Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HTPC Build In Progress

I have been successful over the years with XP abd NVDVD. NVDVD stock has been very succesful in presenting a great picture with lots of contrast. It rivals close to a fully configured FDSHOW, Theatertek and Dscaler setup.

In the mean time that the HD DVD wars gets retified you can take a look as WMV HD format on a HTPC. It has been available for the past 3+ years starting with WM9.

ops forgot link.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/HDVideo.aspx

Thanks for the info, and if I waited to build an HT box till HD DVD wars are over/settled......I could die before that happens. lol

I will be rebuilding my HTPC in the next couple of weeks. My new home theater/entertainment area will be ready in the next 3 weeks. I'll let you know if there are any snags or changes to NVDVD, XP. If I have a chance I will check out MCE since a fair bit use it. as for the interface I have been so used to XP. All I did was buy a wireless keyboard and re-produced all the keyboard keys on the learning remote so I barely need the keyboard or mouse to run XP.

The Ahanix HT case arrived this afternoon and took a few pics of it. It was double boxed and packaged well, UPS managed to do no damage to the box at all. Quality of the case in my opinion is superior, the front panel looks to made on a CNC machine, the interior of the case is also nicley done as I found no sharp edges to nick fingers on. The dual case fans are very low db level, and see no need to replace them at this point. Did need to make a mod to the video card that we had, the plastic shroud for the cooling fan was a tad to high for the case cover. Will go with it for now and change out later if heat for the card becomes an issue.
Will be ordering the rest of the parts this week I think, so should have the new box online in a week or so with any luck.















Puter parts were installed under the watchful eyes of Anika.

Nice!

I really want to get a case a lot like that (that one was on my short list) but alas, I can't afford such things at the momemnt.

Reguarding my HD+HTPC comment, I guess I should have clarified, I was talking Cable (and Satilite, and disk) not OTA HDTV, but I want more than 3 (4?) channels. (But if the broadcast flag passes it could affect OTA too)

We do use satellite for tv and HD and we use a Huges Tivo box, the order of building the HT box was going to be music, movies, and then the satellite issue.

There is no doubt most HTPC's are excellent for music and movies. I absolutely would not do without mine now. I just really love being able to do EVERYTHING in one box. TV, AVR and MCE box, its friggin nice. (I'm still just on SDTV). The idea of having to split that back up upsets me.

The DIY market share isn't exactly huge, so I try to rile up those that I can to fight the good fight in being able to continue DIY HTPC's into the digital future.

Looks like the great makings of a HTPC! I love the case.

What exaclty did you do to the vid card heatsink? It looks like you just popped the plastic covering off?

This is the fan shroud that was removed, the top part is deisgned to move air to opposite side of the card, making the card about 3/16 of an inch above the case height. One suggestion was to take the Dremel to it, I voted for just removing it, if it is changed out later, can reinstall the shroud and sell the card unmodified. lol

One more piece closer to being finished, just ordered the custom rack mount piece for the HT case. Now if it fits as MA says it will.