The Ultimate (cheap) HTPC – what’s not working
Ok, so I thought I would give a rundown of my grievances. Im going to be working to fix these and will be posting the solutions I come up with so stay tuned!
- Overscan - This is a pretty common phenomenon with televisions. In simple terms, the signal extends past the borders of the screen. In XBMC (Xbox Media Center), there was a built in tool to bring the screen in. This is not built in to Windows Media Center, and I have not yet been able to get any tools I have tried to work
- TV Reception - The antenna I bought does not pick up all the channels and watching HDTV using the antenna can be a pain in the ass at times. Im going to remedy this by installing an antenna either in the attic or on the roof.
- Windows Media Center does not play all files. Mostly, I have experienced problems with files that have AC3 5.1 encoding. Windows Media center seems to choke on these, but media center classic works fine. This is an acceptable workaround for the time being.
- Noise - When switching out the powersupply, it also took away my ability to control the speed of the fans. I need to do some research to find out the best way to slow down the fans based on temperature. The box runs pretty loud right now.
- Subscribing to RSS feeds. Right now I am using uTorrent which does a fantastic job. Sometimes there are multiple releases of the same shows, so I need to fine tune my uTorrent subscriptions. It would also be nice to see a web interface to uTorrent.
The most annoying of these is the overscan, so that is the one I am going to try and tackle first. Wish me luck! I hope to have it solved by the end of the week.
Building the Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR
I've been working on my Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR for a few weeks now. See the previous articles (1, 2, 3) that detail my problems. I've purchased a ton of hardware and returned a ton of hardware. Here's what I am left with and approximate prices:
- Case: Antec Sonata $80
- PSU: Seasonics S12 500w Power Supply $90
- Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor $120
- Motherboard: MSI K8N NEO4-F nForce4 $70
- Memory: 1GB DDR400 PC3200 CAS2.5 - Corsair Value Select $82
- Video Card: Radeon X1300 PRO PCI Express 256MB (MSI) $70
- Harddrive: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L300S0 300GB $100
- SDTV Tuner: Hauppage WINTV-PVR-150 MCE $50
- HDTV Tuner: DVICO FusionHDTV5 RT Lite $99
- Sound Card: AuzenTech HDA X-PLOSION 7.1 DTS Connect $125
- DVD-RW: NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI $25
- Software: Windows XP Media Center 2005 $110, uTorrent -$FREE
Total Cost: $1021
Not so cheap anymore!
Other gear in my setup
- Monitor: Panasonic TH42PX50U 42 Inch Plasma TV
- Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR601U
Mistakes Made
I've made a bunch of mistakes building my HTPC. When the computer kept rebooting / stalling, I wrongly attributed it to hardware / driver problems. My assumption was compounded when I read that people were having problems with the turtle beach montego (my original HTPC sound card). I ended up spending a lot more when I had to keep returning hardware. I now think that the problem was with the original PSU in the Antec Sonata failing. It was rated at 380w and when I ran through the Power calculator, it seemed that it would be enough for my hardware, but apparently that is not the case. Either the PSU is failing or the hardware is much more power hungry than the calculator thought.
What can you do with it?
Now that I've just dropped a grand on this box, what can I do with it?
Recording TV - You'll now be able to set media center to record your favorite shows for you in High Definition. Some pitfalls here are: you need a really strong signal. I purchased a Terk indoor antenna, but the signal is weak. I am within 15 miles of all the broadcast towers in Houston, but my directional antenna only picks up 2 stations well from inside my house. The rest of them are pretty choppy. Im going to try buying a $100 antenna and put it in my attic run a cable down to my living room.
Downloading Torrents - While my TV channels dont fully work, I've got to use uTorrent to subscribe to shows on tvRSS.net in order to get my fill. I've also got my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD on Time Warner cable as a backup 
Music - Im not using it for music. This is when it sucks to have all your music in iTunes. It would be nice if someone (Apple ?) wrote an iTunes interface for Windows Media Center (but I cant see why they would)
Gaming - I dont use it for big screen gaming, but I can see myself getting a wireless controller and maybe installing MAME or an NES / SNES emulator.
Is it ready for primetime?
If you are an inexperienced user thinking about building a HTPC, no, it's not. Even if you are an experienced user, it may be more pain than its worth. Especially the quirks with OTA broadcasts. In fact - right now I would prefer to download a torrent of the show rather than record it over the air.
This quirkiness / lack of seamless integration is where apple really has an "in" into the living room. Steve jobs recently stated "we hear you load and clear" when asked about a potential Apple media center. The Mac Mini is a great little platform. It will be fantastic if they can integrate a dual HD and SD tuner into that package, or even have a little add on. Im a little disappointed with the inflexibility of the Windows Media Center software. It's missing a lot - such as the ability to automatically compress a recorded show to Divx. This is a relatively young product, but unfortunately, it still acts like a computer and not enough like an appliance. This is where the failing is. Things dont "just work".
Conclusion
Im not happy with Windows MCE 2005. Frankly, recording on my $12/month Scientific Atlanta 5300hd box is better than my $1000 Windows MCE 2005 box. I'd like to try and make this work by installing MythTV on Ubuntu which seems to offer more flexibility, but I am waiting for Dapper Drake to come out around the beginning of June to do it right. Im very conflicted about this right now. I want to watch TV how and when I want to watch it. I want to do it legally and in High Definition when possible. I dont want to have to pay 60 bucks a month to Time Warner Cable to watch my 5 or so shows that I can get free over the air. The kicker right now is that with my current setup, it is more inconvenient to try and record in HD over the air than it is to download the torrent. I will make this work! Keep your eyes on this space.
Building the Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR – part 1.2
The system has continued to stall even after replacing the video card and sound card. I thought it was the HDTV tuner card and removed that. This fixed the problem for a while, but then I experienced the system freezing again. So now the question is - what is causing the system to freeze?
The things that popped into my head were:
- Processor is dying
- My motherboard is incompatible with c-media sound processors (like the ones found in the turtle beach montego and Auzentech X-plosion)
- The 380w powersupply is either underpowered or failing
Well, I decided to try a few things today to figure out what was wrong. I removed both TV tuners and watched a DVD. The system worked fine. I added in the Analog tv tuner - the system worked fine. I added in the Digital Tuner - the system crashed while playing a DVD.
Then, I removed the analog tuner and booted with the Digital Tuner. The system booted fine and was stable. I loaded the ATI TV software and played an HD stream. The ATI card fixed the problem of choppy playback, however it seems that the HD signal is stronger directly on my TV, but that is another issue.
So, prior to realizing it could be a PSU issue, I ordered a new motherboard, processor, ram and video card.
| 80699-5 | AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (Venice) Socket 939 Retail ***Free Shipping*** | $107.40 | 1 | $107.40 |
| 241163 | MSI K8N NEO4-F nForce4 Athlon 64 Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail ***Free Shipping*** | $80.99 | 1 | $80.99 |
| 80098-21 | Corsair VS1GBKIT400 1GB Kit DDR400 PC3200 CAS2.5 Value Select Memory Retail ***Free Shipping*** | $80.90 | 1 | $80.90 |
| 321962 | MSI RX1300PRO-TD256E Radeon X1300 PRO PCI Express 256MB DDR2 Video Card w/TV-Out & Dual DVI Retail ***Free Shipping*** | $95.75 | 1 | $95.75 |
Those are coming on Tuesday or Wednesday and I am debating buying a PSU just in case the system still crashes. I also decided to purchase a DVICO FusionHDTV5 RT Lite to replace the ATI HDTV Wonder that I thought was giving me a bunch of problems.
Building a HTPC is not quite as easy as I thought it would be, even with the extensive experience I have in building PCs.
I wish apple had come out with their HTPC a few weeks ago when I decided to do this project. According to reports from the shareholders meeting, Steve Jobs' comments "We hear you loud and clear" may indicate that apple is working on something. It certainly wouldnt take much to take the Mac Mini to the next level.
Building the Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR – part 1.1
This is just a minor update to Part 1. I ran into some problems and wanted to document them.
First, let me give you my relevant system specs as these may be partially responsible for some of the problems Im having.
Case: Antec Sonata
Motherboard: Asus A7V8X
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2600+
Video Card: EVGA e-GeForce FX 5500 (256mb Ram)
HDTV Tuner: ATI HDTV Wonder
TV Tuner: Hauppage DVR150 MCE
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Montego DDL
Problems
- HDTV decoding is choppy, both when transcoding and recording
- Changing channels on the HDTV tuner is very slow (approximately 20 seconds before a new picture comes up)
- Turtle Beach Montego DDL crashes the system - freezes the cursor on screen requiring reboot
- Tried to use the drivers for c-media 8768 as recommended elsewhere on the net
Possible Remedies
- Purchased Auzentech HDA X-Plosion to replace the Turtle Beach Montego
- Provides Dolby Digital Live
- Provides DTS Connect
- Much more expensive than the Montego
- Claims to provide Hardware decoding of HDTV signals when combined with ATI HDTV Wonder - so it could solve the issues of choppiness and slow channel changing.
Stay tuned! I should have my final system by the end of this weekend.
Building the Ultimate (cheap) HDTV PVR – part 1
I want to cancel cable.
My girlfriend and I watch very few shows that dont air on the regular over the air (OTA) broadcasts. Luckily, we are pretty central in houston and have pretty good HDTV reception for all the major networks. So, why do we pay > $50 a month to Time Warner Cable for our TV? Ah, thats right - the DVR - our Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. The functionality of being able to record our shows and watch them whenever keeps us hooked. So, why not build my own PVR! If I try and keep the cost down, it will pay for itself in the money we save not paying Time Warner Cable.
Minimum Requirements
- Old PC - I would recommend something in the past couple of years. The processor I am using is an Athlon XP 2600+ with 1 gb of ram and a 300 gb Harddrive
- ATI HDTV Wonder (comes with an antenna and remote)
- Other TV tuner card (Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 requires you have a regular tuner to use an HDTV tuner)
- Video Card - Im going to recommend a Radeon 9600 or newer. These have a built in hardware decoder for HDTV (h.264) which will reduce the strain on the processor and will probably give you a better HDTV experience (especially if your computer is old). Make sure you buy the right kind though - older systems likely have an AGP slot and not PCIe. Check on this before buying.
- Windows XP Media Center Edition - if you can find it, buy the one that includes the Microsoft Remote
Optional Extras
This is where you can get carried away and really raise the price. Find a few things that you want and stick with them. Unless of course you want to go all out!
- ATI All in Wonder (combine the regular tv tuner and the video card into one)
- Outdoor HDTV antenna (get a better signal)
- Microsoft's Media Center Remote (has better buttons for working with Media Center than ATI's remote)
- Wireless Keyboard
- Big harddrive - check whether you have SATA (small cable) or Parallel ATA (usually a wide, thin grey cable)
- Home Theater Case
- µTorrent
- Sound card with Optical Out (to connect to your home theater receiver). This one, Turtle Beach TBS-3300 has Dolby Digital Live which can convert any stream into Dolby Digital. Nice bonus.
- DVI to HDMI cable (to connect to your HDTV)
- HDTV
So, while you're busy buying all of that stuff, I am going to wait for my packages to arrive so I can put it all together and give you the next article about getting it all set up!
