# Home Theater PC (HTPC)



## Happy Joe (Jun 25, 2008)

I have recently been experiencing problems with my Sony (cannot play this disc) DVD player; so as I have a number of computers that are under utilized I decide to investigate using one as a Home Theater PC.

After a bit of investigation on the web I found the requirements for a basic HTPC to be relatively low;

a video card or mother board with television (video) out (or HD output for those with high definition, I am not certain of all of the requirements of a HD HTPC yet as I have low resolution equipment).
A DVD read or read/write drive
A moderately fast single core (for 720i) or dual core (for 1080i HD) processor.
A tuner card to interface with broadcast television or cable (for those that do more than watch movies).
A operating system (the biggest difference here is that some like windows XP media center and Vista (the web recommends vista home premium or Vista ultimate) have options to handle the more common (read cheaper) IR remotes (I would be lost with out a remote). 

Initially, I scrounged about 250 GB worth of hard drives from the computer parts storage area (junk box) and selected a likely system to experiment on.

The victim;
Boistar T series 6100-939 MOBO
AMD 3700 San Diego socket 939 processor
Old copper thermalright heat sink
1gig of geil ram
7800 GT vid card has both video out and video in (VIVO)
Old NEC dvd burner
Thermaltake 400+ watt power supply
XP home OS (I had a spare license key)
all stuffed in an old E-machine box

Initial hook up;
Ran a stereo cable from the on board AC97 speaker out to the stereo in on the TV
Ran a cable from the video out to the TV.
hooked up a spare keyboard and mouse

I fired it up, stuck in a previously unplayable (on the Sony) DVD and watched a movie with windows Media player.

The problems with this very basic system;
I didn't have enough cables to run 5.1 audio to the entertainment amp. (good sound is a necessity, IMO, for enjoyment of movies at home if you don't have, at least, 5.1 sound, get an amp and some good speakers along with a subwoofer, its worth it).

The on screen desk top display on a standard 36" crt television is hard to see/read (very large Icons and text help).

The keyboard and mouse are not portable (an up grade to an IR keyboard and mouse is called for).

No remote control for fast forward etc. (Another upgrade; actually two, one for the operating system (to Vista home premium) and a second for the remote).

Advantages;
Its modular and upgradeable; when I go to Blu-ray the player/burner will cost less than $200 for the computer, an equivalent stand alone player cost $700 when I looked last week.

DVD movies and CD music can be stored on the hard drives (one terabyte of hard drive space will store about 200 standard length DVD movies (main movie only)) this saving valuable library shelf space for my hard copy books and games.

The computer can be used a a digital video recorder similar to a TIVO (I have no use for this, but some may).

And best of all I can, finally, get rid of that expensive piece of junk Sony DVD player.

Future upgrades;
Vista 64 premium(due for delivery today)
5.1 sound (I'll get cables when I go to the store next)
A decent sound card to replace the on board AC97 sound (I'll have to scrounge a bit I may have one on a shelf).
A remote control (in next month's budget).
Remote keyboard and mouse (perhaps the month after).
Run some cable and integrate the HTPC into the home network.
A fancy box to make the computer look better in the living room.

I expect to learn some things with this project and will post my experiences.
Any recommendations/comments from the community will be most wlecome...

Enjoy!


----------



## chrispenycate (Jun 25, 2008)

I assume you have an ac3 decoder program, since you're looking at 5.1 sound; or can you convince your sound card to put out a multiplexed digital audio signal?
The video card we bought to get decent quality video onto and off a computer cost more than quite a few DVD players (more than the computer, in fact). 
OK, you're from "Never The Same Colour twice" land, so are presumably less critical about picture quality, but with DVD players available at less than fifty dollars I don't see how this can become economically interesting.

Sounds fun though.


----------



## Happy Joe (Jun 26, 2008)

Discrete 5.1 signals are available from most recent motherboard on board audio outputs and from the two 5.1 compatible sound card that I located in the junk box.
I intend to get them to the entertainment receiver via the standard mini plug to RCA plug patch cords (I know this is not going to give the best signal but I don't have a sound card that has a fiber optic output, at this point in the experiment).
My current game machine motherboard does have a fiber optic connection and I may use it as a HTPC after the next game machine upgrade.

Using the junk box HTPC machine described above I have, so far, obtained better video performance and I expect, at least, equivalent audio performance to the ancient, poor performing, 24 bit (audio), Sony DVP-S500D (that I have been trying, with limited success and quite a bit of frustration, to use these past years).
The last time that I looked the cheap DVD players did not have 5.1 or 7.2 sound outputs (good sound is nearly 50% of the enjoyment of movies, IMO).

With respect to video; the s-video cable output from this old 7800GT vid card gives very good standard (low def.) picture quality, and I expect that the HD output on my 8800 series (G92) card will work fine when I next upgrade the game machine video. Note; I will update the television to a much larger 1080 HD monitor or projector at some point in the future. The current long 15+ foot viewing distance means that I would see limited improvement for small (~36" diagonal) monitors at this time.

Cost so far $0.00

Anticipated costs;
$95 for vista home premium (although I could download a freeware media center program, several are available, and use existing XP pro or Xp home for zero cost).

remote control; $20

5.1 sound; $10 for cables (I am getting too old to hear the difference between high and medium quality sound cards). If I can hear the difference between the 16 bit on board 5.1 sound and the 32 bit sound cards I may spring for a new, higher quality, sound card.

fancy box; $100 (assuming that I don't elect to make one for free).

Future upgrades to vid card, mobo, processor etc; Free... I will just use the most recent parts from the gaming machine upgrades.

Storage for movies; current drives run about $80 for 500 gig (will hold about 100 standard DVD main feature movies), I expect terabyte drives to drop into the $100 range within the next year or so (currently at $180) My video library has about 350 DVD movies and uses 4 shelves worth of space (after switching to thin boxes on roughly half of the movies). 4 shelf oak barrister cases are running above $450; locally, although I can build them for around $150 space to put them is becoming slim)

The HTPC solves, delays or lowers the cost the following problems, for me;

Poor performing existing DVD player.

Lack of movie storage space.

Cost of conversion to a Blu-ray disc player (blu-ray burner for the computer; ~$200 blu-ray stand alone player with the features I need to use (except movie storage, video capture and processing and the ability to archive data on writable discs ~$400).

Lack of hard copy book storage space (currently at approximately 2000 volumes and growing).

For me, this experiment is a no brainer cost wise (free so far, with a low future cost). To build a HTPC from scratch might result in unjustifiable cost, however.

Enjoy!


----------



## Happy Joe (Jun 26, 2008)

I have been surfing and found a good source of info on software, hardware setup etc. for HD HTPCs Over at [H]ard ocp;

Home Theater PCs & Equipment - [H]ard|Forum

Enjoy!


----------



## Happy Joe (Jun 30, 2008)

I posted some info on 5.1 sound in another thread;
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/46319-5-1-sound-for-games-or-theater-from.html

with a link to 5.1 sound implementation at hardware secrets;
How to Connect 5.1 Speakers to Your PC | Hardware Secrets

For some good info on Vista media center the greenbutton community is worth a look;
The Green Button - Forums

A bit on the more technical side AVS forums has a good bit of info on Gaming in the HTPC environment as well as local streaming;
Digital Video & Audio Devices - AVS Forum

Currently, I have been playing with Vista Home Premium and the Windows Media Center  works pretty well.  

The 16 bit on board sound from my motherboard needs some work to optimize the levels at the speakers but it is acceptable, at least temporarily.  Later, I will jam in a 5.1 sound card and see if it improves the sound significantly.

I, really, need a remote control and will order one this week.

Enjoy!


----------



## Happy Joe (Jul 24, 2008)

I haven't updated this in a while (there doesn't seem to be much interest). so I will summarize my progress.

Vista Home premium (Vista Basic does not include the media center and would require a separate media center software as does XP) is relatively easy to setup and optimize and runs very well (I purchased the system builder variant, it was cheaper (<$100) than the retail OS).

I purchased an inexpensive remote control;
Newegg.com - Anyware GP-IR01BK Windows Vista Infrared MCE Black Remote Control
(~ $20). It works well but does not turn the computer off with a button (you need to use an on screen menu) and (of course) cannot boot the machine from a shutdown state.

Is 16 bit 5.1 audio an issue? No, not for me. The motherboard sound output is a bit bright (probably poor drivers) but is (IMO) entirely adequate for a typical (non-audiophile) listener. I will play with sound cards and fiber optics to see if it improves if/when I get the time.

Is a home theater PC worth while? Resounding; Yes! It has given me jukebox access to my video and CD (music libraries). I will add video storage capacity as terabyte drives come down in price. (Currently at 320 gig and have 35 movies with several hundred music albums (in mp3 format) on the machine.) The ease of access to the music has at least temporarily revived my listening pleasure.)

Best of all that Sony (and its problems) is now on the surplus equipment shelf.

Tip; I use a separate computer monitor, keyboard and mouse for system maintenance; the low definition 36" television does not have adequate resolution for reasonable sized text in Icons.  I will be looking for a small flat panel display for permanent installation in the system, or run some cat5 and install the HTPC on the home network for remote administration.  This may be fixed when I finally go to High definition video.

Unforeseen; after finishing conversion of the CD library to mp3; I will need to get busy, dust off the turntable and actually convert the old vinyl records to digital format, then re-archive them on DVD.

I guess it time to embrace the 21st century!

Enjoy!


----------



## chrispenycate (Jul 24, 2008)

Do you have Dolby pro-logic II decodind? You'd be surprised how many old recordings (Vinyl or CD, or even, I suppose casette) have enough phase information on them to add a lot of depth in 5.0 (extracting and balancing the LF information for an LFE channel is generally not worth while)
And can you decode DTS, or only Dolby AC3?


----------



## Happy Joe (Jul 25, 2008)

Yes, I can do pro-logic II decoding ...good idea... Thanx! 

Do you have any thoughts on the best format to use for archiving the digital data from the vinyl records? I was going to archive it as .wav files (after a mild decompression step and mild pop/click filtering) then convert to mp3 for use/storage on the HTPC. (After increasing the available HTPC storage I can drop the .wav flies to hard drive for (hopefully) better sound quality than the mp3 files). 

As presently configured the junk box HTPC doesn't do DTS although PowerDVD 7 (needed for BlueRay*) should give it the capability. I also believe there is a MyMovies plug in (FFdshow audio decoder) that would allow DTS capability. I don't have any movies with DTS sound so it has never been a concern. (*note; it is generally considered that a dual core processor is necessary for HD movies on an HTPC).

Enjoy!


----------



## Happy Joe (Jul 25, 2008)

Over the last month or so I have acquired a bit more information on HTPC operating systems. It turns out that *64 bit operating systems should be avoided for use in a High Definition or BluRay HTPC *due to the poor compatibility of high definition drivers, codecs and some playback software. 32 bit Vista Home Premium seems to be the prevailing favorite operating system for HTPCs at this time.

If/when I go to high Definition I will likely have to change to a 32bit operating system unless something changes radically on the software front.

The use of xp operating systems is possible if either the 2005 media center OS from Microsoft is used or if a media center front end software is used from another source.

There seems to be some issues with getting some/many/most remote controls to work with windows XP.

Enjoy!


----------



## Commonmind (Jul 25, 2008)

I missed this thread when you posted Happy, but just to give a little input. I have an HTPC set up, with Blu-ray/HD-DVD playback, as well as some of the standard formats you see floating around the net, including X.264. I'm running the HTPC with a copy of Vista 64 and I've had no issues, whatsoever. Unfortunately I didn't have time to read the entirety of the thread, so I'm not sure if there's more to it than what you've posted directly above. (And a side note, when it comes to Blu-ray playback, the support is limited; I use Cyberlink's software, and have been very happy with the results.)

Good luck, either way.


----------



## Happy Joe (Jul 26, 2008)

Thanx!
I haven't had any problems with Vista 64 either, however I have see lots of posts recommending against using it on high definition HTPCs in other forums.  (I figured that it would be a good thing to bring out the prevailing opinion in case anyone were to run off to make a HTPC based on the, admittedly sparse, information in this thread).

I would guess that High Def is at least 2 years in my future... Hopefully it will have better support by products for 64 bit OSs by then.

More minds working on a problem make for better solutions...

Enjoy!


----------

