150 is a great card

the biggest thing you want to look at is having as much stuff as possible passively cooled

also, VLC is fantastic for streaming content from a fileserver/pvr to other parts of the network (unicast, or multicast)

do you have a receiver/surround sound unit existing? if so, just get a sound card with spdif out (optical, coax, whatever)

if you're not gaming, I wouldn't worry about a mobo with SLI, or the 7.1 onboard

look for one that has spdif onboard

for a HTPC you really don't need a lot of processing power, especially if you've got a hardware encoder

currently I'm using a p3 933 all air cooled, and it's almost 100% silent (I can't hear it from 6 inches away with the glass door closed)

The biggest thing to look for(imo) is a mobo/case that will give you the ability to expand as time goes on
here's a really good article on what to look for in a HTPC

buddy of mine that I work with has also done some kickass mods for his HTPC (warren liick)

Post by **Lyion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:37 pm

I have my old Linux server, running 1.5 P4, 512M RDRAM, NVIDIA 5200, 2 80 Gig drives that also has XP on it that I'm going to convert into this to start so really all I need is the TV Tuner. I also need to nab a DVD R/RW but those seem to be pretty cheap.

Checking Newegg.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:45 pm

read the Den Guru article when you get the chance

part 1 is the case selection, part 2 is the mobo/cpu/ram

when I build my final HTPC, i'm going to use a pentium M processor I think

Darcler · Post by **Darcler** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:47 pm

Our Media Center box is either the "spare" computer under Gid's desk or our xbox. I'm not much help in this forum.