HTPC Upgrade Part 1

[indyjones]

Just ordered some nw bits for my HTPC

Ordered the LG combo drive (HD-DVD & Bluray) and the very nice ASUS HDAV1.3 sound card 🙂

I should soon be enjoying 1080P picture with 7.1 sound 😀

 

[LordOfLA]

you should go for a full on THX 7.4 setup 😀

 

[indyjones]

bah who needs 4 subs? Its not like they are directional 😛 Just because you have a proper decoder/amplifier setup.......

Fingers are crossed that the sound card with accept dolby digital in via optical, this is important for my XBOX360. My next upgrade will be a motherboard with more slots (its a mATX board at the moment), slightly faster cpu and hopefully dual sat cards for HD 🙂 Oh and I fancy getting that nice Logitech MCE palm keyboard 🙂

 

[Johnny]

That sounds cool, indy. I am hoping to have an htpc here, soon, myself 🙂

 

[indyjones]

We are really pleased with ours (running vista media centre) and it works really well. A friends suystem is not so good though keeps crashing, still I guess that is the issue of having a pc........

 

[LordOfLA]

bah who needs 4 subs? Its not like they are directional 😛 Just because you have a proper decoder/amplifier setup.......

Just for the full on cinematic annoy the neighbours effect 😀

Anyway my PC is the decoder - the xonar d2 analogue out going through my yamaha amp is awesome 🙂 the little Gale Sat 10 bookshelfs that came with it are impressive too. 10hz to 22,000 hz response 🙂

They don't have the oomph though being tiny bookshelf speakers. Still caused the neighbour to come up from downstairs and asked me not to make so much noise with saints row 2 on the xbox though 😀

Fingers are crossed that the sound card with accept dolby digital in via optical, this is important for my XBOX360. My next upgrade will be a motherboard with more slots (its a mATX board at the moment), slightly faster cpu and hopefully dual sat cards for HD 🙂 Oh and I fancy getting that nice Logitech MCE palm keyboard 🙂

Intel x58 and core i7! Faster blu-ray player in the west!

 

[Admiral Michael]

Did you guys know XMBC has a windows version? I'm looking into building a HTPC because I want to replace my aging modded XBOX.

 

[indyjones]

^ Very interesting will have to look into that. Though to be honest despite its many pit falls, Vista media center takes some beating espcially at 1080P 😀

Update - should get my new hardware tonight 🙂

 

[indyjones]

Woo its waiting for me at home. Will post some pictures for those interested (if any) later. Oh reps for you Admiral micael, XBMC looks awesome, will see how it likes to intergrate with VMC 🙂x

 

[Admiral Michael]

What is VMC?

I borrowed an HP IR receiver from my cousin (its for a Media Center PC) and am using a app called EventGhost
to interface the remote with XBMC. It works well, altho it's another process to run, it's completely customizable and can do things in Windows too like launch apps and open optical drives, etc.

I got this board for free from a friend: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=Fuzzy_690T&class=ipc

It has HDMI built in. I took the AMD Athlon X2 4600+ from my desktop and put in on that mobo and just bought a 5400 for my desktop. Now I either need a case since the one my friend gave me doesn't fit well with the heatsink or I need a new heatsink.

That's the reason I'm thinking of using it as a media center PC.

 

[LordOfLA]

Vista Media Centre 😀

 

[Admiral Michael]

Bah, Windows media center is nothing compared to XBMC!

 

[indyjones]

Bah, Windows media center is nothing compared to XBMC!

can you schedule tv recordings or pause live tv with xbmc?

 

[Admiral Michael]

Unfortunately no, it does everything but TV stuff.

 

[indyjones]

Unfortunately no, it does everything but TV stuff.

Bah, rubbish then 😛

Seriously though XBMC looks like it might be perfect for the new "extender" I am building, addtionally it should make a nice alternative to VMC for viewing avi's etc off my server 🙂


Also all the stuff came last night but I did not have any time to do anything with them, plus I can't fit the new soundcard till I get my new motherbaord as I don't have a free pci express slot

 

[Admiral Michael]

Ya, it's great for an extender. It supports SOOO many file formats it's amazing.

So I think I'm going to skip the media center right now and use the little motherboard for a new server. Want to shrink it down and hopefully it will consume a little less power.