How-to: Build a Blu-ray / TV tuner-equipped HTPC for under $1,000
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 21st 2009 12:50PM
posted Jul 21st 2009 12:50PM
If you'll recall, we did a similar piece on HTPC building way back in early 2006. A format war and a digital TV transition later, we figured it was finally time to issue a revised edition. With disposable income becoming an increasingly rare commodity, we put a soft $1,000 cap on our model rig, and we did our darnedest to construct a solid, potent media PC that could easily be built by any DIY'er reading this now.
Keep in mind that this isn't the cheapest nor the most elaborate HTPC of all time; we aimed to hit a sweet spot between performance and price, and we attempted to include the necessities (a Blu-ray drive and a TV tuner, for instance) while painfully ignoring luxuries (such as a few 1TB HDDs) in order to meet our price goal. We'll toss in a few of our recommended upgrades at the end, but for now, join us as we have a look at every last component used to make the $1,000 HTPC a reality.
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The components
- Chassis: We know, we know -- there are literally hundreds of HTPC enclosure options. We're confident that oodles of them are awesome. Our goal was to find a case that was large enough to house a number of cards and internal drives, rather than a minuscule case that wasn't exactly ripe for handling upgrades down the line. nMEDIAPC, a little known company that focuses its efforts on media center PC-related gear, manufacturers a case that just so happened to fit the bill, and the HTPC 2000B also arrived with loads of front-panel inputs, an array of flash card inputs, stylish flip-down front panels and plenty of fans to keep everything cool. It's large enough to accept standard (read: not "low profile") cards, and at $99.99 or so, it's relatively affordable given the inclusions.
- Processor: Intel's 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q8400 CPU provided plenty of oomph required to process OTA HD feeds, Blu-ray material and all the Hulu one can stand. Again, the goal here was to strike a balance between power and price, and at $173.99, we thought this chip did just that.
- Motherboard: ASUS' P5Q PRO mainboard fit our case, supported our CPU, offered plenty of card slots and received a copious amount of praise around the web. It's also available for $81 or so if you're okay with refurbished kit; otherwise, it's widely available for $119.99. It should be noted, however, that the P5Q Pro Turbo has recently stooped to around the same price with an included rebate. Finally, this motherboard has the required BIOS to use OCUR without a hack, so getting a CableCard tuner in here should be a cinch.
- RAM: While a younger, less informed Bill Gates would probably beg to differ, you really can't have enough RAM. Particularly when recording a pair of HD shows while devouring a bag of Orville Redenbacher and catching a Blu-ray flick. Thus, we selected a 2x2GB (4GB total) kit from OCZ, the DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper CL4 4GB Edition. RAM prices fluctuate wildly, and while these are settled at $34.99 right now, they were $26 after a mail-in rebate just a few weeks ago. Next week, we hear they'll be on sale for a buck 'o five.
- Hard drive: Here's an area where you could afford to skimp, especially if you've already got a few HDDs laying around the attic with no current home. We went with a modest $50 500GB Deskstar P7K500 (7,200RPM) in order to save a few bucks from the 1TB drive we were craving, but so long as you select a unit with a respectable spindle speed, you should be good to go.
- Optical drive: We're building an HTPC, right? Right. So a Blu-ray drive was a requirement, not an option. We settled on LG's speedy CH08LS10 BD-ROM Combo Drive, which reads Blu-ray Discs but will only burn DVDs. If you've got more than $119.99 to dedicate to an optical drive, we'd obviously recommend a Blu-ray burner, or if you're feeling really crazy, snap up one of LG's end-of-life Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives for just a Jackson or two more.
- TV tuner: Here's another item we just couldn't skip. If you're looking to cut your pay-TV provider out of the monthly equation, a dedicated ATSC/QAM tuner is a must. ASUS' My Cinema-PHC3-100 ($79.99) comes bundled with a remote, is equipped with a hardware MPEG2 encoder and let's you watch a channel while recording another or record two shows simultaneously. It also works well with Vista Home Premium, which is always nice.
- Graphics card: Here's another area where an integrated graphics set may suffice, but with aspirations of playing back Blu-ray films and HD OTA programming, we decided to splurge a little and pop Gigabyte's comparatively affordable GV-R467ZL-1GI in one of the PCIe slots. At just $64.99 after rebate, this 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4670 provides dedicated DVI, VGA and HDCP-compatible HDMI ports, which ought to make any AV junkie smile.
- Sound card: Admittedly, the true budget HTPC would rely solely on integrated audio, but for just $56.99 after rebate, we couldn't resist ASUS' Xonar DX 7.1, which enables true multi-channel output from movies, games and recorded OTA HD programs.
- Power supply: Believe it or not, we've managed to amass quite a bit of hardware, so we made sure we had ample power for everything with OCZ Technology's ModXStream Pro OCZ600MXSP, a 600-watt PSU with plenty of connectors, quiet operation and an affordable $39.99 (after rebate) price tag.
- Keyboard / mouse: Here's another avenue for savings. If you've ever ended up with an extra keyboard and mouse (and be honest, what PC enthusiast hasn't?), your shiny new HTPC is a perfect place to put those peripherals to use. If you're starting fresh, you'll be hard pressed to find a better HTPC-centric tandem than nMEDIAPC's $59.99 HTPCKB, which is actually an all-in-one device that integrated a trackball, mouse click buttons and even a scroll wheel into a wireless keyboard. The driverless device connects to your machine via a bundled USB dongle, and while the range wasn't amazing, it's not like your couch is that far from your HDTV. In use, this thing was a total win; it was incredibly easy to use and surprisingly accurate.
- Operating system: If you're fluent in Linux, you can obviously save a bundle here. For the other 95 percent or so of us, there's Windows Vista Home Premium, the cheapest flavor of Vista (around $100 for an OEM copy for system builders) that still allows for full media center functionality. If you're up for waiting until October to build, we're sure there will be an edition of Windows 7 to suit your needs as well.
Wondering about the cost breakdown? Sure you are. Here's a quick-'n-dirty look at where you can source these very parts for under $1,000 total ($993.88, to be precise).
| Product | Shopping | Lowest Price |
|---|---|---|
 |
Shop! |
$99.99 |
| nMEDIAPC HTPC 2000B | ||
 |
Shop! |
$173.99 |
| Intel 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q8400 | ||
 |
Shop! |
$81.99 (open box) $119.99 (standard) $119.99 (AR; P5Q Pro Turbo) |
| ASUS P5Q PRO | ||
 |
Shop! |
$34.99 (after rebate) |
| OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper CL4 4GB Edition | ||
 |
Shop! |
$52.99 |
| Hitachi 500GB Deskstar P7K500 (7,200RPM) | ||
 |
Shop! |
$119.99 |
| LG CH08LS10 BD-ROM Combo Drive | ||
 |
Shop! |
$79.99 |
| ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100 | ||
 |
Shop! |
$64.99 (after rebate) |
| Gigabyte GV-R467ZL-1G | ||
 |
Shop! |
$56.99 (after rebate) |
| ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 | ||
 |
Shop! |
$39.99 |
| OCZ 600W ModXStream Pro OCZ600MXSP | ||
 |
Shop! |
$49.99 |
| nMEDIAPC HTPCKB | ||
 |
Shop! |
$99.99 |
| Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium |
Disclaimer: Prices listed here are considered current at the time of posting and are obviously subject to change. Also, the "lowest price" nod only goes to e-tailers we'd be comfortable spending our own money with, though you can feel free to try out those shady bargain-bin shops if you dare. Our total rang up to $993.88 after rebates.
The build process
We tried to pay close attention to the difficulty level here, and after wrapping everything up, sticking the final Band-Aid on our left thumb and calling it a done deal, we're happy to say that even someone who has never built their own machine before could handle this. The instructions provided were all sufficient enough to get things done, and while we definitely spent entirely too much time assembling our heatsink / fan, most everything else was a cinch. If you choose to replicate the machine, we'll let the paperwork included with each component do most of the guiding, but here's a brief overview of what steps we took to get everything assembled.
- Popped the chassis lid off and removed the front drive tray altogether.
- Inserted and clamped down the CPU on the motherboard, added a thin layer of thermal paste and strapped the heatsink / fan assembly on.
- Installed the GPU, sound card and TV tuner into the appropriate slots.
- Installed the two memory DIMMs into their appropriate slots.
- Placed the motherboard into the case, added risers, locked it down.
- Installed the PSU, bolted it down.
- Connected all power cables and motherboard cables according to the manuals.
- Installed the optical drive and hard drive into the removed front drive tray; placed it within the case and connected the power / SATA cables.
- Fired it up, installed Windows Vista Home Premium (took around 25 to 35 minutes total), then installed drivers from the discs that accompanied each card.
Also, we were instructed to install the dedicated GPU in the first available PCIe slot (closest to the CPU), and we didn't bother to disobey. We also installed the RAM in the "1" slots of each bank rather than side-by-side as we're dealing with a dual-channel kit. We'd recommend seating the cards and connecting all cables to the motherboard (front panel lights, multicard reader, etc.) before slapping the heatsink and power supply in there. With every new part you install, your available room to move your digits shrinks.
Largely, we found the motherboard here to be perfectly sufficient, but there was one minor gripe. We installed a bundled expansion card that simply rests beside one's GPU and provides an extra FireWire and eSATA connector 'round back. The problem here is that the P5Q PRO only has a single FireWire connector on the motherboard, so we had to choose between linking up the front-mounted FireWire port or this new rear one. We chose the front-panel port due to the inclusion of a FireWire socket on the mobo itself (down there near the USB 2.0 sockets), and left the expansion card in as to provide an eSATA socket. Outside of that, we had plenty of power ports and motherboard connection sockets.
Once we had everything locked down, it was time for the inevitable the moment of truth. We flipped the switch on the power supply and fired the machine up for the first time. Once powered on, we popped the Vista Home Premium DVD into the optical drive, crossed our fingers and waited patiently. After a short bit, we were greeted by a screen asking us if we wanted to proceed with the installation. Naturally, we hammered the "yes" option and proceeded to watch as the system installed. We should point out that this whole process was surprisingly simple, with absolutely no hang-ups to speak of.
Once Vista was installed and usable, we proceeded to insert the driver discs that came with our GPU, sound card, TV tuner, Blu-ray drive and motherboard. We actually ran the mobo disc first as to get our Ethernet port and a few other essentials in working order, and then we proceeded to install the GPU, Blu-ray drive, sound card and TV tuner in that order. Outside of few required reboots, the hardware installation was also trouble-free. We also let Vista suck down about a gazillion megabytes worth of updates just to make sure everything was up to date, and we forced online activation as to avoid those nag screens in the future. We should mention that we broke out an old school PS/2 keyboard in order to tab and enter through the Vista installation process, but once Vista was up and running, the driverless nMEDIAPC keyboard worked like a charm. We simply plugged in the USB dongle, mashed a key and tweaked the trackball speed within Control Panel to our liking. Huzzah for easy setup!
It's also worth noting that setup needs to be completed on a VGA or DVI monitor. Initially, we had our rig connected to an LCD via DVI, and it pushed visuals through without a problem. However, when we moved this downstairs with a mind to hook things up to our HDTV via HDMI, we quickly realized that doing so wasn't quite plug-and-play. In fact, we had to hook the beast up to our set via VGA first, and then connect the HDMI cable. Once that happened, we were able to yank the VGA cable and begin tweaking the display settings through HDMI. Nothing too troubling, but just a heads-up that you may have to tinker with inputs before your HDMI "just works." We should also point out that the ATI software easily recognized our Sony HDTV and its maximum 1,920 x 1,080 resolution; we simply selected that (once it was kosher with the HDMI connection) and jacked the fonts up a little to compensate. For those who've dealt with custom resolutions through PowerStrip while using VGA / DVI to connect an HTPC to an HDTV -- let us tell you, HDMI is the way to go.
As for further setup, we didn't have a lot left to do. Blu-ray playback software was bundled with our BD drive, and the brilliant ATI software nixed the necessity to add PowerStrip. We fired up Vista Media Center and followed the simple instructions to scan for OTA channels (after plugging an antenna into our TV tuner, obviously), and it quickly scanned and locked in 17 networks. Within ten minutes, we had our local listings downloaded (VMC makes this easy as well) and were watching a heated case on Judge Judy. For what it's worth, ASUS also includes a TV tuner suite, and while we preferred Vista's built-in tools, we left the ASUS suite installed as a backup solution. We naturally downloaded Firefox 3.5, VLC Media Player and a few batches of spyware (just kidding), as well as the surprisingly great ZeeVee Zinc web content portal. That was about the extent of our tinkering, and we came across no crashes or glitches whatsoever during any of these software installs.
What if my budget is just $500?
We hear this a lot, actually. For some magical reason, $500 is often the maximum that folks are winning to spend on a PC that'll only be used in their den. If you're looking to shave $500 from the price of this model rig, we'd start by taking inventory of components you already own (but don't currently use). You can easily save $100 by using a hard drive and mouse / keyboard set that you already own (or snagging a few from your old college roommate in exchange for a round of Dos Equis on Saturday night), and if you're not ready to start investing in Blu-ray Discs, you can save another Benjamin or so by selecting a vanilla DVD burner as the optical drive.
Also, your thriftiness may create the perfect opportunity to school yourself in Linux and save yet another C-note. Ditching the dedicated sound card is an easy one (savings of ~$60), and you could get away with 2GB of RAM in order to save another $25 or so. Personally, we wouldn't skimp on the chassis, CPU or power supply; in order to find the other $115 or so in savings, we'd opt for a slower GPU to shave off another $40 (like Gigabyte's HDMI-equipped GV-R435OC-512I), a lower-end CPU such as Intel's Core 2 Duo E7400 (savings of $64) or consider an AMD motherboard / CPU combo, which are generally (but not always, mind you) more budget-friendly than Intel offerings. While again, your options are pretty wide open here, we'll give you a run-down of a halfway decent, upgradable HTPC that can be had today for right around five bills.
- Silverstone LC13B-E HTPC chassis - $89.99 after rebate
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 processor - $119.99
- EVGA 113-YW-E115-TR motherboard - $99.99 after rebate
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 160GB hard drive - $39.99
- LG 22x DVD burner (GH22NP20) - $24.99
- Crucial 2GB PC2 6400 (2x1GB) kit - $20.99
- Leadtek HDTV200 H TV tuner - $39.99 after rebate
- GPU: NVIDIA's GeForce 9300 is integrated in the motherboard - $0.00
- Sound card: Rely on onboard audio - $0.00
- OCZ StealthXStream OCZ400SXS 400W power supply - $39.99 after rebate
- nMEDIAPC HTPCKB keyboard / mouse - $49.99
- OS: Ubuntu 9.04 - $0.00
I just landed a bonus -- what are some recommended upgrades?
Obviously, you can get about as crazy as you want when it comes to HTPC building. We'll let someone else lead you to the nearest LED lighting shop (we'll take the classy approach, thanks), but here are a few recommended upgrades in various departments if you find yourself with more than $1,000 to spend.
Chassis
Processor
Motherboard
RAM / Memory
- Mushkin 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 (PC3-128000) kit - $184.99
- OCZ Platinum 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 (PC3-12800) kit - $104.99
Hard drive
- Western Digital 300GB VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS (for a speedy boot drive) - $229.99
- Seagate 2TB Barracuda LP ST32000542AS (for ample storage) - $229.99
Optical drive
- LG GGW-H20L HD DVD / Blu-ray combo drive - $159.99 (while supplies last, anyway)
- Lite-On DH-4B1S-13-VAC Blu-ray writer - $159.99
TV tuner
- A second ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100 - $79.99
- External Hauppauge HD PVR - $174.99 (doesn't support Vista Media Center, but great on other systems)
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner - $132.99
Graphics card
- Gigabyte GV-R487D5-1GD (DisplayPort + HDMI) - $159.99
- MSI N260GTX (Lightning Black Edition) - $264.99
Sound card
- ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 (bitstreams Blu-ray audio) - $149.99
- ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe (bitstreams Blu-ray audio) - $239.99
Power supply
So, what'd we think of the system we built?
We'll confess -- we pieced this machine together carefully in order to stay below the $1,000 mark. In some cases, we didn't even know what we were really getting into. Thankfully, everything came together beautifully, and we're left with an HTPC that we're mighty proud of. Overall, we've determined that it's absolutely possible to build a living room PC that can handle OTA TV recording, Blu-ray playback, media streaming and even 3D gaming for under a grand. The build process itself was somewhat time consuming, but we figure even those who've never assembled a PC before from scratch can handle it given the copious amount of instructions.
We were thoroughly pleased with the noise level on the finished product. When placed underneath our HDTV, we could only hear a faint whisper when the audio output reached incredibly low levels, and there was really no heat problems to speak of. We were impressed with how well each component interacted with one another and with Vista; amazingly, we had no install quirks or system crashes. Everything installed perfectly the first time around, and even our channel scan within Vista Media Center went off without a hitch. Everything was markedly snappy, and all around performance was well above our expectations considering the budget.
The only real low spot was the enclosure, which required us to install small risers underneath the mainboard in order to allow enough room for our cards to fit. Nothing a small mod didn't fix, but still, an annoyance nonetheless. We will say, however, that the nMEDIAPC keyboard / trackball unit was really stellar. Build quality was solid, trackball / button placement was superb and it was actually rather enjoyable to type on. The all-in-one nature really makes it the perfect couch keyboard, and it allows you to actually use your PC to surf the web and whatnot rather than just play back media. All in all, we'd highly recommend each and every part used to build this machine, though we would suggest locating a Silverstone enclosure if you can given the odd spacing found on our demo case.
It should be noted that the Intel Q8400 retail chip arrives with a suitable heatsink and fan, but considering that we were shipped the CPU alone, we relied on a Thermaltake ISGC-400 cooler to keep things from melting. At $53.99, we wouldn't recommend this for those on a budget, but if you feel like splurging (or opting for a cheaper standalone processor along with a third-party fan / heatsink combo), this is a real winner. We'll admit -- the installation process had us baffled for a bit, but once we figured everything out, the unit performed admirably (and quietly!). Also, we tested the machine on our HDTV via a 6-foot AUVIO HDMI cable. At $49, we still maintain that it's grossly overpriced (those $8 cables at Monoprice.com will accomplish the same goal, we promise), but the build quality was indeed top notch and the image / audio quality was flawless.
Wrap-up
So, after all of this, what have we learned? We've learned that even the DIY newbie can construct a solid, fully-featured HTPC for less than $1,000, and if you've been considering doing just that in an effort to switch to OTA / Hulu / Netflix-only while killing that pricey cable or satellite bill, here's a guide to get you on your way. To close, we fully understand that our model rig is just one of many (many!) build combinations, some of which may be better suited to meet your individual needs. If you've got any input on what parts you'd omit or add, feel free to drop some knowledge on the rest of us in comments below, along with where you'd go to find them. Furthermore, if you've got any tips, tricks or hints for those new to the HTPC arena, this would also be a good place to share.
Oh, and did we mention that we're giving this beast away tomorrow to one lucky reader? Make sure you're tuned in right here at noon ET on July 22nd in order to place your name in the hat.
Does anyone remember the link or the article (I think it was on engadget) that had an entertainment room for under $1,000. It included a ps3 (i think), TV, Surround sound, etc...
Thanks,
Mike
That's exactly how I was thinking. Buy an HD Tivo and glue a blue ray player to the top for under $500
Could anyone recommend methods (mac or windows) for ripping DVD's with no loss of quality (and all menu functionality, extras, surround, etc are still in tact) so I can put them on a server?
^^ The only way I'd know how to do that is to rip the DVD's as either a Disk Image (Mac The Ripper or some equivalent pc program) and use a media program that can read iso or Video_TS files
You can use DVD shrink to make ISO backups of the the DVDs. Some of the media center software I have seen (like meedio) have plugins which let you run ISO files as DVDs (with menu options etc.)
Would using a virtual drive to run that ISO work in any media player then? Seems to me like you would want to use your favorite, or at least most convenient, media player program still.
try FairMount. Mounts copy-protected disks as unencrypted disk images. Only for Mac, though.
I use DVDdecrypter to rip back ups of my movies & Virtual Clone drive to mount the iso's. Win Vista & 7 both recognize the virtual drives as legit drives & it acts just like a normal DVD player. Just wish I could compress those with out loosing so much quality. I am currently working on building a NAS to store them so my Win 7 desktop/MCPC & Macbook can get to them.
would love this!!!
just got down building one....must have another HTPC! ack!
sweet!
Me!
No need for this, but why not...
Send me one!
Ive had the most success in regards to be able to crack, rip, and customize the hell out of any DVD I definitly prefer DVDfab Platinum well over AnyDVD or any of the other products, believe me I have tried many. You can tell it to use a DVD5 (typical 4.7 GB disc) or DVD9 (A dual layer DVD). It will tell you the percentage of loss. For linux, a 1 to 1 copy is no better thatn K9copy, which is perfect for those simple 1 to 1 rips. And in both programs they will allow you retain the original menus, and in DVDfab you can also remove unwanted FBI ad inserts ^_^ tehe. Its the best combo of ease of use + portabilty, as you can also transfer to almost any mobile device with the mobile option of the program.
Wow nice! Would definatly love to get my grubby hands on one!
Excellent article. A refreshing guide to those of us with little to moderate knowledge or even
with an expertise in building PCs.
A dream for some of us.
Man I would love one of those!
wooo
@tyler if you rip a DVD to an ISO you can put those on a NAS and on your media center install XBMC. Thats how I have all my movies stored. I scroll through my whole library to find what I want to watch... it has screen art and cover images along with director, actor, year, synopsis and just about anything else you could want. All my DVDs are in a couple of boxes stored in a storage unit. Its great. Figure on the average DVD being 6GB to be on the safe side. The only thing XBMC is lacking and will continue to for a while probably is Bluray support but I had a PS3 anyway before building this, however if you don't you can get a decent bluray player for around 100 bucks or so if you aren't looking for any fancy features. My only problem is the IR receiver on the case.... you have to be lined up right. But this plays everything I have thrown at it so far but most of what I throw at it is ISOs so I'm not sure how process intensive that is. Though I do know it plays high bitrate 1080p files just as well. Anyway my setup is below, hope it helps.
Setup:
OS & Software: Windows XP with XBMC installed
Case: Antec Black M FusionRemote 350 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
Processor: AMD Phenom 9350
Hard drive: 32GB SSD ( no extra noise this way)
Motherboard: ASUS M3N78-VM AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Video Card: Onboard Geforce on the Mobo. It's great.
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Storage: one 2TB Buffalo Terastation and one 4TB Buffalo Linkstation Quad
that is the ugliest keyboard i have ever seen.
The keyboard is reminiscent of WebTV.
that is the most functional keyboard for this rig I have ever seen
I agree. I thought it was quite ugly when I first saw it, but it's a cheap way to get it's functionality (for a sub $1000 HTPC). I'd be willing to fork out some more cash for a better looking keyboard if I was doing this myself.
@ "How-to: Build a Blu-ray / TV tuner-equipped HTPC for under $1,000" 2006 called, it want's its 'How To' back.
Also, everyone should know that premium cable and satellite content is virtually obsolete on an HTPC if you build it yourself.
Jesse, what are you talking about? I don't know much about HTPC stuff but was always interested in putting one together. Can the stream not be decoded or something?
@ash: CableLabs only licenses cablecard tuners to OEMs. The regular TV tuners in PCs will only decode clear QAM channels, which most cable and satellite providers do not broadcast their premium channels in clear QAM. So it's unlikely that a home made HTPC will be able to use premium cable content from most providers. Even if you have your provider's STB in the loop, you will be locked out of transferring the signal through the TV out, and that method does not allow HD content.
There have been ways of hacking a bios to work with an OEM tuner, if you can get your hands on one. That hack might be palletable to some folks.
Also, there's a really conveluted way of exploiting an analogue loop on a hauppage HD PVR hooked up to your STB, which will work if you're capable of following the instructions laid out on several blogs.
GL! personally, I just use my cable STB for cable content, and switch to the HTPC for other content. If I could afford it, I'd just buy an OEM media center capable of using cablecard.
the whole cablecard labs certification crap really screwed us HTPCers make the HDTV jump. made me so mad i dropped my hdtv cable service and went to clearQAM and just the network channels on my hp dv6700t laptop and windows7.
ARGGG!!! until there is DIY solution, i would avoid building your own HTPC for hd cable viewing; however for OTA or ClearQAM (supported in Win7 finally). sure, you can build one by getting a specific motherboard w/a hacked bios to fake the tuners but still not a very friendly/viable solution, imo.
Seamonkey420 is right.
After I saw that article about ATI DCT and bought one off ebay. Boy, what a disappointment.
After I've patched OFSR and SLIC my bios (yes, full OEM patched to BIOS, no loader crap) then just to found out the tuner itself is one-way not tru2way to cable provider so i lost half of my HD channels (TWC San Antonio) not to mention SDV is right around the corner...
I'm gonna cancel my cable soon. IMO, OTA + Netflix + Hulu = FTW
I've been out of the HTPC loop for awhile, so forgive me if this is a stupid question: are there any reliable CableCard internal tuners out yet, or is there still just that external ATI unit?
cablecard tuners are still only for OEMs unless you want to hack some bios registrations and live with Microsoft shutting down your windows key any time they feel like it.
I don't believe so. The closest you can get is one which requires one to flash the bios so that the card can pick up cable correctly. Really a shame, but it is the way of the cable world.
Otherwise, having built something like this before you have to be very careful about heat in relation to the psu and the video card. Those two don't give much warnings before they just die because of the heat. So I would add that you should be extra careful and get good fans for both.
One of the Tekzilla episodes talks about CableCard Tuners for HTPC's. Its do-able, using something from like ATI or something (I forgot), not quite sure. The episode is actually recent, maybe one or two episodes ago. Check it out revision3.com/tekzilla.
@Enoch, I looked up Revision3 back through Episode 88 but couldn't find the synopsis with the HTPC/CableCard you were talking about. Link?
600 Watts!! Wait a little while till Flash and Silverlight do GPU acceleration and go with an ION mobo and drop down into the 20-30 Watt range. Also, if you want to keep HD recordings or even take a two week vacation, get a 1TB drive or larger.
Silverlight already supports GPU video acceleration.
Flash still does not (everything is accelerated now except for video...)
Flash needs to die...as does .h263 (aka FLV)
but H264 FTW !
hehe..
@ Grammar: "companies protecting themselves from piracy...yes...evil"
The only people the DRM nonsense hurts are those who are actually buying/renting Blu Ray discs and trying to play them back. Netflix disc rippers and torrent hounds don't have anything to worry about.
exactly; get a zotac IONITX ION mobo w/ a dual core atom, 2 or 4 gigs of ram, a 1TB HDD, a blu-ray drive, and the Win7 RC and you've got a smaller, almost equally powerful PC for your Home Theater. You miss out on OTA tuning, but I only get 1 channel where I live and that's what Hulu and *ahem* TPB are useful for (only for BBC programs of course). You also save on power, and you can drive the size way down.
Word up grammar. Silverlight squashes Flash for video playback, especially with the GPU acceleration in v3. Flash still pegs my processor like its 1998 - it's got to go.
What Blu-Ray playback software was used? That's been my biggest problem with my Blu-Ray equipped HTPC using Vista x64. I can't find software that works reliably from disk to disk. PowerDVD only plays about 75% of the Blu-Rays that I get from Netflix.
25% of the blu-rays I have received from Netflix have that darn crack on the edge.
Make sure your vid card is powerful enough and/or has the Security decoder on it...(iforgot what its called)... Else, i blieve VLC player will do it for you... its free
VLC FTW!
PowerDVD 9 plays every bluray i've ever got from netflix?
You need to make sure your player will output multi-channel sound. Alot of those will only do stereo or not decode all the channels. I believe Total Media Center is the only player that will send send true bitstream (with the ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3).
I love articles like these. Great job engadget!
I bought a vaio with 4 gigs of RAM, blu ray player, HDMI out and 2.5 dual core processor for about 1000 bucks...
Was it the FW465J by chance? That's the one I got with identical specs to the one you listed.
It was the FW170J
Just have to say: Great post! Thanks Darren, thanks Engadget.
this is great for those who would like to have a complete pc in the living room. the rest of us just buy a ps3 & lcd tv for under $1000, and those "fluent in Linux" can even install ubuntu ppc edition on the ps3.
AFAIK, even if you are running Ubuntu on your PS3, it cannot take advantage of the PS3's GPU and therefore HD playback (x264 in mkv containers for instance) will be pretty much unwatchable. With the exception of installing emulators, I have yet to see a real good reason to install linux on my PS3.
Incorrect, there's a project, spe-medialib, which lets the 6 available SPE cores of the Cell take care of the decoding. I use my PS3 as a HTPC, and it handles 1080P H264 and Theora just fine.
I build mine for less than $600. Antec Fusion 430 case from ebay (psu included). Asus uATX mobo with nvidia 8200 chipset (hdmi/dvi/spdif out), amd 5050e 45W cpu, hauppage dual tuner, 2gb crucial ram, 1tb hd. Total cost, 450. Only thing to add is a blue ray drive and I saw a deal on that for ~$57 the other day.
Doing it for less than $1000 isn't a challenge. Justifying the need to spend the extra $400 in this economy is the hard part.
Great article, can we have more like this in the future?
seconded
Agreed!
thirded
Good bye cable! HULU rocks and I don't need a DVR!!!!!!!!!
That case is wayyyyyy too big... Way way way way too big... That would go nowhere near my sexy home theater... The largest things are my amplifier and my TV...
Try a Shuttle barebone or something in the slim collection at newegg... Netflix/Hulu/Torrentz and stuff will suit you just fine with a HTPC...
Or worst case scenario, you can get a cheapo ASUS or HP for under $500 and they are tiny... Plus they have HDMI picture and sound...
Just a general question to whomever might know:
Is there a tuner card with HD input (either HDMI or 5-cable analog component)?
I think most are external. But really for these HTPC setups isn't not that big of a deal.
Hi, You're looking for a "Capture" card instead of a "Tuner" card. To my knowledge TV signals cannot be "tuned" through an HDMI cable. Also be aware, if you're thinking of capturing content output through your STB or other device, usually content is protected digitally with HDMI.
That's fine if it's external.
Yeah I thought there might be issues with HDMI encryption or what have you. So maybe there are component HD capture devices?
Actually, there's a perfect solution for component capture:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
Thanks Jesse, that's perfect. But darn, it is expensive. I thought $100 would be at the high end!
I have that exact keyboard in my living room, got it off directron, its the biggest piece of crap ever constructed. It fails to get a stable connection any more than three to four feet away from the receiver.
This is a bit too much general computing power, not enough savings via HTPC-primed parts that might add value at a lower price IMO. Some of the upgrades are probably way too overkill, too...for example, a velociraptor for a boot drive is fine for a general-purpose performance PC, but probably way too much for a dedicated HTPC.
Yea, it could definitely be built cheaper. They probably gave him a 1k budget so he went with it. lol.
I doubt you'd see a performance hit if you just went with a dual core too.
If you install Linux on the box, you can pretty much forget about Blu-Ray due to the evil nature of those behind the format:
http://bluraysucks.com/
You can kind of do it, but not particularly well, and with taking the dubious legal step of trying to strip the DRM encryption from it, but YMMV:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD
companies protecting themselves from piracy...yes...evil.
Who wants to play off of optical media anyways?
Rip it and be done with it and never have to worry about encryption again.
You can connect this thing to that 12 drive RAID monstrosity from before.
The BD drive just seems to be space wasted when you could have another 2TB drive (or two) in it's place.
@Grammar
I have no problem with companies protecting them from piracy. However, they can do that WITHOUT using DRM. Using Linux is perfectly legal (and perfectly common) and it is near impossible to use Bluray on it.
Companies can protect themselves without restricting use. And that is all DRM does, restricts and controls the way we can use media WE pay for.
In case you havent noticed, DRM only comes on the media you pay for, so its not really stopping anyone obtaining it illegally. And those who are paying for it should be able to use it in any way that they please.
How can the tuner card work in MOST areas of the US. My cable company is NOT clear QAM.
Will this card work at all for the MOST of us?
If the tuner card makes no difference to you, then just go buy a MAC Mini. Sooooo much easier and 5.1 is free. I added a Logitech Mac key board to my system for 99.00.
You just saved $300.00 or more.
If they are not sending clear QAM to you, then they are in violation of the FCC regulation that requires cable companies to transmit any local channels broadcast in your area to you unencrypted.
Overall it is a nice build. I feel you could cut down on cost quite a bit with different hardware, and not suffered a noticeable drop in performance. My most recent build consists of an AMD Quad ($80), paired with a 8300 chipset mobo ($90) which has 7.1 channel audio through HDMI on it. This eliminates the need for a video/sound card unless you are looking for TrueHD or Master audio, which will require the Xonar card.
One important thing to mention is software too. I would have to say this is the biggest struggle in the HTPC world, and I have used just about every software in the market trying to a get a mix of sleek library layout, alongside solid playback and ease of use.
Current software:
-Vista Ultimate 32bit (any of them work, but 32 bit is the only one i can get to play mkv within WMC)
-Windows Media Center paired with a few plugins
- MC Menu Mender: Removes all the clutter of unnecessary menu items, and allows you to add your own.
- Mediabrowser (mediabrowser.tv): An open source plugin which looks great and works with very few quirks. The reason i went with this over say, XBMC is the ability to mount bluray iso's.
-PowerDVD 9 (TMT works too, i hate them both but they are the only options for bluray playback)
-AnyDVD-HD: to get all of my blurays on hard drive
(I don't have cable and therefor don't use a tuner card so i can't speak to that)
If you are like me and hate disks, i rip all of my blurays to hard drive. While it is possible to get clean video when converting them to mkv, it wont carry over the TrueHD/Master audio, so if that matters to you (to me it does), then you will be left with .iso's. If you do decide to go the mkv route, you are looking at 8+ hours to render each movie on a quad core processor @ 100%.
Overkill comment, i know, but oh well.
+1 for mediabrowser.tv - any Media Center user should look at it.
Media Browser also works transparently with Transcode 360 through the 360s Extender. No need to go into the 'info' and hit transcode. A little lag on the start up through the 360, but only about 10 sec or so.
Cliff, you're ripping your bluray disks wrong if it takes you that long. With AnyDVD running, use EAC3TO to rip the video and audio tracks out without reducing any quality in them (the audio gets processed to a lossless multichannel FLAC format), and then use MKVMerge GUI to drop them into an MKV container... takes minutes, not hours, and you loose zero quality.
Actually I really appreciate your comment and don't think its overkill. It's great to see what utilities/apps people are using as I'm always trying to make my VMC better. Additional plugins that are pretty cool are:
- MCEbrowser
- MyNetFlix
What other plugins/applets/utils/etc is everybody else out there using?
Check newegg today. I picked up a Samsung F1 RAID edition 1TB drive for $119. It came with a free Seagate 500GB drive. I already have that sold that bringing my cost to$ 90.
The F1 is one of the fastest drives on the market. It slidesnot too far below the Velociraptor drives.
Toss a pair in, RAID 0 and you got a monster speed, large storage HTPC.
I am just starting on my HTPC and also had a budget. I opted for a Zotac IONITX and a much cheaper Blu-Ray drive. I also went with 4GB and a 1TB HDD and have kept it just at $500. Since I wanted to keep it in a MiniITX form factor, I figured I could hold off on the tuner card and go with an HD Homerun when I am ready to fork out the dough. Windows 7 is also free right now, so in the long run if I want to upgrade to some better DVD playback software I am looking at another $350 for a grand total of $850. Gaming would obviously be pretty lousy, but another option out there is to go with Pegatron IPX7A-ION NVIDIA ION (also miniITX) that accepts another video card for HybridSLI and you should be all set.
I'd go for an AMD solution with lower wattage.
just get a popcorn hour (www.popcornhour.com) ($200)
1 tb for the popcorn hour ($100)
a ps3 ($200 on craigslist)
for $500 you have all you need to play blu-ray, mkv, and anything else w/ 5.1 and hdmi's
So which element is your DVR, or are you forgetting that some people are actually recording TV as opposed to hitting up mininova etc.?
Add a TiVo HD and you're still under 1k (just pop the cablecards into the back of the TiVo). Still, it's 3 boxes instead of 1, but I think you can drop the PCH and stream HD content direct to the PS3.
I doubt that anyone building htpc really needs blu-ray (if you need blu-ray, you get blu-ray player instead, otherwise you just download stuff, that's what htpc is for).
My setup built around a year ago is Antec Fusion 430 and a little weaker cpu the rest of the ingridients are about the same, except video card. You need silent video card with passive cooling!
Recently I have stumbled upon Zotac's IONITX-A Mini-ITX board - board with atom n330 cpu with passive cooling, nvidias chip for HD etc. You can build 1080p capable htpc for about 400$ (without blu-ray and cable card), but in very sexy small enclosure
I did the same -- love it. But I like having Blu-ray in the mix.
Pretty nice, but is it really worth the cost?
This is probably the best Engadget article in recent history.
Now, how about putting one of these babies on the next Recession Antidote?
The best article in a while you say? Yet you didn't even read it all the way through.
"Oh, and did we mention that we're giving this beast away tomorrow to one lucky reader? Make sure you're tuned in right here at noon ET on July 22nd in order to place your name in the hat." - Darren Murph
Admittedly, I did not read the whole thing. I stopped at the, "What if my budget is just $500?" section, because my budget is not $500.
Thanks for pointing the giveaway out.
Yea, I wish I could get in on these giveaways. Sadly, I'm not eligible. Damn you international law!
Hey Engadget, can you list the places that you acquired these items; at these insanely low prices?
Ive sourced the parts, but still each time I total up, I'm well over the 1K mark.
They say their total is 'after rebates.' Not sure if rebates would get your cart below $1,000 or not.
I had a few parts showing manufactures rebates, but that adjustment was reflected in the ultimate total. Maybe they got a few Engadget specific rebates.
They did say that it was a soft cap of $1000. Is there any DIY'ers with a hard cap on their budget? :)
> Also, there's a really conveluted way of exploiting an analogue loop on a
> hauppage HD PVR hooked up to your STB, which will work if you're capable
> of following the instructions laid out on several blogs.
Using a HD-PVR is no more "convoluted" than using any PVR with an external cable box.
Back in the stone age before cablecards existed, this was the only way you could do premium cable content.
It's not a big deal really.
Nice job picking an ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100 tuner. You can watch post-digital-transition snow on the NTSC tuner while recording something on the ATSC/QAM. What you've purchased is the equivalent of a combination BetaMax + BluRay player, except that might actually be useful considering there still are BetaMax tapes.
Also: an external video card, external sound card, quadcore CPU and a 600W power supply? What a giant waste of electricity.
testing