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The rack above used to have a CD/DVD/VCR combo unit, an EVA 8000 media player, a Hauppauge MVP media player, a little wireless G router, and the Yamaha receiver in it. I finally gave up on media players, extenders and gaming rigs like the PS3 and XBOX and the regular components. I was using a Netgear EVA8000 which gave exceptional video and audio performance and Hauppauge MVPs (barely OK, but good enough for analog TV). I even tried a Popcorn Hour A100. While media players can be quite good, producing high quality video and audio, I found their library functions to be basically non-existent or hard to implement. With the exception of the EVA 8000, their menus were cumbersome to navigate. The best library overlays (add on programs) are usually done by enthusiasts, thus are subject to sudden abandonment, and supported only by user forums. Also, the interfaces aren't always suitable for HTPC application (i.e., text too small for a 10 foot interface), and I can't pick and choose the programs I'll use to access the content on the server. For me, I just had to live with these issues (I'm not an embedded Linux/XTML programmer).
I finally realized that a decent windows based HTPC can be built for the same or a little more the cost of the $400 EVA8000/9000 media player.
Now I'm free to use XBMC for streamed media (CDs and DVDs) and internet radio content, Beyond TV for recorded HDTV, and TMT Platinum for BluRay playback. I don't have the problems caused by the poor, restrictive programming of a media player to contend with. Now I have some usable control with XBMC for my DVD and CD libraries.
These screen shots of XBMC were taken with the default skin selected, and no customization applied. The music is displayed in thumbnail view with the library functions turned off. I haven't found a good way to tag wave files, but this isn't bad. Albums or songs can be played as you wish, or queued to play in the order you selected them. The only library function I miss is being able to see everything I have by artist, then just hit play and listen to a couple of hours of Clannad.
Unfortunately, my TV recording experience is with Beyond TV (which appears to dieing a slow death), but Sage TV looks to be just as good. Either of these programs will do well with multiple tuner cards. While Windows 7 Media Center is coming close, I don't know of any other software solutions which will provide the convenience of an Electronic Programming Guide and the very easy to use interface for setting up and watching recordings and live TV like Sage or BTV (think TiVo, with 6 tuners and 50 hours of HDTV capacity).
So, what's necessary to play BluRay movies and stream HDTV and digital audio (waves, MP3s, and Internet Radio)?
The last thumb of BTV, with House playing is not a screen capture, it's a picture of the TV screen from my camera (that's where the jaggies and other artifacts came from). BTV's High Definition TV recordings are almost as clear as BluRay movies and the sound is as good as the station broadcasts (usually excellent). The other screen shots are pretty self explanatory, the first four are the menus you would navigate to play a recorded show, the last two are how you would navigate to a show in the schedule and select to play the show live, record it, cancel the recording, or override the recording settings already set for the show. I seldom (very) use any other menu functions.
Turns out, not much these days.
For me, there are three things the HTPC should be:
A quiet machine. I don't want to hear fans, hard drives, or any other mechanical noise while I'm listening to the system - ever
A quiet line level audio source. I'm talking about the sound card's analog output. I'm letting the PC decode the audio, and going straight to a line level input on a preamp or a receiver. I'm not that interested in multi-channel home theater sound, I just use a decent pair of speakers or a sub/satellite arrangement. Even if I wanted 7.1 audio, why not let the PC handle the decoding and concentrate on clean pre and power amps for the main system. Until you start considering high (mega) priced 7.1 channel receivers, or outboard DACs for the PC, the end results of a good sound card's analog output is as good or better than systems using the card's digital output. (Personally, when you consider the sound coming out of the speakers, I think the best sound cards are quite competitive with the most esoteric outboard DACs.)
A machine that looks at home with traditional audio gear. For me, this means a traditional 17" wide by about 6" tall faceplate, in black. It can't be over about 17" deep or wide, or it won't fit in a lot of typical shelving. Granted, this case isn't very pretty by traditional sound component standards, but it does fit my basic requirements and it has some features that made it a good choice for a first attempt.
I actually went to great lengths to be able to put quiet solutions in place. This was one of the main reasons I moved to a client/server architecture. This lets me put the media storage in another room, where I won't have to contend with a lot of hard drive noise, and the HTPC isn't recording any TV, so space for the TV card as well as hard drive performance [capacity, speed, and noise] are no problem. I used an 80 GB laptop hard drive taped to the bottom of the case with double sided foam tape. Until you put your ear within 1" of the front of the case while the PC is booting, you can't hear it. The video system is embedded in the motherboard and passively cooled. It was selected to allow high definition video stream processing for BluRay and HDTV playback to be off-loaded from the CPU, thus a low wattage CPU is viable, and passive CPU cooling is possible. The large diameter case fans are run at their lowest speeds and still provide adequate cooling.
If serious gaming is a consideration, you're basically screwed. For enough processor and video power to run the top games at high frame rates and resolution, even a water cooled solution will need fans on its radiator.
While it isn't gorgeous, I spent more on the case to make the PC look like audio gear and be quiet than on any other component. If the machine will be a dedicated HTPC, you won't need much processing power if you choose the video system carefully.
A little single core Celeron CPU or an Atom can run the PC (I had a leftover Core 2 Duo chip, so I used it, definitely overkill)
Motherboards with on-board Nvidia graphics processors in the 9300 and 9400 series will support the video processing necessary to play HDTV and BluRay discs. I'm not familiar with Radeon's nomenclature, but they also offer embedded solutions and cheap video cards that perform well.
Since my system is server based, the media storage and TV tuner cards are back in the server. An 80 GB SATA 3 notebook hard drive is fine for the OS and what trivial amounts of data the machine will keep locally.
You'll need a BluRay drive (playback only) for BD movies.
You may find that the on-board audio system is good enough for high fidelity sound, but don't count on it. Figure on using a decent sound card, HT Omega, M-Audio, and E-MU are the better ones out there. Omega's Striker is reputed to be an exceptional 7.1 sound card for less than $100. Most of the other high quality solutions will run from $150 to $300.
The wireless keyboard is RF based, and works flawlessly from across the room. The receiver is a tiny USB dongle looking thing, plugged into a USB port on the back of the case. The keyboard includes a thumb ball, both mouse buttons and a wheel. There are no device drivers, just put batteries in it, plug in the dongle, and it works (it took me 30 minutes, searching for a driver disc and the internet to figure this out).
I used an IR receiver from SnapStream's Firefly Mini remote, but anything that plugs directly into a USB port should work. (I'm thinking mounted inside the case, like it should be, for my next attempt).
The Antec NSK 2480 is one of the primary reasons this is possible. The case allows several critical things:
The case fans are mounted on the right side, to the rear of the cabinet. The CPU heat sink sits directly upstream of the fans, and it's this configuration that allows the CPU cooler to be used reliably without its fan (the video chipset runs at about 135° F, the CPU runs at 80° to 90° F).
The face plate can be removed and is easy to paint semi-gloss black. It looks OK above my Yamaha receiver. BIG NOTE: While you're painting the face plate, pull the face plate off of the BluRay drive and paint it to match the case! I didn't, and the BD disc player looks everything from gray to almost purple compared to the rest of the PC's face plate depending on the light.
You may want to add another dropping resistor to the power on and disc activity LEDs, they're bright enough to be bothersome if the front of the case is visible while you're using it.
You will need a way to operate this PC with a hand held remote. If you aren't familiar with Logitech Harmony Remotes go there and decide which model you like. I bought a pair Harmony 680 remotes used, on ebay, about 4 years ago. They won't die, and I haven't found anything I couldn't control with them. I can't recommend a better remote.
I use the Harmony 680 and Event Ghost to control the PC, my Yamaha receiver, and the Samsung TV. I press one button and:
The TV is turned on (I leave the PC and the receiver on all the time)
The receiver is switched to the input the PC sound is connected to
Then the TV's input is switched to the HDMI input the PC is connected to
Then BTV is launched on the PC
I then navigate using the up-down-left-right buttons on the Harmony and select the menu function in BTV I want just like you would with BTVs remote.
If I want a different source on the PC (i.e., to run a different program), I press the "close" button (one of the 6 buttons that can be programed to any function and are labeled in the Harmony's LCD panel) on the Harmony to exit BTV, then I launch either XBMC or TMT by pressing another of the 6 programmable buttons on the Harmony.
While this isn't simple, it's not really hard either. Once you get Event Ghost programmed to emulate the correct keystrokes when the remote buttons are pushed, you're done. Check out the Event Ghost Documentation on their web site. You won't need any Python scripts or special apps for the Harmony or the BTV Firefly Mini remote. Just run Event Ghost and the Firefly Mini's software on the HTPC.
Jay R. Taylor
March 2010
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