Anand's Home Theater PC - Part I: The First Builds
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 1, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
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The Second Try: NVIDIA GeForce 8200
Shortly after building the system I received an ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI based on NVIDIA's GeForce 8200 chipset; seeing as how the NVIDIA GeForce 8200 chipset supports 8-channel LPCM audio over HDMI, it seemed like a better solution for my needs so I gave it a try.
| Idle Power | H.264 Decode Power | |
| AMD 780G | 53W | 66W |
| NVIDIA GeForce 8200 | 38W | 68W |
Power consumption under load remained unchanged however at idle the GeForce 8200 system pulled significantly less power. This didn't jive with Gary's power consumption numbers, but apparently there may be some issues with the ASUS motherboard inconsistently supplying CPU voltage resulting in power consumption that ranges from significantly lower to on par with the AMD 780G chipset.
Other signs that the GeForce 8200 isn't ready for prime time included basic stability. During its tenure as my HTPC motherboard the Gigabyte 780G never crashed on me while watching a movie, however a few minutes into me playing around with Jet Li's Fearless and the system bluescreened on me. I haven't been able to get it to crash since, but stability is of the utmost importance.
The ASUS GeForce 8200 also spins fans attached to it at faster speeds than the Gigabyte 780G, not because it needs to, it just does. We've already made ASUS aware of the problem, which apparently happens on at least one other 8200 board according to Gary.
Installing the Scythe Andy Samurai Master on the ASUS board proved troublesome, the Socket-AM2 heatsink clip interferes with the heatsink on the chipset.
There's also a good deal of noise coming from the voltage regulators whenever there are certain types of disk accesses. The motherboard emits a high pitched sound in sync with the disk accesses that seems to be worse when using the Supertalent SSD vs. the WD 1TB drive. It's by far the loudest thing about the system when in a case.
The final complaint I have about the GeForce 8200 is the least scientific; for whatever reason the system feels slower at navigating through Media Center than on the 780G. I have to switch back to the AMD 780G to be sure, but it definitely feels like it.
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Milleman - Sunday, May 11, 2008 - link
Would be a great idea for Anand to also test the LinuxMCE on the HTPC while still at it.Link: http://www.linuxmce.org/">http://www.linuxmce.org/
at80eighty - Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - link
i haven't posted in years here, but i had to stop & say hotdamn - that's a SWEET setup! you've come a long way man. congratsvailr - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
Zalman HD160B Home Theatre PC Enclosurehttp://www.excaliberpc.com/Zalman_HD160B_Home_Thea...">http://www.excaliberpc.com/Zalman_HD160...e_HD160/...
wjl - Sunday, May 4, 2008 - link
Anand,if you're not only into media center but also in home automation software, maybe you should check out the LinuxMCE project. That's based on Kubuntu (which in turn is based on Debian as we all know), so you'll get not only a solid MythTV-based media centre, but also a "one-button" setup to dim your lights, start the necessary hardware, all that.
Do yourself a favour and look at their video; I'm sure you would like that one. A friend of mine got addicted to the idea instantly, and he's now selling HTPCs.
best,
Wolfgang
ira176 - Sunday, May 4, 2008 - link
I'm interested in building one as well. One thing I'd like to do is to put my movie collection onto the HDD. I'm tired of swapping DVD's in and out of the player. Only problem is, I don't know what program to use to rip DVD's onto the computer. Any help would be appreciated.ChuckECheese - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
Try DVDFab HD Decrypter (http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm)">http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm). There's a free version that works great to rip entire DVDs or just select parts. I just rip the main movie to get rid of the previews, warnings, etc.quadraphonic - Saturday, May 3, 2008 - link
You posted the tools, I'm curious about what you end up with, file-wise, for your digital library. I'm very interested in encoding my own DVD collection. Any suggestions, guidelines?vskatusa - Saturday, May 3, 2008 - link
I have researched this board and it is my understanding that the HDMI output does not render 5.1 but only 2 ch stereo. Have you tried connecting the hdmi to a receiver and verify if it indeed outputs 5.1?Sam comment - Friday, May 2, 2008 - link
anand, if having weired problems and/or picture and sound not up to mark...try isolating htpc...meaning component output for video and optical for sound...to av amplifier, which hopefully has a good upscaler, I have a z9 that does a good job once drm's removed...(to drm enforcers I say that I promise to use 'my' movies I bought with 'my' money for 'my' fair use...so take this as end user term that goes with my purchase of your video or which you want my money)...a computer is notorious for constant changing current demand, hence varing volatages at the micro level causing all sort of electronic harmonics that escape with digital outputs like dvi and hdmi...causing havoc with da converters downstream...
I was trying out media server as well...just like the idea of having all my vast collection of movies on server, so dont have to move too far from the beer and popcorn to change if a movie is not achieving the desired feeling wanted...
Sam
~Ps...guys this is not two rich fat slobs discussing...once you get to your forty's you find that most of us have some extra cash for our 'toys' and leave the women to their 'boytoys';
DeesTroy - Friday, May 2, 2008 - link
I have been dabbling with HTPCs for a few years, though I'm certainly not an expert. I think most people underestimate the effort required and all of the stupid limitations placed on the user due to DRM or just the software maker. For example, want cable card? You'll have to go to Dell or HP if you want that and you can only use Vista MCE. Want to record sattelite HDTV? They are coming out with something you can attach to your PC soon, but it's not out yet to my knowledge. Want to watch live or recorded TV using another computer? Not something that's really supported with XP or Vista MCE. Sure, you can use an XBox 360 or a special extender, but not that spare PC you have lying around.Stability is of the utmost importance. Much testing must be done to ensure it all works right including the remote control. I generally charge 2 to 3 times the build cost for a HTPC due to all of the testing required to ensure it works right.
I don't understand the extreme dedication to building a quiet and good-looking HTPC in Anand's situation. If it's in a separate room, you probably won't be able to hear it over the fan noise from your projector. You can mount your Blu-Ray drive externally with USB or eSATA. Depending on how you set it up, RAID may not really be a requirement unless you want the redundancy. If you have trouble with stuttering, drop the RAID array as some people have reported stuttering primarly with BIOS-based RAID arrays.
HTPC support by hardware and software makers is somewhat lacking too. Try using a GeForce 8 with XP and 1080i ATSC HDTV. NVidia still hasn't, to my knowledge, implemented proper hardware support for MPEG2 deinterlacing under their XP drivers, so you get this weird stuttering that you don't get with a GeForce 7 or an AMD card. It works in Vista. Of course, this "feature" isn't documented anywhere, so it took me the better part of 6 months to figure this out. My AMD 3650 suffers weird random crashing when I open or close BeyondTV and/or PowerDVD.
Lastly, it will be difficult to find a single, slick-looking interface that integrates your TV, movies, and music. At least, from the sound of it, Anand isn't doing TV on the HTPC. Honestly, Anand, if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the HTPC world, do some work with HDTV and see where you get.