New HTPC review

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freakyhair

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2002
Messages
475
Hi all,

I'm pretty close to setting up my HTPC, and below are the parts I'm thinking of using. The last link on this post also leads to a schematic of how I'm planning my layout. This setup needs to be easy enough for my wife to use. Some things I'm worried about:
-Is HD Homerun the best choice here?
-I already own Windows XP Pro...Is Sage TV/MC the best option for this?
-I won't have cable in about 3 months, so I will want to record HD OTA
-Does the Harmony 880 work well with Sage? What other hardware do I need to purchase?
-can I game (TF2) on the monitor while someone records something?
-can I game on the monitor while someone is watching a recording?

Any other advice is greatly appreciated!!!!!! Thanks!

HTPC parts:
-SILVERSTONE SST-SG01-B Black Aluminum MicroATX Desktop Computer Case - OEMhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163050&Tpk=SILVERSTONE%2bSST-SG01-B
-GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128090&Tpk=GIGABYTE%2bGA-MA78GM-S2H%2bAM2%252b%252fAM2%2bAMD%2b780G%2bHDMI%2bMicr
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Brisbane 2.9GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103234&Tpk=AMD%2bAthlon%2b64%2bX2%2b5600%252b%2bBrisbane%2b2.9GHz%2b2%2bx%2b512KB%2bL
-2 GB RAM
-HD Homerun http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815327005&Tpk=hd%2bhome%2brun
-Blu-Ray
-Harmony 880 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16880100712&Tpk=harmony%2b880




SCHEMATIC HERE (sorry, I write like a 5-y-o!):
http://picasaweb.google.com/samandmelia/Other/photo#5213444068784933490
 
first thing:

CPU: the X2 5000+ BE with an unlocked multiplier (most hit 3.0ghz@ stock vcore and on stock cooling, however the BE does not come with a HSF) is cheaper if you already own a 939 or AM2 HSF.....

I will edit this post as i review the rest of your post ;)


to use the harmony you need an IR reciever. the MCE one does well with MCE or VMC.

but XP pro and Sagetv I do not have experience to tell you if the MCE reciver will work correctly. I used the MCE IR reciever in XP but I had to manually map all the buttons first, PITA.

there is the USB-UIRT,which i know will work
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/usbuirt-ir-blaster/cName/remote-controls


you will be able to game with no issues durring a recording.
You might be able to game while someone is accessing Live or Recorded TV. that will depend on if the buffer or recording drive is the same as the OS drive( separate will be better) how much RAM the game and windows are using (if you have to pagefile it will jack up your gaming) and also the network connection. HDTV on 100Mbps and gaming will get choppy, HDTV and gaming on gigabit should be fine, use you QoS settings in your router to priorities your games to internet access to help out...


thats all i have to contribute ATM


GL
 
Adidas4275 said:
CPU: the X2 5000+ BE with an unlocked multiplier (most hit 3.0ghz@ stock vcore and on stock cooling, however the BE does not come with a HSF) is cheaper if you already own a 939 or AM2 HSF.....
Click to expand...

Good Suggestion on this. I currently have all Intel stuff, so I would need to purchase a HS.



Adidas4275 said:
to use the harmony you need an IR reciever. the MCE one does well with MCE or VMC.

but XP pro and Sagetv I do not have experience to tell you if the MCE reciver will work correctly. I used the MCE IR reciever in XP but I had to manually map all the buttons first, PITA.

there is the USB-UIRT,which i know will work
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/usbuirt-ir-blaster/cName/remote-controls
Click to expand...

Are you recommending me towards MCE? I really have no allegiance. I see MCE outnumbers Sage by more than 2:1 on the poll. Sage just seemed less expensive. Any difference in recording HD?

How about watching stuff on a remote laptop? (Has Vista Home Premium on it.)

Adidas4275 said:
you will be able to game with no issues durring a recording.
You might be able to game while someone is accessing Live or Recorded TV. that will depend on if the buffer or recording drive is the same as the OS drive( separate will be better) how much RAM the game and windows are using (if you have to pagefile it will jack up your gaming) and also the network connection. HDTV on 100Mbps and gaming will get choppy, HDTV and gaming on gigabit should be fine, use you QoS settings in your router to priorities your games to internet access to help out...
Click to expand...

Maybe I will upgrade my router as well if I find it does not work well enough. I'll save that for later.

Thank you!
 
Do you already have a power supply? If not you are going to need to get one. If you are not completely set on the silverstone case take a look at the Antec NSK2480. Its technically a desktop computer but many people use it as a HTPC case. It also come with an Antec EarthWatts 380watt psu.
 
just wanted to put my 2 cents in about using the logitech harmony remote for the htpc.

i have a harmony one remote so it may not be the same for the 880.

i chose to use the ms mce remote for the htpc because i found the programmable touchscreen buttons to be a PITA because of the placement at the top. having navigation buttons all within thumbs reach to me is necessary. i just found it much more awkward to use the touchscreen buttons than use hte mce remote. that being said i use the harmoney one for everything else (tv, dvd,receiver,cble box) and love it.
 
Careful with that silverstone case, it was too tall to fit in any of my tv stands, reverted over to an antec fusion instead.
 
Just wanted to say that I am building a HTPC with the same Mobo, except that I got mine from zipzoomfly..com it's cheaper even with 2 day shipping.

Not only that, it came as revision 1.1. I saw the sticker next to the UPC say rev 1.1 but didn't believe it until I saw it on the actual Mobo.

I can take a picture, just let me charge my camera
 
Jonathan said:
Just wanted to say that I am building a HTPC with the same Mobo, except that I got mine from zipzoomfly..com it's cheaper even with 2 day shipping.

Not only that, it came as revision 1.1. I saw the sticker next to the UPC say rev 1.1 but didn't believe it until I saw it on the actual Mobo.

I can take a picture, just let me charge my camera
Click to expand...

When did you get your motherboard. Can you take some pictures of the northbridge heatsink?

edit: I guess you are feis over at avsforum? Just saw your post there.
 
I'm using a Harmony 520 (older version of the 550) on an XP Pro system running Sage TV. I bought the MS Media Center remote to get the IR receiver.

Drivers were installed as soon as I plugged it in (it grabbed them from windows update) and I just had to select "MS Media Center remote" from a config menu in Sage. Nothing else was required to make it work with the MCE remote and getting the Harmony to control it was a snap. The whole process took maybe five minutes.

I can't recommend SageTV enough. It's a fantastic program and the user friendliness of it is just through the roof. I've yet to see anyone - even the "technologically impaired" - who couldn't navigate the menus and make it work.

Afaik the main difference in recording between Sage and MCE is the format used for recording. Analog recordings in Sage are done in MPEG2 format by default. I think the Windows Media Center used WMV for video. I don't know how MCE handles ATSC broadcasts but Sage just dumps the broadcast MPEG2 stream to the hard drive. I'd hope MCE does the same. I know Sage can be configured for all kind of different recording formats... not sure that this can be done for MCE.

There's also the added bonus of being able to tune unencrypted QAM without having to hassle with driver tricks like what is needed in MCE, but that doesn't make a difference for recording OTA ATSC broadcasts.

You're talking about gaming on the system while doing other things. You'd probably want an add-in video card if you think you're going to play a lot of games on this system... but I'd very much recommend against it. You want a setup that will be "easy enough for my wife to use," so why muck it up with a game? Build a dedicated PVR style box and leave it dedicated to that purpose.

Now, that said - if you really want to be able to play games on this you should probably consider a discrete video card. If you don't mind keeping to 1280x1024 and lower for gaming resolutions on this box (1280x720 looks great on HDTVs, btw), then a Radeon 3650 would be perfect for it.

I think playing a game while recording would probably be fine, but it would be a good idea to have your games and your recordings on separate hard drives if you do that, this way you're not trying to load things while the drive is busy writing the large files that are your recorded shows.

I don't think you'd be able to play while someone is watching a recorded show, though. Assuming you had the PVR software running on your TV and the game on your monitor, one would steal focus from the other every time you tried to interact. So if you were playing a game and your wife wanted to watch a show, your game might minimize or stop responding when the PVR software came into focus. Alternately she might not even be able to get a show to start playing if the game wouldn't give up the ghost for commands to get to the PVR software... she'd be pressing play on the remote and it would make your gun fire, or something to that effect.

What you're saying you want is for two users being able to do two completely different activities simultaneously on one PC with independent workspaces/displays and input devices. That's not gonna happen anytime soon, not on a Windows box at least. There are people looking to get a multiple input kind of thing working in Linux, though I think it's still a ways off.

What brought you to the decision on the HD homerun as your tuner? An internal tuner card would be less expensive and also obviously wouldn't take up additional space in your entertainment center setup.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
When did you get your motherboard. Can you take some pictures of the northbridge heatsink?

edit: I guess you are feis over at avsforum? Just saw your post there.
Click to expand...

yeah that's me. I'll post some when I get home today. I left my camera charging :p

Gigabyte actually has pictures of both revisions, but the picture they have for the rev 1.1 doesn't really show how tall the heatsink really is.

If you look at it here, http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/FileList/Image/motherboard_productimage_ga-ma78gm-s2h_rev.1.1_big.jpg, the LEFT part of heatsink is taller than the right side, using the vertical "gigabyte" word as the middle if you will. So hopefully it fixes the heat issues that many people were talking about.

The only problem is that my CPU/MEMORY/HD are supposed to arrive today and UPS Tracking just changed my delivery date from 6/20/08 to EXCEPTION - BAD Weather.

Houston is having a flash flood warning thing going, although the clouds are dark, it hasn't rained yet. I really hope everything arrives today so I can install Vista 64bit.
 
VMC and MCE will do unencrypted QAM with a HDhomerun the same as Sage, but other cards are not as well supported.


I use VMC, but if sage fits what you need then get it.


Good to know that the MCE remote will control SageTV with no issues.... does the green button in the middle launch SageTV then?
 
Hmm. You know I really don't know, that button might have to be configured. My HTPC boots and loads Sage at startup, so the program is always running and always in focus. I don't use that box for anything except PVR style stuff so I've never checked the green button.

I'll check it out later on and get back to you on it.
 
thats cool, i used some button mapping program to make my "green button" launch beyondtv when i was using it....


it was a PITA to configure that MCE remote to control powerDVD though...
 
Yeah, just checked. Green button would have to be configured to start SageTV.

I can't imagine getting the thing configured for Power DVD. One of the nice things about Sage... it plays DVDs. :) (though I just use my DVD player for movies as I have a lot of discs from other regions).
 
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