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Angry

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
I plan to retire my current rig to a HTPC eventually when I get a projector.
I alrdy have it feeding the TV in the living room via the cable in the walls.
I was wondering what setups you guys have done for your HTPCs and how you use them. (IE movies, games...everything...)
 
Don't feel like post pics, but I'll post specs:

Case: Cheapest HTPC case that will hold full ATX (Just barely)
P4 overclocked to 2.7ghz
1gb ram
9600XT video currently using S-Video out
80gb OS drive with 250gb storage drive
Lite-On DVD drive
dual Haupagge PVR-150's (thinking about adding an HD tuner)
Media Center remote with IR-Blaster

Software:
XP backend running GB-PVR w/weather plug-in

Overall: After building this HTPC I could imagine living without it. I can watch *all* the shows I want no matter when they are on. Best of all: I can auto-skip all the commercials! I haven't seen a commerical I didn't want to see in months. Plus I have all my music and pictures on it.

I've play NFS: Underground and some NES/Genesis emulators on it before, but I mostly use it for the DVR functionality. The sky is the limit really. I could even set it up with ORB to stream all my content anywhere I am.
 
My HTPC is not worth taking pictures of. It's nothing more than an old beige case stuffed into a corner in the basement, and is host to as many spiders and insects as it is to recorded shows. The configuration is:

Hardware:
Nasty, scratched, rusting beige case
generic 400w psu
Duron 1.4GHz applebred - pencil modded to AXP and OC'd to 2.1GHz
Shuttle AN35N-Ultra nForce2
768mb memory
Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE
GeForce2 MX
2x80gb drives for OS, programs and music
120gb drive for recording

Playback is handled via several Hauppauge MediaMVP's, one at each TV


Software:
XP Pro
GB-PVR for PVR functionality


Overall:
I really enjoy this configuration because I can record shows and watch them on any TV in the house, and I don't have a bulky / noisy HTPC nearby to ruin the experience.
 
No pic for now, but my HTPC rig is as follows:
Case:
Ahanix MCE301 Home Theater PC Case, Black

Mobo/CPU/Ram:
MSI Nforce 6150 based mATX board (on-board DVI)
3200+ w/Zallman cooler
1GB PC3200 Ram

Tuners:
1x Haupauge MCE-150 (PCI)
1x ATI 550 (PCI-E)
1x Divco Fusion 5 Lite

Drives:
2x 400GB SATA WD
1x Asus DVD+-RW DL
4x 400GB IDE Segate drives in a firewire case

Software:
Windows Media Center Edidion 2005

Misc:
MCE Remote
Gyration Wireless suite (RF keyboard and mouse)

All hooked up to my 32" LCD TV running at 1366x768.

Next up is a 7600GT so I can play oblivion on the TV :)
 
big question. how exactly do u record shows and such? alot of people use the Hauppauge PVR-150, isn't that a software recording capture card? i have one similar to that and the quality isn't that good... or is there something i'm missing? also 250GB isn't gonna be enough to record alot of stuff (only thing that i found was good enough to watch was some wierd AVI format, and that was some big *** file.
 
warlock110 said:
big question. how exactly do u record shows and such? alot of people use the Hauppauge PVR-150, isn't that a software recording capture card? i have one similar to that and the quality isn't that good... or is there something i'm missing? also 250GB isn't gonna be enough to record alot of stuff (only thing that i found was good enough to watch was some wierd AVI format, and that was some big *** file.

PVR-150 is hardware based MPEG-2. Quality is decent. I also have a ATI 550 based card which seems to edge out the PVR-150 in quality. Your image can vary greatly, if you are pulling of a antenna the picture might not be good. If you are hooked into cable, it is better, if you are hooked via s-video to your cable/satellite box it's even better.

Right now I am using Windows Media Center Edition. Regular TV is about 3GB/hr HD is 10GB/hr. 250GB will get you around 80 hours of regular TV.

Watching standard definition TV on a computer monitor, it's not going to look good. You are scaling a 480i (interlaced, 480 lines) or 540i for you PAL people. up to computer resolutions (1600x1200 in my case).

Software like Nvidia's PureVideo do a good job scaling and de-interlacing, but it still isn't great. At 7-8ft from a 32" LCD running at 1368x768 it looks fine though.
 
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