Projects
HTPC build by Sapper
Firstly, I must thank all those individuals both in here and AVforums for their support, suggestions. Whilst I did the work, it was a team effort, and so thank you all. In particular, Adam (AngelEyes) especially as this ‘write up’ is similar to his. His write up works and is an effective one – so why re-invent the wheel.
I have another thread in here relating to the possible specs of the box, but I thought I would start a new thread with the actual build and software installation.
My AV system consists of a Denon 2900 Mk II DVD player, an outstanding universal Player, but was the last generation of player before HDMI became a generally available. This is connected to a Fuji 50 inch plasma display via component; and the AV amp by SP/DIF (and 6 channel audio for DVD-A and SACD). My V+ cable box is connected to the plasma by HDMI and the amp by Optical Toslink.
My Cyrus CD player is cable audio as is my Denon Digital Radio. The existing PC is connected by Digital cable and DVI-HDMI.
Existing (Now Previous) HTPC:
I have built two PC’s recently, one is an office based machine whilst the other is pseudo HTPC, the specifications are as follows:
- A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard,
- AMD Athlon XP3000 and 1GB of Crucial DDR400 Memory
- 1 x Gigabyte GV-N66256DP 6600 256MB Silent pipe AGP Video Card (
- 80GB Hard Drive (IDE), 250 GB Mirror array (SATA)
- Liteon 16x48 IDE DVD-ROM Drive
- NEC DVD writer
- Nebula DigiTV Card
- Black Gold DigiTV Card
- MCE MCE 2005
- Fujitsu P50XHA58EB (DVI--> HDMI) and an Acer 8ms Widescreen AL1916W 19" 500: (1440 x 900) Monitor (VGA; set as primary) both set to 1320 x768 or what ever the resolution is.
It is in an Antec Sonata Tower Case. Whilst not loud, when the room is quiet, the whine of either a hard drive or fan can be heard.
I have recently started to down load HD clips and other stuff. Whilst it is early days and my knowledge is limited, I am starting to have issues with HD playback.
As such I am contemplating whether to build a truly dedicated HD-HTPC with Blue ray and HD-DVD. So the question is do I rebuild this existing PC or do a new rebuild?
As there is nothing wrong with this PC, and several times I asked myself, do I need a new PC, I decided against cannibalising this PC for the new one. Rather I will relegate this else where and use it for another office machine, remote accessing from the HTPC if I need to, if Mrs Sapper is working on the Office PC. As such the software on the new HD-PTC is purely windows OP (MCE) and relevant media software. Oh and a Viral monitoring software package.
Currently the only item cannibalised is a DVD Drive for software installation.