My Home-built TV-PC!

[Jan Gaarni]

So, I finally gotten my TV-PC (as I call it) rig up and running and hooked it up to the TV and reciever. Well, it's been up and running since July really.

 

I can now see DVD movies with much better quality than when I use my DVD player thru scart cable. In addition I can finally start buying Blue-Ray discs aswell.

 

But I get alittle stuttering now and then, especially when the camera is panning, so i thought I'd list the hardware and software I used to get this rig up and running for some advice on upgrades I could use.

 

Don't mind the soundcard, I'm fully aware of it's lacks when it comes to HD sound. Will be replacing it next year perhaps once I can afford a propper reciever. No point in upgrading it right now until I ahve the money for both really. And maybe there's more options to select from next year aswell.

 

Anywhere, the speccs:

 

Motherboard: Asus Striker II Formula

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz

GPU: XFX GeForce GTX 260 896MB PhysX CUDA (PCI-E)

Soundcard: Creative X-Fi Titanium (PCI-E)

Player: Sony NEC Blue-Ray player (BR-5100S)

 

Don't remember what RAM I used. Got a couple of sticks from my sister she had laying around. They're DDR2 atleast. Can get back on that though.

 

OS: Windows 7

Software: Power-DVD 8

 

And WinAmp for everything else.

 

I also have a Digital-Everywhere TV tuner card, but haven't gotten this up and running yet. Kinda hit a stump there, might have ruined it or the CAM card.

 

 

So, thoughts?

[Q]

I'm not sure that I understand the sound card comment. Was it meant to be a joke? What do you consider to be a good sound card?

[Jan Gaarni]

HD sound can only be transfered via an HDMI cable as I understand it.

It doesn't have an HDMI out source, only regular 3,5" and optical out.

 

Or are people mistaken?

[jrrtoken]

There is no such thing as "HD Sound"; it's a subjective, non-standardized buzzword for stuff that's slightly higher than CD-quality, and is usually just for hype alone. Usually anything that's higher than 16-bit/44kHz can be called HD, although Dolby's audio on Blu-Rays usually are encoded at 24-bit/96-192kHz, which can be easily played by any Creative Xi-Fi card.

 

It's not like an ultra-high sample rate will sound ultimately better, anyways; the human ear can only pickup anything up to ~20kHz. CDs are encoded at 44.1 kHz to account for artifacts and other digital errors when processed; think of it as "insurance". Encoding audio at 96kHz is ridiculous, and 192k is just for "higher numbers = better quality".

[acdcfanbill]

It's not like an ultra-high sample rate will sound ultimately better, anyways; the human ear can only pickup anything up to ~20kHz. CDs are encoded at 44.1 kHz to account for artifacts and other digital errors when processed; think of it as "insurance". Encoding audio at 96kHz is ridiculous, and 192k is just for "higher numbers = better quality".

 

Yea, it's not about 'how it sounds' it's about the ability to reproduce an original analog signal. Without getting too technical sampling theorem says you have sample the original analog signal at twice the highest frequency you want to capture to eliminate aliasing. Since the highest frequency most humans can hear is approx 20k, 44.1k used on CD's and 48k used on DVD audio is plenty to store an analog signal up to 20k Hz. Higher sampling rates do help to improve reproduction of the original wave, not to say that many people could even recognize a jump from 96k to 192k Hz. Most of the speakers that people have are half a step above crap anyway, but it's definitely not wasted when capturing original analog signals.

[Q]

The X-Fi chipset has really good DACs from what I've heard, as in way, way ahead of the Realtek HDA that's on most motherboards. I really don't think that you could do much better without spending a lot more. Just use that optical out and you should be fine.

[Astrotoy7]

There is no such thing as "HD Sound"; it's a subjective, non-standardized buzzword for stuff that's slightly higher than CD-quality

 

'Non standardised' is a misrepresentation. Whilst it is true that many users have adopted is HD as an "umbrella term" to describe >CD quality - within this there are definite indsutry standards. The same exists in TV, where "HD" used to mean >540p/i. Nowdays its means >720p/i for "Standard High Definition", 1080p/i for "True High Definition" and 1600p for Astro's High Definition WQXGA (Wide Quad eXtended Graphics Array). Nice pic of this here

 

DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD are definitely prized standards among audiophiles...

 

One of the big pluses of the PS3 (for our audio lovin' friends) is its inbuilt DTS-HD Master Audio capability. These high end formats are now possible via pc via appropriate hardware plus software suites like Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 or Arcsoft Total Media.

 

@Jan >> cool setup - but Im surprised you are not working entirely within Windows 7 Media Center - especially as it supports the digital everywhere tuner card Even though DE has actually gone out of business they are still supplying driver updates for this very interesting card. First make sure you have it all plugged in right(including firewire bits) before you start looking at a new CAM >>make sure you are using the latest firnware and latest(beta) drivers for best performance in win7/media centre.

 

I myself have 3 HTPCs now, though not into sound by any means. Im a 2.1 kinda guy

 

If anyone wants to read a bit more about the different options/add ons for the windows htpc platform - there's a really cool article by a really handsome guy here

 

Despite being a bit plain out of the box, windows mc is highly customisable, with a huge number of add-on for many different functions. One of my personal areas if interest is theme modding to suit the decor of your home theater space. Here's the theme I made for my setup which is front of a deep burgundy feature wall. Ive also(with a little help this time) managed to get the EPG guide out to 13 rows instead of the standard 7

 

 

To mod themes you can do it manually by modding the ehres.dll with a resource tuner/photoshoop etc (heres some instructions Ive written for this) or you can have a go at the new app a friend from the Oz media center community has made, Media Center Studio. Im not a fan of its image editor, but great for swapping in pre modded images.

 

mtfbwya

[Jan Gaarni]

WQXGA (Wide Quad eXtended Graphics Array)

iMax?

 

@Jan >> cool setup - but Im surprised you are not working entirely within Windows 7 Media Center - especially as it supports the digital everywhere tuner card

 

Well, never really liked Media Centers, feels kinda restricting. I don't know.

Had to re-install Windows since I was upgrading the MB and CPU, so I thought, might aswell install Win 7 RC1 since it's free.

Works fine, until I install McAfee, then it kinda locks up while booting.

Worked fine in the beginning, but a few months later it started to lock up the system. So removed McAfee and now just running on luck.

 

Even though DE has actually gone out of business they are still supplying driver updates for this very interesting card. First make sure you have it all plugged in right(including firewire bits) before you start looking at a new CAM >>make sure you are using the latest firnware and latest(beta) drivers for best performance in win7/media centre.

 

I haven't tried to set it up under Win 7 yet. Only XP. Kinda worked in the beginning, but couldn't quite figure out how to get the TV channels tuned in.

Question: If you plug the CAM in the wrong way .... will it get damaged or damage the card holder?

 

The CAM is now making scratching marks on my decoder card. Didn't used to do it before, but I think maybe the new card is slightly thicker than the previous card. Had to send in the old decoder cause it became defective. Got a new one and a new card.

 

 

As for soundcard, I was thinking of the ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3, but I hear there is 1.4 HDMI out now, so maybe there's something out next year.

 

Then again, it might not matter.

 

We'll see.

 

 

Astro, any thoughts on my minor lagging problems?

Perhaps should have updated to a quad core instead?

Or better grafics card?

[urluckyday]

 

How did you get such detailed guide information (even along with station logos!)? Is this something new in Windows 7 version?

[Astrotoy7]

How did you get such detailed guide information (even along with station logos!)? Is this something new in Windows 7 version?

 

The quality of Guide detail is related to your region. W7 does allow EIT guide data - which is taken directly off the transmission itself. It is supported in many but not all regions. IIRC you are in US - so there is a good likelihood you can get EIT guide on a supported tuner (eg. ATSC)

 

If you dont like EIT guide data, you can use custom guide data compiled by local nerds and outputted as xml files which you can then import into W7 via the Big Screen EPG app. PM me if you need more info about that.

 

Channel logos can be done by one of two apps and is indeed win7 specific. Expanding the EPG has only been done by a small handful. I think it can be done in the TVpack version of vista, but much easier to accomplish in Win7.

 

Read my article at benchmark reviews - Its got piccies and linkies

 

@Jan >> you can indeed damage the card by shoving a CAM in the wrong way >> look at the bottom of the CAM - there are little holes - for which there are corresponding pins in the card >> it looks like a shrunk down version of the IDE interface. Bend some pins and youre in troubles!

 

As for AV >> if it is a full time HTPC - it doesnt really need antivirus on it. If you really need something on it avast is perfectly stable in all versions of win7 - and free. AVG9 free is out now too - but not as fully featured as avast.

 

mtfbwya

[Jan Gaarni]

@Jan >> you can indeed damage the card by shoving a CAM in the wrong way >> look at the bottom of the CAM - there are little holes - for which there are corresponding pins in the card >> it looks like a shrunk down version of the IDE interface. Bend some pins and youre in troubles!

 

As for AV >> if it is a full time HTPC - it doesnt really need antivirus on it. If you really need something on it avast is perfectly stable in all versions of win7 - and free. AVG9 free is out now too - but not as fully featured as avast.

 

mtfbwya

 

Yeah, I found out eventually which way it was supposed to be shoved in. If you look at the sides of it there is a slight difference. Qiute literally the smallest idiot proofing I have ever come across.

As for the pins, there is no chance of bending them if you insert this cam in the wrong way. There are equal amounts of holes in both the upper and lower rows. None of that 1 row has 9 for instance and the other has 8.

 

My question was more towards damaging its internal circuitry, either the cam or the card ... or both.

 

This is indeed a full-time HTPC, so at the moment I don't care if I have an AV or not.

But I was thinkinging about that Avast program.

[Q]

I'm partial to Avira, myself. I will admit that it is not as full-featured as Avast, but its detection rate is higher.

 

You pretty much couldn't go wrong with either one.

[Astrotoy7]

I'm partial to Avira, myself. I will admit that it is not as full-featured as Avast, but its detection rate is higher.

 

You pretty much couldn't go wrong with either one.

 

Ah, the good ole AV debate... any AV discussion really must consider two modes of detection nowdays... "on demand" and "proactive/restrospective"

 

Avira and avast are indeed decent freeware options, though Avira is a bit naughty with its many false positives in on demand tests. To the chagrin of many, MS Antivirus (LiveOneCare back then) scored very highly on proactive/retrospective tests...which is a feature that should carry forward into its new freeware product MS Security Essentials.

 

Avast is the most fully geatured freeware app, but the freeware version does pull some punches if you look at the numbers

 

Some great data here >>

http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests

 

That all being said, I havent had a virus for years.... and havent run adware of spyware for a very long time. The Malware apps craze ended for me when I started using firefox and practising safer internet habits. If Hugh Jackman Swordfish hack3r tyopes want to jack into my system and steal my cat photos, they can have em - I never keep anything vital hanging around on it.

 

mtfbwya