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I'm ready to join the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution - what to get?
superboyac:
Well it would save me 50% on upgrade cost..
-mouser (September 06, 2013, 04:18 PM)
--- End quote ---
ok i'll pm you later this weekend. is there a way to transfer the email address and everything?
mouser:
So.. I now have an HTPC setup.
The results are.. mixed.
What I bought was a used stereo-form-factor pre-built pc from ebay.
This was a machine that was once top of the line for it's form factor and cost $2500 in 2009 and I was able to pick up for a little more than $300.
https://www.maingear.com/custom/mediacenters/axess/index.php
5 years later and the specs are still very respectful for it's form factor (it has an i7 chip and 6gb of ram).
I thought having a desktop capable machine would be nice because it's possible I'll end up using it for some always-on fun computer simulations (machine learning, artificial life, etc.).
Dirhael's posts in this thread were right on target:
JRiver really does a nice job of playing and showing audio albums, with scraped background images.. Just looks really elegant while playing. Thought i may end up going back to XBMC since i normally want to find files to play by navigating folder structure not via fancy powerful tag album artist thing.
But XBMC visualizations are just terrible.
They are both confusing to customize, with JRiver being truly opaque.
Both would be fine for use as my music player -- I have thousands of cds and records that i hope to eventually convert so i can listento it with the htpc computer. For now i'm using Jriver.
Anyway, overall, the HTPC does work, and sometimes it's pretty cool.
But for the sake of other people considering HTPC life, let me discuss some of the bumps in the road i'm experiencing:
First, my decision to by a powerful pc to use as an htpc has come with a few serious drawbacks. First, it's LOUD. I hate that. I've already gone in and tweaked some underlocking and turned down the fans as much as i can, but there's just not avoiding the fact that this thing gets hot inside and there is no room for good big silent fans. This is not even mentioning the power consumption.
Second, the small form pc case means its hard to replace components (see fan replacement issue above).
Third, digital audio output sounds great. Analog output is of very low volume with this motherboard drivers (ive already upgraded, flashed bios, gone hunting for solutions so i know there is nothing much to do about it), and this creates serious humming noise on my audio input line to my reciever.
Fourth, you might ask why i would want to use analog output when the digital works great and sounds great. The reason is that my receiver decodes the digital fine but will not pass it through to my secondary speakers or my wireless speaker inputs which require analog. So i have to make a choice of digital audio and no secondary speakers in other rooms, or crappy sounding buzzing analog. Not happy about this. And this is a good receiver. It might be solvable by upgrading to some new $500 receiver but that's not going to happen.
Fifth, I underestimated how difficult it would be to read text on the tv screen. Perhaps that's because i still have an "old" style tube television. But it does mean that actually working within windows on the tv screen is unbearable so requires a secondary screen (or remote login) to do most things involving normal windows applications.
Summarizing, here's what I would advise for others considering making the leap to HTPC:
First, take the issue of noise VERY VERY seriously. Decide whether you want a really small quiet htpc device -- follow Dirhael's route for a passive cooled small and "relatively" low power machine. And consider if one of those dedicated media-playing machines might be the way to go -- ask yourself if you really need the flexibility of having a fully desktop grade pc as your htpc.
Or if you really want a full power machine, think hard about whether you can't use a standard small tower case and place it somewhere out of the way. That would allow you to build it with normal sized components -- which would cut down on price and give you a lot more flexibility to build a fast quiet powerful machine.
I think if i were to do it all over again I might try to find a way to fit a small tower into my living space.
mouser:
If I sound overly negative, I think it's just a matter of getting my expectations in line.
I've spent a decade with a TIVO dedicated tv recording/watching device, and they have the user interface experience quite smooth and streamlined and well designed for a operation from a TV -- though i found it useless for listening to music, which is mostly what i like to do.
The HTPC-route, using standard desktop operating system, is a different experience -- rougher edges and all that. And I'm of course still getting used to the software.
But make no mistake, it is VERY cool to be able to have so much more control over what's going on and so much more freedom in terms of what you can run and how it works. Want to run a fish aquarium screensaver on tv -- you can do that. Want to run skype over your big screen tv, you can do that. The possibilities are endless.
wraith808:
I've tried the powerful desktop version (same problem that you're experiencing to a lesser extent with the noise- had a box that had a quiet fan, but it was still loud), the less powerful desktop version (it was nice- still the problem of interface, but it was nice, and silent- but I ended up giving it to my son to use as his desktop since he doesn't play PC games), and the settop box (nice and seamless... but it's not a computer).
I'm sticking with the settop box version. The only thing I can't do on it that I wanted to do was game, and I don't really need to PC game on the huge screen. But it's definitely a decision that should be based on what your use case is as there are going to be trade-offs as you've experienced.
superboyac:
Your $400 budget is the most difficult part for me to come up with helpful advice, i feel bad! :-[
When I got a new desktop this year, I transferred my previous desktop ( a beast!) for my htpc. I friggin love it. But yes, it is loud. i don't know how much an equivalent would cost, but most of the parts would be discontinued anyway, and it would be way over $400. but basically, it's a full desktop computer with an i7 chip and 4 GB of RAM, and a 2009-middle of the road graphics card. That's pretty much it. I paid $3k for it 4+ years ago, so it should be way cheaper now.
Now, my exploration has been VERY similar to yours, so I'll just explain it, maybe it will help. I messed around with XBMC, JRiver for a while. But I found I was too used to the desktop experience. So all these years, other than my experiments, my main setup is as a normal desktop. I use regular desktop software...Light Alloy, Daum Potplayer to play videos. An air-mouse for the cursor. A wireless keyboard (very seldom used). Directory Opus for the file manager. Now, for years I also used a tube-TV. The graphics (other than full screen video playback) looked awful, but it didn't bother me enough to change. Now I have an LCD screen and it looks BEAUTIFUL. Even 20 feet away, it's totally legible, with just normal font sizes. I highly recommend getting one, if you are willing to spend. So now, I'm not even that motivated to try other things like xbmc or jriver.
Everything is so fast on it. The control, as you say, is awesome. When i go to other people's houses and have to mess around with all their remotes, and tivo, and their cable "guides", and typing in the letters with teh directional keys, ugh, I get impatient. i love double-clicking and going from window to full screen. I love changing the volume with the scroll wheel. I use foobar for audio, love it. I know the computer is way overkill, so you can do it with much less also. but because it's overkill, 1080p playback is instant, i love that.
The fan noise is significant. It doesn't bother me, but now I just went and listened to it...if you like silence, yeah, it will bother you. But I looked at cases recently, even for smaller form factors, and i think you can find some with large 200mm fans on them, and those are relatively quiet. That might be the deal breaker though. and the price of course.
I think the most important thing I learned about my htpc experience is:
--I just like using DOpus for picking the files. I was really into the idea of doing the xbmc thing and properly organizing and tagging everything, but now I don't care. I'll only do it now if i have a lot of time to spare and am into a new project.
bleach...i've talked a lot. i should just take a video of me watching shit and post it.
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