sam9s HTPC Project! powered by XBMC!!

[sam9s]

Its on the higher side, but there is a reason, first the form factor, its compact, it uses notebook RAM and HDD which anyhow are a bit expensive than Desktop versions. If we only take the monitory aspect yes an HTPC can be assembled <17, with HDD and RAM, specially with AMD counterpart, however, the size and the polishness of ZOTAC would not be there.

Decision is yours .....

And it would not be me who would be assembling the PC .. , I can only suggest the hardware, you have to find someone there itself to assemble it for you. Installing OS and XBMC is not that difficult at all.

Finally yes the remote for Nano should work with XBMC ....

 

[nikhil1300]

Yep if you want I can get the hardware for you ......assemble, set it up exactly the way you want or just like mine for a very nominal charge . I keep doing these projects here and there.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

Well i am from bangalore how do we work it out ,should i send the hardware and you can just configer or you will set up the whole htpc,one more thing i have an external hd 1 tb of dvd rip movies ,i read about some barter system you were talking about (blue rayrip):lol:

 

[sam9s]

Well it wont work out. The user needs to be in delhi for this to work out. Else if I send the assembled hardware via courier its gonna land pretty expensive for you.

About barter system yes I do believe in barter system but the commodities should be of equal worth ....... ..... BD rips for BD rips ...

 

[captainrizal]

Its on the higher side, but there is a reason, first the form factor, its compact, it uses notebook RAM and HDD which anyhow are a bit expensive than Desktop versions. If we only take the monitory aspect yes an HTPC can be assembled <17, with HDD and RAM, specially with AMD counterpart, however, the size and the polishness of ZOTAC would not be there.

Decision is yours .....

I think Zotac will cost me much more than 17k if I have to install even 320Gb HDD for loading drivers and OS. Okay i will go with DIY way and get HTPC assembled by some dealer here. Can you list out the hardware for building a decent HTPC within a budget of 12-15K. I can stretch a couple of Ks more if really required. I think I have told you my requirement for HTPC. It should be able to produce HD sound and good PQ.

 

[esanthosh]

If you are not averse to DIY, you can try assembling the PC yourself. Couple of years ago, the maximum I ever did with "DIY" on the PC was to open the case for .... cleaning

But then, I assembled my HAPC by myself and now I am going to upgrade my PC and do a HTPC from the left overs. Unlike other DIY, the maximum a PC assembling demands is to use the screw driver. Each and everything fits into it's own slot on the motherboard and there's no way you can do it any other way, so it's much easy to install CPU, RAM on the board. All you need is a little patience and time.

 

[sam9s]

I think Zotac will cost me much more than 17k if I have to install even 320Gb HDD for loading drivers and OS. Okay i will go with DIY way and get HTPC assembled by some dealer here. Can you list out the hardware for building a decent HTPC within a budget of 12-15K. I can stretch a couple of Ks more if really required. I think I have told you my requirement for HTPC. It should be able to produce HD sound and good PQ.

Well then I already have suggested what I think should be a decent HTPC. I am quoting the same recommendation again that I listed a couple of pages back ...

Any Intel H67 micro ATX board. I will suggest Intel DH67BL ... The board is around 5K maybe less.

If you wanna better quality than go for ASUS H67 series.

Couple it with an Core i3 2100 .. again not more then 5K
Add 4GB RAM ...................1.2K
1TB HDD ......................... No idea about the current price as they have gone up drastically (thats what i have heard)

Misc (cabinet keyboard mouce ...... 2K

Total :: approx 15K and this might be a 1K or 2 more as I dont have the exact price of the Proc and Mobo.

This would provide you HD sound and good picture quality.

Later you can upgrade to a Dedicated GPU like GT440 if you wanna go the 3D way ...

 

[spirovious]

Apart,with my HTPC & Yamaha 667,new ffd audio decoder works better/accurate than old one.LAV filter had a problem bitstreaming some clips,but with ffd no problem.I can see Dts-HD on my AVR & not DTS only.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

If you are not averse to DIY, you can try assembling the PC yourself. Couple of years ago, the maximum I ever did with "DIY" on the PC was to open the case for .... cleaning

But then, I assembled my HAPC by myself and now I am going to upgrade my PC and do a HTPC from the left overs. Unlike other DIY, the maximum a PC assembling demands is to use the screw driver. Each and everything fits into it's own slot on the motherboard and there's no way you can do it any other way, so it's much easy to install CPU, RAM on the board. All you need is a little patience and time.

And a little care too, along with awareness of dangers of static.

As a hands-on small-department IT manager for two decades, I must have removed and replaced or upgraded almost every part of a PC (and a few bits in bigger things) other than the motherboard itself, but, somehow, I never came to build one from scratch, until about a year ago, when I made my current system. It is easy ... but beware of over-confidence and lack of preparation: google will help to locate several sites that give step-by-step-guides, with photographs. Even with my previous experience, I found that very useful.

By far the worst part of the job is deciding what to buy!

 

[visakara]

Apart,with my HTPC & Yamaha 667,new ffd audio decoder works better/accurate than old one.LAV filter had a problem bitstreaming some clips,but with ffd no problem.I can see Dts-HD on my AVR & not DTS only.

spirovious,
Could you able to see DTS-HD in bold letters on center of AVR or is it in small letters in top LH corner of AVR?

 

[sam9s]

^^ Depends on different AVRs I guess. This is how my Onkyo shows ..

 

[esanthosh]

I got a Silverstone Sugo SG02F case for the HTPC. I am currently using a Seasonic S12 430W PSU in the old PC, which should suffice for the HTPC. But, I am a bit skeptical of the cable management which is a bit rough even in the Mini tower case. Is there any modular PSU that I can look at for reducing the cable clutter? Any other options to consider?

 

[sam9s]

Almost every PSU manufacturer has a modular PSU to offer. Cooler Master for example has Silent Pro Series that have modular PSUs. You can choose accordingly ...

Silent Pro M700 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

 

[visakara]

^^ Depends on different AVRs I guess. This is how my Onkyo shows ..






Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This is my yama 863 AVR dispaly when I played a file with DTS HD MA.Now is my AVR is delivering DTS HD MA?

 

[sam9s]

^^ I guess yes, it does show DTS HD Master Audio. Whats is your source of playback and how is the source connected ... ???

 

[haisaikat]

This one looks good candidate for mini HTPC
Elite 100 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

 

[visakara]

^^ I guess yes, it does show DTS HD Master Audio. Whats is your source of playback and how is the source connected ... ???

sam9s,

Before answering your question,i would like to thank you immensely since you are my inspiration to go for HTPC through this thread.Previously I had AC Ryan POHD and was facing hell a lot of problems.After seeing your thread I decided to follow suit. I have asked for a doubt vide post No 198 dt 21st July for which you replied.Once again thanks.Now for the source.
Asus P8H 67mlx Board
Core i3 2100
Nvidia GT440 GPU
Silverstone LC 16B M220 Case.
CM460W SMPS PSU
Coarsair 4GB DDR3 RAM
Sony BD5300 BD drive.
Seagate 1 Tb HDD+2 Tb WD Ex Hard disc.
Leneovo wireless keyboard mini.

Connected the above to Optoma HD20 via Yamaha thr HDMI. I tried with a file which has DTS HD MA Audio and played with MPC-HC with LAV filter.

Now one more question.How to paste shareTHe.TV image in my signature.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[sam9s]

This one looks good candidate for mini HTPC
Elite 100 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

I assembled one of my friend's (client) HTPC with a i3 2100 and H67 combi, (mini ATX) board, and I must share it is way to small to manually push all the cables. The quality is also not up to the mark. Specially with Micro ATX boards. ITX boards might be easy to assemble, but with a micro ATX. I had a hard time doing all the cable management. Just thought to add my experience. People going with this case, just be careful, very careful while assembling the HTPC

 

[novice-akki]

Hi Sam,

Need your expert advise on setting up my Music/HTPC (with the help of your thread have already set-up XBMC many thanks)
My usage will be 40/60 in favor of music initally and later most definitely will be 20/80 music.
Would like to integrate an upscaling graphic card and a soud card like Asus Xonar also would like to have 02 video outs (TV/Monitor).
Please advise the best way possible to achieve all this without burning a whole in my pocket .
For other details please refer to my signature.

My Current Config:
E5300 2.60 Mhz (dual core)
DG31GL board
2 gb DDR2
Seagate Barracuda - 250 gb HDD
Cabinet with 250 Watts SMPS

Also, If need be I can start a new thread but thought not to, as there are too many similar threads already !

TIA
Abhishek

 

[sam9s]

sam9s,

Before answering your question,i would like to thank you immensely since you are my inspiration to go for HTPC through this thread.Previously I had AC Ryan POHD and was facing hell a lot of problems.After seeing your thread I decided to follow suit. I have asked for a doubt vide post No 198 dt 21st July for which you replied.Once again thanks.Now for the source.
Asus P8H 67mlx Board
Core i3 2100
Nvidia GT440 GPU
Silverstone LC 16B M220 Case.
CM460W SMPS PSU
Coarsair 4GB DDR3 RAM
Sony BD5300 BD drive.
Seagate 1 Tb HDD+2 Tb WD Ex Hard disc.
Leneovo wireless keyboard mini.

Connected the above to Optoma HD20 via Yamaha thr HDMI. I tried with a file which has DTS HD MA Audio and played with MPC-HC with LAV filter.

Now one more question.How to paste shareTHe.TV image in my signature.

wowo seems you already have setup everything (almost), now all you need to complete the visual HTPC experience is use XBMC to load your movies, instead of using MPC-HC, as that is pretty dry AFA movie viewing experience goes. With a proper jukebox (YAMJ), the entire Home Theater experience seems incomplete.

However there is small hiccup with XBMC currently, that is it cannot passthrough HD audio (yet), new version is been worked upon (called EDEN), but as of now, you only have DD and DTS. But the good new is you can configure XBMC to use MPC-HC or TMT 5 (in my case) to play contents that have HD audio. So the entire experience is not ruined. I would suggest install XBMC, play with it, you must have a collection d/l off the net which usually is only DD or DTS. Scan it with XBMC and have a feel of it. I am sure its gonna look awsome on a projector. At the end if you want we can configure XBMC to use MPC-HC or TMT 5 to play your HD audio content as well.

Hi Sam,

Need your expert advise on setting up my Music/HTPC (with the help of your thread have already set-up XBMC many thanks)
My usage will be 40/60 in favor of music initally and later most definitely will be 20/80 music.
Would like to integrate an upscaling graphic card and a soud card like Asus Xonar also would like to have 02 video outs (TV/Monitor).
Please advise the best way possible to achieve all this without burning a whole in my pocket .
For other details please refer to my signature.

My Current Config:
E5300 2.60 Mhz (dual core)
DG31GL board
2 gb DDR2
Seagate Barracuda - 250 gb HDD
Cabinet with 250 Watts SMPS

mmmm ok first thing first, I could not find a PCIE slot for your mobo, confirm if you have that. Else no external GPU meaning.....

1. No HD passthrough audio.
2. No dual video support. (TV/Monitor)
3. No upscaling obviously

What are you currently using as your display out. For audio Xonar Essence ST should be good. You can use the coaxial analogue out from the sound card to analogue in of your receiver / AMP to get the desired output.

 

[novice-akki]

mmmm ok first thing first, I could not find a PCIE slot for your mobo, confirm if you have that. Else no external GPU meaning.....

1. No HD passthrough audio.
2. No dual video support. (TV/Monitor)
3. No upscaling obviously

What are you currently using as your display out. For audio Xonar Essence ST should be good. You can use the coaxial analogue out from the sound card to analogue in of your receiver / AMP to get the desired output.[/QUOTE]

My mobo doesnt have PCIe only PCI X 02 slots :sad:
As of now only LCD 19" monitor and sometimes my pana 42 " plasma thru VGA cable

Is it that I need to upgrade to a new mobo+SMPS and retain my proc+cabinet+ram and then buy a graphics card and sound card ?