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 Setup
Enabling audio output over HDMI on both the GeForce 8200 and AMD 780G boards is simple: it just works. With the 780G under Vista I had to tell the OS to use the the HDMI audio codec as its default sound engine, but the 8200 worked by default. Right now I've just got a single HDMI cable going to my TV, but the plan in the theater is to run the HDMI into an Integra DTC-9.8 pre-processor and use it to switch inputs and output to the projector. The windows desktop is set to 1920 x 1080 which is the native resolution of both the projector and the majority of the content I'm displaying.
Attempt number one, to the left of the setup you'll see part of one of the fronts and one of the subs that will be going in the completed theater.
The hardware itself is only part of the equation, it's the software and Media Center plugins that really complete the machine. My goal is to rip all of my content to the RAID array attached to the HTPC, since I'm still waiting on the Omaura cases I can't do much on that front so for now I'm simply streaming all of the content from my existing fileserver.
The decoders I'm using are ffdshow and CoreAVC, the latter for H.264/x264 and the former for everything else. For ffdshow you need a build of ffdshow-tryouts, the latest stable build is here.
CoreAVC must be purchased but it's a very efficient H.264/x264 decoder, it works for those situations where you may not have GPU assisted decode acceleration. For me it doesn't really matter but I've been wanting to try it out for a while so I gave it a shot. You can find it at www.coreavc.com.
With both codecs installed, Vista's Media Center should be able to play all ripped files. To enable .MKV playback support (a preferable container format much like .avi) you'll need to install the Haali Media Splitter, which I believe comes with the professional version of CoreAVC. If you need it alone you can download it here.
At this point I can play content in Media Center, but what about organizing it? There's a pretty powerful (and free for personal use) database called My Movies that can index all of your movies for you. You can download it here; just get the server and client edition and install it on your Media Center machine.
The My Movies database
The My Movies interface is pretty easy to navigate, simply point it at a directory to crawl for your movies and it can automatically figure out what you've got based on directory structure or file names. Alternatively, you can add each movie manually to the database.
Manually changing/adding a title can be done by Barcode, title, manual search etc...
The point of the My Movies database is to simply create a catalogue of what movies you have, which you can then publish online to share with your friends. It allows for you to make a wish list as well as sale/trade lists, so that you can trade movies with other enthusiasts. It's a pretty powerful tool and I'm only now just discovering what it can do.
As your database is created, My Movies will go through and populate information about your titles giving you access to IMDB-like information about the movies right on your HTPC.
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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.