What's a Good Spec for HTPC?

[reven]

even my AGP 8x GeForce 4 6600 has trouble with WMVHD videos, they play fine in windows media player but every other player ive tried the video playback is jerky. its just a bad format, requires to much grunt.

[KiwiKid]

Wow...always so much to learn - made all that more difficult when I don't really have a PC that is grunty enough for a HTPC. I've decided the best thing to do is to just go out and get a resonably spec'd system and start exploring. The more questions I ask here, the more questions are raised. At least I'm still keen after a long time of research.

Reven - that was a good bit of advice about a dual card fizzing - never gave that any thought.

Not sure I'm going to consider HiDef at present - more interested in replacing the 50 odd VHS tapes I cycle through and getting our 650 odd DVDs on to HD's.

While I"m here - what sound cards do all you guys use? (5.1, 7.1??) Do you output them direct to puter speakers or to a Receiver?

For Kiwis - Where do you guys buy your Hauppauge tuner cards in NZ?

[KiwiKid]

Tipstir - you don't sound convinced AMD is the way to go. Are Intel any better. What about running post-processing functions like dscaler etc - are these CPU intensive?

I doubt I'll run my PC in the HT room. I like tech out of site as much as possible.

Does the graphics card need to have VMR9 or whatever it is or overlay? Is there any difference in what you get at the output?

[reven]

pretty much every motherboard these days has 5.1 onboard, that what i use for my surrond sound. for hauppauge cards in nz, you can check out http://www.krome.co.nz, as well as ascent.co.nz, and im pretty sure you can get them cheaper somewhere else but i cant remember where (they're like $20 cheaper, but with shipping it may be cheaper somewhere else).

for a cpu, just get a P4 you cant really go wrong, or get a celeron they're cheap and are good enough (plus if you get a celeron you can easily upgrade to a P4 later, thats what im planning on doing).

VMR9 looks the best, and all modern gfx cards support it (well pretty much, just check before you buy) but VMR doesnt allow it to be updated when video is paused (which can be annoying). In the end just use which ever decoder looks best, like i use PowerDVD but that only supports Overlay.

[mattman]

Ok my opinion on this case:

1.) CPU - try to get a CPU made for a mobile device - they don't get that hot so you don't have to cool them that much ---> less noiz! (Stay away from P4 - you could have a bbq on them!)

2.) Get sth. around a AMD Winchester 2800+ or 3000+ - they should be affordable.

3.) Get a decent Graphics Card with at least 128MB of memory and directX 9 compatible. For an HTPC I would always use a card that is passive cooled - less noise as well!

4.) Get 1GB of memory - though WinXP can't really use all of it u need it for working with huge files and multimedia (cutting,converting)

5.) If you want to have 2 tuners - why not two PVR 150 - think two of them are cheaper than a PVR 500... so depends on the size of your case.

6.) Buy as much Harddisks as you can afford - there's never enough free space for an HTPC! I have two Samsung SP1614 and they are really quiet though they have 7200rpm. Any external device would do with 5400 rpm.

7.) By the way - when spending loads of dollars on a system like the on described - why not spending it a decent CPU cooler (Aerocool HT 101) and get down its speed (CPU Speed) less noise!

This way you have a middle class HTPC that would satisfy your needs and would save much of your money!
Always think about that you want to have a PC for your living room... the less noise the better!

Have fun Matt

Forgot the soundcard - use a Creative Aureon 2 or any decent 5.1 or 7.1 card. Much better sound than the onboard noise!

[herbs]

I have a lowly powered cpu duron 1.6Ghz with 512MB and 3 tuners (2 hardware cards and a dvb-t card) and it works fine, but I don't use any FFDShow filters or HDTV resolutions not really needed as I'm on SDTV resolution. It takes about 10 mins to run comskip on 30-40 min file and doesn't effect recordings. Even with my cpu I can record 3 programmes and watch a previously recorded show at the same time.

[daphatty]

even my AGP 8x GeForce 4 6600 has trouble with WMVHD videos, they play fine in windows media player but every other player ive tried the video playback is jerky. its just a bad format, requires to much grunt.

Oh man, please don't say that! I just bought this nVidia GeForce 6200 card to replace my ATI! God I hope it works in 4x because my MB can't do more than that!

4x AGP is fine to use with GBPVR I've tried 8x 256MB DDR Geforce the results weren't so hot had gone back to my ATI instead.

So wait, are you also against GeForce or did it work for you?

Man I spent hours researching this last night. I hate the fact that I am limited to 4x AND low profile cards...

[reven]

4x should be fine for everything except WMVHD, and well hardly anything uses that standard anyways. wmvhd plays fine in media player (since its a m$ product and has special tricks to make it work really well), but any other player its going to require more horsepower.

[Pioneer4x4]

Very good tips for everyone. Mine would be
1> Pentium p4 or AMD workalike. I have a 2ghz, and the only delays are comskip, a whole new issue.....
2>512mb Minimum. That's what I have, and it is enough, but more would be nice, I agree that 1gig would be recommended (if you have the cash)
3>BIG HD, I have a 160 'fairly' dedicated to recordings, and that seems like a good size. Any bigger, and you will collect stuff that will just sit. I plan on burning everything to DVD that I want to keep.
4>I HIGHLY recommend the Hauppauge MVP!!! I can't say how nice GBPVR is on it. It is comparable to a decent video card, and has excellent mpeg2 playback on a TV. Then there is zero noise/heat issues. My whole PVR is for viewing on the MVP.

I have, as recently as yesterday, done all of this simultaniously;
a) Recording a show
b) Creating a DVD file structure of TV episodes
c) Burning a DVD of other episodes.
and the whole time, my CPU usage is very low.

[KiwiKid]

Okay - definitely getting a feel for a reasonable spec.

This is the way I'm currently leaning -

P4 - 3.0 or 3.2Ghz (Prescott?)
MB (Unknown - fast boot one??)
Case (unknown)
1Gb RAM
1 x PVR150
1 x PVR500
Multiple HD's.
Good 5.1 card (Creative OEM??)
Good Video Card (AGP or PCIe??)

I don't plan to run the PC in the HT room so the case/size/noise isn't really a concern. At least I feel I'm making progress and that is always good.

Thanks for all the great posts.