Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HTPC...again

Well I'm late to this thread but since this is one of my favorite topics figured I'd chime in.

There is a LOT of great info here already so I don't want to rehash that. I have a few options that I'd like to share thou.

First of all if you don't want to spend at least a small amount of time tweaking stick with the cable company box or get a Tivo. Now to me either of those options would be like going back to a nice SDTV after having a HDTV, at least thats how I feel. But it's true, with any HTPC you will likely have at least SOME tweaking to do. If that doesn't scare you away then read on.

Right now there are many choices and ways to go about getting/building a HTPC. I've tried many but settled on XP MCE because I liked the design and how it just all works so I can speak to that better than the rest. I am eagerly awaiting the Vista version of MCE mainly because of the mentioned CableCard and HDCP support. Those two things are a REQUIREMENT for HTPC and PC support of HD type content in the future. I am not aware of how Apple will be addressing that issue (I'm sure they will however) but right now it doesn't look so good for Linux. In a nutshell what I'm suggesting is you may want to sit back and give this another few months to hash out because going thru the trouble of buying/building an XP MCE or something similar will be a futile effort since you will need Vista anyway for all the things that are going to matter now and in the future (HDTV from cable and Blu-ray/HD-DVD).

I do currently get HD on my MCE box using an OTA (over the air) tuner with antenna. I don't get any cable channels in HD that way, and yes it's a pain (because of the antenna) to setup but at least I have some HD content (for free).

I love my current setup, HDTV, AVR, MCE box. That's it. Having everything in one box (HTPC) to me is a very big perk. Everything in it works so seemlessly together and I've really gotten used to it being that way. Being able to put movies *online* and with a visual represention that is searchable is outstanding. Say I realize I forgot to set a show to record, I can open a webbrowser up and go to my box and tell it to record that show. The DVR functionality kills any cable company box I've been around. I've heard Tivo is better than the cable company boxes but I can't speak to them since I haven't used one (just my ReplayTV from back in the day). Having all my music on demand is something else I'd never be willing to give up. Browsing or searching for something to listen to with the album art on the screen is what I've come to expect now. I could go on and on.

I know I've listed all the reasons to get a HTPC now but with cablecard support and HDCP just a few months away in Vista I would sit back and wait till early next year and see how everything shakes out. If you have a spare PC thats calling your name, I'd say go for it now to get you hands dirty a bit but don't spend too much money right now if you care about HD.

OK Mac guy needs to chime in. Why not a Mac Mini w/ a USB HDTV dongle? Not too $$ and VERY easy to use. I have a PPC Mac Mini using the analog version of the USB dongle and the El Gato s/w is very easy to use. Easy to convert to iPod and PSP formats as well.

El Gato

OK...I know I'm beating this horse to death, but bear with me.

Here's my plan thus far:

case: Silverstone CW01
cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
motherboard: Intel 975X
ram: 2GB Kingston 667Mhz DDR2
vidya: Nvidia Geforce 7600GT with HDMI
audio: Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
ps: Seasonic S12-500
storage: Two of these Western Digital 500Gb
cd/dvd: NEC
cooling: Zalman's for the cpu and vidya card

I think I'll live without the ability to record HD with the HTPC and keep using your cable company's DVR until a HTPC solution is worked out.

The video card has an HDMI output so I'll hook that directly to the TV.

Audio...how do I integrate the HTPC into my HT system? I don't see that most (if any) sound cards have a coaxial or optical digital output? How do I connect the HTPC to my receiver/processor?

That question leads to my next question...

I've been considering selling my Rotel amp and processor and buying an all-in-one receiver. I miss listening to the radio at home and as technologies have been advancing over the years, my older processor is falling behind.

If I'm going to be using the HTPC to playback DVD's, DVR tv, listen to mp3's and play games...I don't really need a feature rich receiver do I? The only video that would be being fed through the receiver would be HD through the cable box, and possibly some video game consoles (PS2, etc) So uprezed video switching isn't a real need.

I'm so confused.

Hello Spiffnme,

As for the audio, I have the M-Audio Revolution 7.1. It has SPDIF Coax out, I use it all the time to pipe my vast music collection sitting on my HD to my pre-amp using a 75 Ohm coax cable connected to the AUX port. Works like a charm. Althought the X-Fi is, in MHO, the fist CL audio card that approaches the quality of the M-Audio, I think the Revo is still a better card if you don't intend on doing a lot of gaming ie: 4.1 / 5.1 on your PC. The Revo plays games just fine but does not support as well the proprietary CL EAX . I have used every imaginable CL audio card since the very first one and I find the Revo to be superior, only the X-Fi comes close.

as for some of your other components, the Seasonic is a great PSU, I am running the S12 600W in my new pc now. I am of the AMD camp as opposed to Intel so I am running the Athlon 64 Dual Core 4400+ cpu on the Nvidia Nforce 570 chipset. Solid combination. I switched to AMD back in the very first Athlons and I have not looked back ever since. Although Intel is more on par with their prices recently, there was a time where Intel was significantly more expensive for less performance than AMD..Just my preference, AMD for CPU, Nforce for chipset and ATI Radeon for vid card.

Cheers,

Stephane

Another sound card to check out is the Auzentech X-Plosion. It's a little pricy at about $150 CDN, but I've been more then happy with it. It encodes everything to DTS or Dolby Digital surround if you want (music, games, etc.). It has 7.1 analog outputs as well as a coax and optical digital outs. Its always sounded great for me even on my old Pioneer HTIB, and I just hooked up my M22's and EP350 today through it and it sounds AMAZING!! I'm sure the new speakers are the main part of the improvement, but its not like I can hear any sort of limitations from the sound card so far. I read several reviews on its predecessor, the X-Mystique, and it was a great card as well. That one can be had for ~$100 CDN, but it doesn't encode to DTS, just Dolby Digital.

I think your hardware choices, from a HTPC standpoint, are overkill. So you are completely fine there.

I particularly love the 7600's as they have all the latest and greatest postprocessing features from Nvidia. Just be sure to match it with Nvidia's DVD decoder (you only need the cheap version if you end up using spdif output from your soundcard). HDMI on a video card is nice. You don't HAVE to have it as DVI works the same but gives you more options depending on what inputs your TV has.

As far as a sound card be sure to check this Chaintech AV-710 7.1 out. It's very higly regarded everywhere I go. Unfortuantely I don't think newegg sells it anymore so you'd have to find another vendor. I consider myself a hardcore gamer. I've always had pretty good peices in my game box but I've found spending big money on sound cards to be the biggest waste of money. Currently all my sound cards are onboard audio. The Abit motherboard I have in my HTPC has a spdif output so I don't have to worry about digital to analog converts and the like. The soundcard basically is just passing the audio thru to my receiver. I think you only need to worry about the quality or $$$ of a card when you want to use its analog outputs, or perhaps some other hardware feature that again, I've found to be a waste.

Briefly on the AVR, I'd say you are right. With a HTPC you will be doing most everything in one box so video switching is pointless feature on the AVR. In your case you may have to keep the cable companies box, but you could just have it and the HTPC connect the video directly to the TV and just send the audio to the AVR. Get a Harmoy remote (if you don't already have something similar) and call it good.

Here is a link for a bundle to get OS, DVD decoder, remote and SDTV tuner together as an example.


Otherwise I'd say order those parts and get that HTPC running!

Another question....

SACD, and DVD-A? Is this possible with a HTPC? Seems silly to have a uni-player for nothing more than playback of about 12 SACD/DVD-A discs I own.

The hardware choices are based on the fact that this box will be as much for gaming as a HTPC. World of Warcraft in glorious Axiom 5.1 on a 60" sceen should be sweeeeeeeet.

The CL X-Fi ExtremeMusic card that I planned on would work if I got one of these cables, right?

This sounds pretty cool too...pricey though.