Building A Home Theater PC (HTPC) - Part 1
By Jeffrey | April 2, 2008
Part 2 is coming as soon as I get a grip on my upcoming finals. :)
As long-time readers of SavvyGeek are aware, I absolutely love my Xbox and Xbox Media Center. It has worked beautifully as a functioning home theater component for some time, allowing me to stream movies, music, pictures, and play classic and modern games quite well.
However, my trusty box lacks some features that I’ve come to desire in a home theater box, such as HD playback - the Xbox can’t properly display 720p or 1080p video - internet browsing, and other “computer” functions.
So, unfortunately, the time has come for me to bid goodbye to my console friend and embark on a new project of building a new “ultimate” home theater PC.
Let’s get started.
Step 1 of building any computer is, of course, compiling the components necessary. Here’s what I’m using:
Case - Athenatech A100BB.350
A case for a home theater PC can’t be just any computer case. It has to fulfill all the proper functions of a typical case, as well as look great sitting next to other home theater components. The Athenatech A100BB.350 does just that.
It’s a MicroATX form-factor, so the space is limited, but it does include a 350w Power Supply which should be sufficient for my needs. It doesn’t have a screwless design, though, but for $65 I won’t complain.
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H
The main features necessary for a HTPC motherboard are to maximize power while limiting heat and space concerns. The GA-MA78GM-S2H should do that just fine.
It is based around the modern AMD 780g chipset, supports up to 16gb of DDR2 Ram, and makes use of a Radeon HD 3200 for its onboard video. Make no mistake, we won’t be running Crysis with this GPU, but it does drastically reduce CPU usage for high definition video playback, and should run older and fairly recent games just fine.
Processor - Athlon 64 X2 6400+
Easily the most powerful - and power-consuming - component of our setup, the 6400+ uses 125w but is the fastest chip on the X2 line. It’s not as powerful as some higher-end Core 2 Duos, but it’s far cheaper.
Memory - G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800
The G.SKILL RAM has ratings of 5-5-5-15 and should be plenty fast enough for use in the HTPC. 4gb might give a later advantage, but for now 2gb should be sufficient.
TV Tuner - Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800
The WinTV-HVR-1800 is easily one of the finer HD Tuners on the market, and can capture live TV over ATSC and QAM using its onboard MPEG-2 encoder. It also includes an S-Video input to capture video from old VHS tapes or other video sources.
The included software is average at best, but we won’t be using it anyway.
Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB
Having a large hard drive is always the ideal, but even more so when building an HTPC since we’ll be storing video, audio, images, games, etc. 500gb is not the largest we could go, but it comes at around $100 which is a great price-to-size cost. We can always include more drives later if necessary.
DVD Burner - SAMSUNG SH-S203N
The SH-S203N is a blazing fast drive withe capability to burn both +R and -R discs at 20x, and uses LightScribe. But most importantly for our use, it’s quiet.
Of course, an optical drive can never be perfectly silent, but the SH-S203N falls on the quieter side than most, which is a huge bonus for an HTPC.
Keyboard/Mouse - BTC 9019URFIII
Since use of the HTPC will primarily be from a couch a few feet away we’ll need a wireless keyboard and mouse. And since using a typical optical mouse is not really comfortable without having a place to set it, I chose to go with the BTC 9019URFIII wireless keyboard/mouse combo.
The mouse itself is a mini-joystick that I’m sure will take some getting used to, and probably is not ideal for gaming, but for ease of use and comfort from a couch setting this is one of the top HTPC keyboard available.
Remote - Microsoft Media Center Remote
As far as HTPC remotes go, the MCE is one of the best, and most widely used.
The remote control sends command information to the connected infrared sensor from up to 20 feet away and can power the TV and Media Center with one remote.
Check Back!
That’s a run-down of the components I’ll be using to build this machine. Some components, notably the processor, may seem over the top for use in an HTPC, but since I’ll be wanting to play some recent games the faster the CPU the better. You can, of course, buy cheaper components and save some money if you don’t need that amount of power.
The total price for this setup came to $700, which is a great deal for what’s included.
Check back in a couple days for Part 2 - Putting It Together!
Topics: Guides |
I have been looking at doing something like this. But I want to play Netflix online videos. What kind of software are you looking at to imporve the video as it displays on a TV? Say if you were viewing a webpage how the text is very small and hard to read.
Posted by: Mark L on April 8th, 2008 at 9:56 amPart 2 is coming tomorrow and I’ll cover exactly that, among other things, so stay tuned! :)
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pmPart 2?
Posted by: M L on April 12th, 2008 at 9:43 amIt was postponed. :( But no worries, it should be up in the next couple days.
Posted by: Jeffrey on April 12th, 2008 at 11:17 pmI’ve just completed this build:
Antec Veris Fusion v2 HTPC Case
Gigabyte GA-MA78MA-S2H Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600(2.8Ghz w/2×1MB on die cache)
Thermaltake R2-R1 Heatsink rated at 16db
Seagate 500GB 32MB cache
2×1GB Crucial Ballistix PC6400
Samsung DVD+/-RW
Vizio VO47LF 47″ LCD
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
I’m really curious about what you think about the keyboard and remote? So far, I’m very pleased with my setup, but I still have several components to add, such as the tuner card, remote and livingroom friendly keyboard/mouse. The only hiccup I’ve run into sofar is getting the audio to play through the tv speakers using the hdmi to hdmi input. Have you had the same issue?
Thanks for putting this out there….
Posted by: David T on May 6th, 2008 at 2:03 pmJust as a quick aside: this guide is soon to be redacted, with a proper HTPC guide in the process of being posted. (I’ve had issues with some components listed here…)
That being said, most of the components here are still an excellent choice for a HTPC, in my opinion.
As far as a keyboard/mouse I highly recommend the BTC 9019URFIII. I use it, and the range is excellent. Although, if you plan on gaming on the HTPC using a mouse, get a seperate mouse you can plug in while gaming, as the BTC’s joystick mouse is definitely not suited for gaming.
Audio-wise, I’ve been using the optical out on this board, so I can’t attest to the HDMI’s audio’s abilities.
Hope this helps!
Posted by: Jeffrey on May 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm