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Jon

Just Another Retired Moderator
Joined
Dec 19, 2000
Location
Lawrenceville, GA
So, we recently moved and we've been going one room at a time and, as you know, the first thing any of us would want to get going is our entertainment center (PC is a given). I was going to post this in the 'show off your HTPC', but I figure I had too many images and not all are strictly of my HTPC.

Anyway, first thing I did weeks ago was wire up the 7.1 wiring for the interim Onkyo HT-SR800 system (until I decide on a HD player to go with and a format is chosen). I went through the wall, down through the basement, and then fished up through three walls for the surrounds - one went to a bookcase and was easy (through the floor and up through the cabinet/shelving).

Pt. 1

HTPC003.jpg

I hadn't removed the painter's tape yet.

HTPC002.jpg

Cheap speaker mounts...

HTPC005.jpg

...but you can't see them anyway.

HTPC006.jpg

After the surrounds are installed (plus gratuitous cat entry...he didn't help at all).

Left side...

HTPC014.jpg

...and right side (and cat backside).

HTPC016.jpg

Cont'd.
 
Pt. 2.

Now I had to install my TV wall mount and run the cables.

HDMI (Onkyo has two-port switch), component in case I need it later (cable/SAT), and power cord are run down to the hole in the first image.

HTPC004.jpg

My uncle-in-law (is there such a thing) showed up unannounced this morning, so I put him to work (TV weighs in at 100lb, so I needed help in hanging it).

Finished project with sub shot...

HTPC007.jpg

...and after the DVD bookcases are moved into place.

HTPC015.jpg

A couple of inside shots of the HTPC (E6300, Abit IL9Pro, 2GB DDR2-667, Gigabyte HD-2600Pro, onboard HD Audio via SPDIF, 2X36GB WD Raptors - recordings are moved to the server w/2TB - 430W CM ACLY PSU, DVICO Fusion5 Lite, and Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE).

The wiring leaves little to be desired, but it could be worse.

HTPC017.jpg

HTPC018.jpg

The outside, with Crystalfontz 632 LCD, driven with Frontview software.

HTPC020.jpg

The Mozart case didn't fit in the entertainment center which is why it's on top. I have a cheap Cooler Master Cavalier case showing up on Thursday or Friday that isn't quite as deep to transfer to. The Mozart will be moved to my bedroom (pics on that coming soon - it was actually finished weeks ago).

The front Onkyo speakers were replaced with Polk R300s and the center is a timbre-matched Polk CSR center channel. Eventually I'll replace the surrounds, but that will come when the receiver is swapped.
 
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looks nice! and VERY nice fishing/wiring job too!! (wanna come do mine? :D )

oh, I finally meet (part of?) your DVD collection!! :eek: I think you could open up your own netfilx for the members here!! :D have you ever thought of ripping all of them for better storage and space?!
 
The wiring was done just prior to moving in, so I actually finished it about a month ago. I had to cut out a 6"x6" hole a couple of feet below each speaker wire to fish it through. I then put the piece back in, 'puttied' it back in place, then had to paint all the walls over again (hence, the painter's tape everywhere in some pics). I was just glad to find there were no cross-supports between any of the studs :)

My bedroom was done in much of the same way, but was much easier. I went up through the wall, crossed through the attic, then dropped directly down into the ceiling. My rear and single back channel (6.1) are the only ones mounted and I hang them directly from the ceiling. I'll get some pics of those up in this week maybe (although it's a very simple setup...LCD isn't wall-mounted).

I started ripping and putting movies on my media server at a set point several months ago instead of burning a backup copy every time (that got to be expensive and isn't a permanent solution). I'm at about 400 or so right now and I can't imagine going back to convert the other 1000+. I do all of mine in 2-pass 1000kbps x.264 with 192kbps duplicate channel ABR AAC mp4 format, so it can take up to 6 hours for some movies to finish on my primary encoder ([email protected]). By the time I finished all of those, I'd be an old man :)

The ones in the bookcases are basically the ones that I'd expect company to want to see. The rest are in four 256 and 320-disc binders. The cases are all boxed up and have been since I was in Korea and Texas (I shipped the cases home as I bought them and kept the DVDs- space was limited there). I don't have the room to display them, nor the time to put all the discs back in their respective cases.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to rewire some of my Ethernet though. I'm having some issues with a couple (to include that media center) not coming up at 1Gbps connections. I may need to get some STP in for a few of those as I'd say interference may be playing a part (they cross electrical lines in a spot or two). I'm going to repunch everything first and just hope it's just poor contact.
 
I do all of mine in 2-pass 1000kbps x.264 with 192kbps duplicate channel ABR AAC mp4 format, so it can take up to 6 hours for some movies to finish on my primary encoder ([email protected]). By the time I finished all of those, I'd be an old man :)

I'm afraid I'm going to have to rewire some of my Ethernet though. I'm having some issues with a couple (to include that media center) not coming up at 1Gbps connections. I may need to get some STP in for a few of those as I'd say interference may be playing a part (they cross electrical lines in a spot or two). I'm going to repunch everything first and just hope it's just poor contact.
2-pass 1000kps x.264?! :eek: (you sure like the best quality huh?!) may be it's 'bout time for you to invest on a quad jon!!

try to unplug it from the router/switch/hub and replug it again. sometimes the switch/hub/router itself just needs to refresh itself.
 
2-pass 1000kps x.264?! :eek: (you sure like the best quality huh?!) may be it's 'bout time for you to invest on a quad jon!!

try to unplug it from the router/switch/hub and replug it again. sometimes the switch/hub/router itself just needs to refresh itself.

I used to encode so that I could fit on CD (900kbps or so with audio), but decided on the 1000+192kbps since I could just create a single profile in MeGUI and encode everything without changing any settings. File sizes are typically in the 900MB-1.2GB range (although 2.5hr+ will go to 1.5GB+). I may eventually go to quad, but while MeGUI supports multi-threading (you can specify the number), AVISynth MT is experimental and way too complicated to mess with at the moment. I don't even know if the MT version works with MeGUI right now. Most of my encodes only take about 3-4 hours and I VPN from work to do them, so I'm not wasting much of my free time :)

Unplugging/replugging usually works, but it gets annoying after a while. I used to be able to simply disable/re-enable the NIC, but that's not working anymore either. There's a power cable running to an outlet that this line intersects, so I may actually install a jack in the wall (I run the cable direct to the HTPC now) below that power cable to see if it is interference. I didn't leave myself much slack anyway, so it would be nice to have that jack in place. I'm going to pick up another 5-port Gbit switch today too. Fry's has them at $25, which isn't too bad. I need one, plus it may push a better signal (never know).
 
that is some very nice work jon

wanna come do mine? ill pay you with microwave pizzas and cookies!

lol, thanks! :)

I did find that the line going to that media center is either bad or experiencing interference causing it to run at 100mb only. I had a 100ft prefab roll sitting around that I cracked open and decided to run through the hallway to see how it would do straight off the switch. It came right up at 1Gbps (line sensing and DHCP was typically taking up to 30 seconds before settling on 100mb).

It was the easiest run in the house and I'm glad it isn't the onboard NIC (no PCI left :eek: ), so I'll probably take care of that this weekend or Friday. The new case comes in Thursday, so I'm going to want to get it all finished up before the weekend is up (the next weekend starts our Disneyworld vacation :) ).
 
I received my Cooler Master case yesterday and transferred my system to it. I guess Cooler Master fudged the dimensions...it's as deep as my Mozart. The height is also incorrectly listed as it is not as high. So not only does it still not fit in my entertainment center, my heatsink is also too tall for it. To add to my discouragement, it doesn't take standard-sized PSUs, so I'm stuck with this smaller form-factor 350W it came with. That's fine for the bedroom P-M system, but not the C2D and ATi power hog.

I ended up cutting the MDF backboard anyway, which I didn't want to do. Since I cut it, I'm just going to transfer everything back to the Mozart and move the Cooler Master to my bedroom.

I also may end up moving my leftover X2/Ultra-D board to that Mozart case. It appears the onboard NIC in the IL9 is going bad. It was working fine with the 100ft prefab for a day, but I'm getting constant "Network cable unplugged" (and I mean constant...every 10 seconds or so) messages, so I believe the NIC is shot. Doesn't surprise me as I hate Realtek NICs. I have a spare PCI slot (I thought I only had two) and Gbit NIC laying around, but I don't know if I'm going to do that or not. I'd rather have the C2D doing extra encoding anyway. The HD2600Pro allows me to use a weaker CPU to begin with, even though the only HD I watch right now is recorded TV shows.

The Ultra-D only has coax SPDIF, so I'll have to rerun the audio, which is not that big of a deal. I was using coax on my DVD player, so I'll just trade cables since it has optical too.

This thing is starting to give me a headache.
 
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