Thread: How all here also has a HTPC?

@e_z_street
I have an audigy passing a digital signal to a marantz 6300 with a nice paradigm system allaround. (nowhere will you find better sound of the $$$) well ... my screen is a 300 thread count white sheet thumbtacked up on my wall. (I'm still in school so i move around alot, and i don't want to buy a nice dlp screen that costs more than the projector itsself) my seats??? this thing in in my bedroom at the foot of the bed. its nice to curl up with your girlfriend/wife/significant other and watch a movie ... or at least when she forces you to watch csi with her.

i don't have any pics of the full setup (only my machine) and my camera doesn't work right now ... (never take pictures of high powered lasers with your cheap *** digital) camera

the remote i have has ir and it also sends rf to a little box which then sends ir. great for controling a projector behind you if your remote won't bounce of your screen well.

@tbird2340
i guess i don't like the decode because
a)its sort of a pain to get X working well under linux (the gui part)
b)i think it only has composite out which is crap compared to vga, though it might have svid.
e) games - music visuals don't work worth **** on the decoder
d) ... it costs more

there was a time when i used composite to display my video on a television and yes it was total ****. when i moved to svideo it was almost usable ... but then i hated that tv so i returned it and picked up my projector. it displays 800x600 natively and scales up to something like 1400x1050 or some weird number like that. as far as readablility goes ... lets put it this way ... i have both my machines hooked up with a nice kvm and i use them for everything.

if all you are doing is playing episodes from the net you will hardly need ****. a k6-2 would work pretty well. just get a pvr card ~$100-130 trustme though you will love it.

had something else to say but forgot it and i have to go to class (yay)

here is the 6300 ... but of course my is black. it is slightly older (the 6400 replaced it recently) but i really like it. yeah i tend to think of my self as an audiophile but i hate the term because it makes me feel snobbish.

you should go get a nice sheet sometime and throw it up on the wall. someone once told me to go with a grey sheet at you'll get higher contrast and richer blacks ... but i don't know if i want to do it.

do you have your projector ceiling mounted? if so how did you do it? i have a low ceiling here in the basement (6.5') so i had to mount it superflush and tilt it to counteract the 6 deg it projects down ... so i made a custom mount .... I mounted it to a piece of plywood then turned the projector on ... aimed it and while holding it up with my head used some deck screws to attach the plywood directly to the ceiling ... its hella ghetto

I've built my system in an Ahanix D.vine 5 case. It's pretty sweet. It blends in with all the other audio and video equipment. You can install a fullsize ATX motherboard in this case. I've got some older hardware inside that I had laying around after upgrading my desktop system.
Check out BeyondTV (http://www.snapstream.com) for your interface. It's highly rated, and well worth the $69 for it. I use it to record shows that are usually on after I'm in bed, and others my wife doesn't like to watch so that I can watch it on my own. BeyondMedia should be coming out soon too. I'm using a beta and it's promising.

Originally I had tried MythTV a year or two ago. I got it to work, but it took lots of tinkering. Getting output onto TVs using ATI cards is next to impossible, so I put in a NVIDIA card. I got it to work, but then I was having problems getting my ATI Remote Wonder to work. I gave up and switched back to Windows and I'm pretty happy with what I've got now.

I'm sorta starting my HTPC (I'm about as far done as my CarPC).

I found an old VCR (two years old) that someone tossed because the picture was screwed. Probably fixable, but I have a VCR already. I stripped it and found an ATX mobo fits with about a half inch to spare. The only problem is height. I don't have enough room to fit cards upright, so I need to find some cheap PCI/AGP 90 degree risers.

As for PVR cards, I bought the one a few of my friends had.Compro TV Gold , the one cool feature it has that others don't is automatic power on. It's pretty neat. You unplug the power wire from the case, plug it into the Compro, then plug the compro into the mobo where the power wire goes. That way if you setup timed recording, it will automatically power on to record, then power off.

I can't afford to buy a micro-atx fanless system, so I didn't want to leave it running 24/7 when I'm not using it.

All I need now is a processor (P2-433 I have won't cut it) and the riser card, as well as a cheap AGP video card with SVideo out.

Cheers,

Kris

Originally Posted by Superduck

As for PVR cards, I bought the one a few of my friends had.Compro TV Gold , the one cool feature it has that others don't is automatic power on. It's pretty neat. You unplug the power wire from the case, plug it into the Compro, then plug the compro into the mobo where the power wire goes. That way if you setup timed recording, it will automatically power on to record, then power off.

mythtv actually will halt a machine after it is done recording ... I'm not sure if it has anyway to turn it on ... because mine is on 24/7 ... I'll have to look into it

additional: from the website it looks like you leave your power cord in place and the card wakes your machine up "By activating the Power Up function, ComproPVR will wake your PC from either Windows Shut Down (ACPI S5) or Stand by (ACPI S3)" the card doesn't have any sort of euro plug on it to accept a power cord. what does the back of your card look like?

Originally Posted by sagekoala

mythtv actually will halt a machine after it is done recording ... I'm not sure if it has anyway to turn it on ... because mine is on 24/7 ... I'll have to look into it

additional: from the website it looks like you leave your power cord in place and the card wakes your machine up "By activating the Power Up function, ComproPVR will wake your PC from either Windows Shut Down (ACPI S5) or Stand by (ACPI S3)" the card doesn't have any sort of euro plug on it to accept a power cord. what does the back of your card look like?

I think what he's saying is that the plug goes to your motherboard, acting as an on/off switch, just like in the front of the case. It will give the signal to the motherboard as if you pushed the power button yourself. I didn't follow the link, but it seems to be the only way I can think of.

Originally Posted by ncamara

I think what he's saying is that the plug goes to your motherboard, acting as an on/off switch, just like in the front of the case. It will give the signal to the motherboard as if you pushed the power button yourself. I didn't follow the link, but it seems to be the only way I can think of.

That's right.

Pretty much all computer cases have several wires going to the motherboard. Power, Reset (and older computers, Turbo switch), and sometimes speaker.
Instead of plugging the power connector to the motherboard, it goes into the video card. The Video card has another cable that you then connect to the motherboard, where the power cable goes.

Sorry for the confusion.

Kris