Hi Everyone,
Yesterday I finished building my HTPC (cum region free BD Player and 3D ready) that was in the process of building for more than 1 month slowly in stages. Before I proceed any further I have to say a big thank you to sam9s, spirovious and baijuxaviour without whom I would not have got the idea initially and the continuous ongoing help and suggestions that they provided helped me overcome a lot of hurdles in the research and building process. Also thanks to all those who helped me with suggestions in choosing cabinet, GPU and Remote.
Here is the hardware configuration
Motherboard: ASUS P5G41T-MLX (reused from my existing home desktop)
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core 3.2GHz processor (reused from my existing home desktop)
RAM: 2GB DDR3 1066 MHZ (reused from my existing home desktop)
Hard Disk: Seagate 3.5 inch 5400rpm 80GB PATA (reused from my existing home desktop) and also Transcend 260mbps 32GB SATA SSD (Rs 2900 purchased from HFV member buxx)
Graphics Card: Sapphire Raedon HD 6670 Low Profile edition (Rs 6050 from newegg.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
Optical Drive: LG BH12LS38 12X Blu Ray Writer (Rs 5500 from newegg.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
Cabinet+SMPS: Zebronics Genesis Slim Cabinet with 400 Watts power supply (Rs 1400 + Rs 450)
Remote: HP MCE Remote with IR Repeater (Rs 1650 from amazon.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
It is running on Windows 7 Ultimate and supported by XBMC and TMT5 alongwith AnyDVD HD to make BD playback region free. It is connected to the Home network via a wired Gigabit connection to my Dlink HT Bridge.
My main objective for upgradation was to have a better video player as compared to my 2year old media player ASUS OPlay Air which also did not support 7.1 audio, had no support for HD Audio and FLAC playback. Also my PS3 was not a region free BD Player.
Moreover the rack space in my Home Theater Rack available for the HTPC was only 4 inch in height hence I had to look for not only slim cabinets with less than 4 inches in vertical height but also with necessary ventilation, researched for long on HFV and finally concluded on the zebronics genesis. A slimmer cabinet meant low vertical clearance and hence the necessity for a low height GPU, which the Sapphire HD6670 low profile edition met perfectly. This GPU has 3D playback capability with HDMI 1.4 but I am not using this since my TV is not 3D compatible. However the HD 6670 can passthrough / bitsream all audio formats upto 7.1 channel and that includes all HD formats like DTS HD MA, Dolby True HD, etc.
I will post detailed feedbacks on its performance in due course of time, but for now here are a few pics taken during the course of the build over the last one month.
Yesterday I finished building my HTPC (cum region free BD Player and 3D ready) that was in the process of building for more than 1 month slowly in stages. Before I proceed any further I have to say a big thank you to sam9s, spirovious and baijuxaviour without whom I would not have got the idea initially and the continuous ongoing help and suggestions that they provided helped me overcome a lot of hurdles in the research and building process. Also thanks to all those who helped me with suggestions in choosing cabinet, GPU and Remote.
Here is the hardware configuration
Motherboard: ASUS P5G41T-MLX (reused from my existing home desktop)
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core 3.2GHz processor (reused from my existing home desktop)
RAM: 2GB DDR3 1066 MHZ (reused from my existing home desktop)
Hard Disk: Seagate 3.5 inch 5400rpm 80GB PATA (reused from my existing home desktop) and also Transcend 260mbps 32GB SATA SSD (Rs 2900 purchased from HFV member buxx)
Graphics Card: Sapphire Raedon HD 6670 Low Profile edition (Rs 6050 from newegg.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
Optical Drive: LG BH12LS38 12X Blu Ray Writer (Rs 5500 from newegg.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
Cabinet+SMPS: Zebronics Genesis Slim Cabinet with 400 Watts power supply (Rs 1400 + Rs 450)
Remote: HP MCE Remote with IR Repeater (Rs 1650 from amazon.com and imported via shopabroadonline.com)
It is running on Windows 7 Ultimate and supported by XBMC and TMT5 alongwith AnyDVD HD to make BD playback region free. It is connected to the Home network via a wired Gigabit connection to my Dlink HT Bridge.
My main objective for upgradation was to have a better video player as compared to my 2year old media player ASUS OPlay Air which also did not support 7.1 audio, had no support for HD Audio and FLAC playback. Also my PS3 was not a region free BD Player.
Moreover the rack space in my Home Theater Rack available for the HTPC was only 4 inch in height hence I had to look for not only slim cabinets with less than 4 inches in vertical height but also with necessary ventilation, researched for long on HFV and finally concluded on the zebronics genesis. A slimmer cabinet meant low vertical clearance and hence the necessity for a low height GPU, which the Sapphire HD6670 low profile edition met perfectly. This GPU has 3D playback capability with HDMI 1.4 but I am not using this since my TV is not 3D compatible. However the HD 6670 can passthrough / bitsream all audio formats upto 7.1 channel and that includes all HD formats like DTS HD MA, Dolby True HD, etc.
I will post detailed feedbacks on its performance in due course of time, but for now here are a few pics taken during the course of the build over the last one month.
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