sam9s HTPC Project! powered by XBMC!!

[kpit]

I have been reading this thread regularly. And I must say that you inspired me to upgrade my P4 PC, to something near to a HTPC. I need your advise on which processor and the mothor board I must look for as an initial upgrade. I am planning to limit all my upgrade (CPU, MOBO, RAM) to be not more than Rs. 15000/-

My basic usage is listening to music daily, and watching the HD movies over the weekend.

Looking forward to your inputs and thanks in advance.

 

[kpit]

one more thing to add -- I already have a grafix card ATI 4650. so I may not need a mobo with integrated grafix.

 

[sam9s]

I have been reading this thread regularly. And I must say that you inspired me to upgrade my P4 PC, to something near to a HTPC. I need your advise on which processor and the mothor board I must look for as an initial upgrade. I am planning to limit all my upgrade (CPU, MOBO, RAM) to be not more than Rs. 15000/-

My basic usage is listening to music daily, and watching the HD movies over the weekend.

Looking forward to your inputs and thanks in advance.

Well I will take 15K without the display, since you did not mention with which display would you be connecting your HTPC to. So again I will presume you will connect it to your LCD/Plasma, so all you need is the PC itself. I'd say dump your P4, if you had anything above a P4 I probably would have recommended to give it a try. But p4 is wayyy to out dated.

15K budget for just Proc, Mobo, RAM is ok I guess.

Depending upon the city where you are located. Prices will vary

i3 2100 should be around 5K-5.5K
The cheapest board to accommodate i3 would be H55 chipset. H67 is still expensive and Z68 or P67 are way too expensive. You can go with something like
Asus P7H55-M LX which should not be more then 4-4.5K
RAM 4GB 1333Mhz 1K-1.5K

So for Mobo,Proc,RAM you can have all of the above under 12K, even after taking the upper limit. Add a GT440 for around 4K and you have an HTPC for 16K. All you now need is a case which you can decide by your self.

If you can manage to get any Core 2 Duo or a Core 2 Quad or AMD Athlon X2 with an ASUS/MSI/Gigabyte mobo or any board with atleast 2 RAM slots and a PCIe. With 4GB DDR2 800 Mhz, The entire setup with a new GT440 would not even cross 8-9K........ Just an another suggestion ....

 

[kpit]

@ SAM - Thanks for your quick response.
i3 2100 is of chipset LGA1155
and the mother board you suggested is P7H55M - LX is for Intel LGA1156 Platform

Does this combinations works... or what do I miss if the mobo is not of LGA1155 platform...

Also - Since I already have a GPU - ATI 4650; can I make use of this card with i3-2100; for added benefit with improved picture quality...

 

[manniraj]

Hi ausyz

You were right when I checked in the device manager the onboard graphics is disabled. As I inserted the gt440 card the onboard graphics is disabled and I have already uninstalled all the ATI drivers for the onboard graphics and sound. So the gt440 is awesome and I can see the difference right away. Also DXVA is enabled in mpc-hc the cpu usage is not crossing 20% and I watched the Planet Earth 720p torrent downloaded and the video looks stunning. Also with the Bose small book shelf speakers that I have connected to the tv-out the sound also produces superbly. I am very happy with the new gt440. Now its time for the AVR.

Thanks.

 

[manniraj]

@ SAM - Thanks for your quick response.
i3 2100 is of chipset LGA1155
and the mother board you suggested is P7H55M - LX is for Intel LGA1156 Platform

Does this combinations works... or what do I miss if the mobo is not of LGA1155 platform...

Also - Since I already have a GPU - ATI 4650; can I make use of this card with i3-2100; for added benefit with improved picture quality...

As sam pointed out I can tell you that the gt440 is awesome and I just installed it and was not satisfied with my onboard gpu (i presume my gigabyte amd 880gm has the same hd4650) for above 720p movie and I am not sure how the 1080p movie will work out. So suggest you to invest in the gt440 and you will not regret it at any.

 

[manniraj]

I just came across this piece of information XBMC Eden 11 with support audio Dolby true HD and DTS HDand it seems that by this year end we should be able to enjoy the bitstreaming of dts-hd and dolby truhd with the new xbmc 11 eden version. Hope this will solve all the bitstreaming problems with xbmc.

 

[sam9s]

@ SAM - Thanks for your quick response.
i3 2100 is of chipset LGA1155
and the mother board you suggested is P7H55M - LX is for Intel LGA1156 Platform

Does this combinations works... or what do I miss if the mobo is not of LGA1155 platform...

Also - Since I already have a GPU - ATI 4650; can I make use of this card with i3-2100; for added benefit with improved picture quality...

mmmmm quite right, I missed that. Apologies. Well no worries, with the same budget, or might be even lesser, you can opt for P8H61-M PLUS or P8H61-M LX which ever one is cheaper .....

About ATI 4650 there are three main reasons I would not suggest ATI card, these might not be too convincing to you, but never the less share do consider.

1. No HD Audio support (DTA MA and DD True HD)
2. Even for DTS and Dolby via HDMI you need the "ATI HDMI Audio Device" Driver which makes it complex.
3. ATI might be good for gaming but when it comes to A/V and 3D nVidia has upper hand. I myself ditched ATI for nVidia for my HTPC, when I am using ATI's 5850CF for my Regular Desktop/Gaming PC for years now.

 

[sam9s]

I just came across this piece of information XBMC Eden 11 with support audio Dolby true HD and DTS HDand it seems that by this year end we should be able to enjoy the bitstreaming of dts-hd and dolby truhd with the new xbmc 11 eden version. Hope this will solve all the bitstreaming problems with xbmc.

Been waiting for eden for years n years ..... . Finally some ray of hope, thanks for sharing this manniraj.

More exclusive details .... HERE (Loads of worthy features)

 

[Gijo George]

Hi Sam
After installing Asus Xonar STX and a GT440 graphics card is it possible to take both these AV signals with a single HDMI cable to the AVR? Yes I'm a noob

TIA

 

[sam9s]

Single cable I think not. There would always be two/three cables needed for multiple AUDIO (like via HDMI, via Analogue (inbuilt sound card ..etc)). UNLESS you get some switch kind of thing where all cables from your computer goes in and we have one single cable out form the other end. (not a feasible solution)

But yes I presume if you have both the cards drives installed correctly, you should have the option to choose which AUDIO to send the signals form via the windows sound properties under "Playback TAB".

 

[Gijo George]

THanks Sam. I just got a vague idea of your second option since I don't have experience with multiple audio paths from my PC.

So basically this means I'll need to take the HDMI out from the graphic card and maybe a coaxial from the sound card. Am I right? But can coax cable carry DTS HD and Dobly Dig True HD signals?
Thanks

 

[sam9s]

No Coax wont do HD audio. See Xonr STX is not intended for Home Theaters, infact external sound cards are more targeted towards quality stereo output rather then HTs. Never the less I am not sure why would you want HD Audio from two sources. Anyway if you are inclined towards a dedicated sound card for HT as well then you need to go fro Xonar HDAV1.3 that has HDMI in/out and supports full HD Audio. OR Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim if you do not want stereo analogue out.

 

[borg]

xonar st/stx dont have hdmi so no hd audio, as per asus these are for music

for home theater app checkout the hdav series which has both audio and video

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Multimedia- ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe

edit: sam9s beat me to it by 3 min

 

[sam9s]

Friends I have started my NAS thread, so if anyone wants to discuses it, most welcome to join the thread below....

http://www.hifivision.com/home-thea...9s-nas-project-powered-unraid.html#post279738

 

[spacemonkey]

Hey sam
I didn't read through the entire thread but I am just wondering

1. I have a similar setup but with Win7 x32 and an NVidia GT240 going to a Denon 1612. I can't figure out what theme your using to display video art the way you have in your xbmc screenies. I use the default Confluence theme and the navigation is kinda drab when I surf through "Awatch your Videos"
2. How in the world did you configure xbmc to show you temp in Celsius. Been raking my brains over that one!

Thanks in advance.

 

[baijuxavior]

2. How in the world did you configure xbmc to show you temp in Celsius. Been raking my brains over that one!

Thanks in advance.

To set the temperature in Celsius, you will need to set your location as India in Settings>Appearance>International>Region.

 

[manniraj]

Hey sam
I didn't read through the entire thread but I am just wondering

1. I have a similar setup but with Win7 x32 and an NVidia GT240 going to a Denon 1612. I can't figure out what theme your using to display video art the way you have in your xbmc screenies. I use the default Confluence theme and the navigation is kinda drab when I surf through "Awatch your Videos"

Thanks in advance.

Even me too want to know the exact steps that you did to get the cover of the dvd/bluray shown during navigation rather than the name of the movie. I am using Transperancy as my skin and I get only the vertical navigation of the movies list rather than the horizontal navigation with the album art as per your video. I looked at your youtube video but I do not think that this steps are listed. Pls do let us know how this can be done in xbmc.

 

[baijuxavior]

You will need to use the library mode to view the album art. For this first add all movies to your library and select the library mode. Then set the view to 'fanart, 'poster wrap' etc.

See my library view:

[/IMG]

 

[sam9s]

Hey sam
I didn't read through the entire thread but I am just wondering

1. I have a similar setup but with Win7 x32 and an NVidia GT240 going to a Denon 1612. I can't figure out what theme your using to display video art the way you have in your xbmc screenies. I use the default Confluence theme and the navigation is kinda drab when I surf through "Awatch your Videos"
2. How in the world did you configure xbmc to show you temp in Celsius. Been raking my brains over that one!

Thanks in advance.

Even me too want to know the exact steps that you did to get the cover of the dvd/bluray shown during navigation rather than the name of the movie. I am using Transperancy as my skin and I get only the vertical navigation of the movies list rather than the horizontal navigation with the album art as per your video. I looked at your youtube video but I do not think that this steps are listed. Pls do let us know how this can be done in xbmc.

I can'nt believe you all are not using the Library Mode to display your collection. That is why its preferred to always read the entire thread. At post no 22 I clearly mentioned how to add your library and then under special note mentioned that make sure you turn the library mode ON. What ever skin you use always turn the library mode on. For updating the library or while adding new source (like I did when I added my NAS) you have to turn off the library mode, add the source or scan the new content, and then turn back the Library Mode on. Also my video shows how you can change the cover art views once the library mode is turned on. Cover Art views would differ per the skins you have. The video I shared has transparency skin so the Cover Art views is per the transparency skin.

For Temp, the first thing you do as suggested by baijuxavior, is to change your region, then in the weather setting you can opt for a different weather plug-in, like I have chosen "Weather Plus", once you do that the setting under weather will be enabled and you can set various settings including your city from there.

@manniraj The You tube is just a video to show you my setup, my final configuration, its not a tutorial video actually hence does not contain the "How To" part.

BTW I have switched to "Night" skin after a prolonged use of Transparency basically because of better control over smart playlists that I mentioned in my latest feature a the previous page. I am able to better control my home page menu with separate Hindi Movies Menu option. Very Very neat.