Projects

HTPC

Requirements

Several things I thought are important for a Media Center and I didn’t want to compromise on them.

Quiet: I understood that if I want to put a PC into the living room it better be a quiet device.

Design: It should be nice looking as well to blend with other electronics in the home theater.

HDTV:. I wanted to be able to record HDTV even though later I figured out more about content protection making only “over the air” type of content available for recording in HDTV.

Audio: I wanted to have a Digital Dolby output with at least 5.1 channels.

Hardware

I selected the Origenae Case since that was in my mind the most beautiful in design and functionality. I didn’t think a TFT screen on the front panel itself will be practical and so didn’t consider the X15 model.

As a keyboard and mouse I am using the Gyrateon Media Center Remote and Compact Keyboard

Case:

Origenae X11 HTPC Case, Silver

Card Reader:

Aluminum Internal 17-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader, Silver

Motherboard:

Intel D945PVSLKR i945P P4 LGA775 ATX Audio/GbLAN/SATA/RAID/1394a

Chipset: Intel 945P, Intel ICH7R
CPU Support: LGA775 Socket for Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Front Side Bus (FSB): 1066 / 800 / 533 MHz

Memory Support: 240-pin DDR2 667/533/400 SDRAM DIMM

Up to 8 x USB ports: 4 x USB ports on Back Panel I/O. 4 x USB ports via Headers

Up to 3 x IEEE 1394a ports: 1 x IEEE 1394a on Back Panel I/O, 2 x IEEE 1394a via Headers

SATA/RAID: Intel ICH7R South Bridge: 4 x SATA with Intel Matrix Storage Technology supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5

PCI/PCI-Express Slots: 1 x PCI-Express X16, 2 x PCI-Express X1, 4 x PCI

Back Panel I/O: 1 x PS/2 Mosue, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x Serial Port, 1 x Parallel Port, 1x RJ45 LAN port, 1 x IEEE1394a port, 4 x USB 2.0 ports

CPU:

Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz) w/Dual Core Technology

RAM:

2 GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533 MHz

Video Card:

nVidia GeForce 6800 256 MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out)

Audio Card:

Onboard Audio: Sigmatel 9223 8-channel (7.1) audio codec

HDTV Tuner:

ATI HDTV Wonder with Remote Control

TV Tuner:

eVGA NVTV PCI Tuner Card

Hard Drive:

Maxtor 250 GB

Optical Drive:

Philips DVD RW

Keyboard, Mouse:

Gyration Media Center Remote & Keyboard Suite

CPU Cooler:

Zalman CNPS9500-Cu LED Pure Copper Base CPU Cooler

GPU Cooler

Aerocool VM-101 Video Magic Series Fanless Heatpipe VGA Cooler (61-VM101)

Case fan:

Arctic Cooling 80 mm Case Fan - Arctic Fan 3 - 28 cfm (ACF3)

Remote:

Microsoft Remote Control w/Receiver

DVI Switch:

2x1 HDTV Digital Audio Switcher with IR Remote Control (EXT-HDTV-241A)

Power Supply:

Antec Black Fanless 350 Watt ATX12V (Phantom 350)

Network:

Onboard: Intel 82573E/82573V Gigabit Ethernet controller

Acoustic Mat:

xPCgear Noise Control Dampening Pad

You will see the interns of the case on the picture below. On the left you see the acoustic isolation box for the Hard Drive, covering it from four sides and leaving the bottom and back side for ventilation.

Cooling

I have placed the CPU fan close to the passive GPU cooling to let it benefit from the additional airflow. I will still need to experiment with it since the impression is that it is more important to push the hot air out of the case, than to induce more airflow inside the case itself. Right now the case fan is working at full speed, whereas the CPU fan runs at 5V instead of 12V for a quieter operation.

Hard Drive

The hard drive is mounted using ribbon isolation rings inserted also between the holders and the case bottom as well as between holders and the drive.

Not in Final configuration

I also worked with the following hardware component, yet for various reasons didn’t use them in the final configuration:

MyHD MDP-130 DVI Daughter Card Combo(MDP130DVC)

56K PCI Telephony Modem
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, PCI w/Dolby Digital EX, IEEE1394, 7.1 channel, THX cert

ASUS SPDIF In / Out Module W/Cable 6P Coaxial

ASUS SPDIF Out Module W/Cable 4P Optical & Coaxial

SilverStone FN82 92mm Fan in 80mm Frame

Zalman ZMOP1 Noiseless Slim 80x15mm Fan

80x80x25mm Zalman Silent Cooling Case Fan with Connecter: ZM-F1

80x80x25mm Enermax Ultra Quiet RPM Manual Adjustable Clear Case Fan (Blue)

Kingwin KWVC-3 VGA Cooler with Triple Fan

Thermaltake BigWater SE 12cm Liquid Water Cooling CL-W0005-01

Thermaltake Aquarius Series VGA Waterblock

Software

Windows XP Media Center 2005, Service Pack 2

Media Center Extender

Windows Media Player 10

NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder Platinum

What functionality has been implemented

The media center PC is working

Reached low level on noise

Can upload music CDs

Can view home videos

Can record and play back TV

Can playback DVDs, VCDs and DivX video files

Enabled 5.1 digital output through a TOSLINK (optical cable) to the audio amplifier

Installed a DVI switch to (a) select TV DVI input between cable box and the Media Center PC and (b) select input for Audio amplifier between cable box and the Media Center PC. Given that HDTV content is protected it can be only directly sent via DVI to the HDTV. To view the recorded content or home videos HDTV need to get DVI signal from the Media Center. Most flat panel TVs have only one DVI input.

What I still plan to try out

Burn lower quality CDs on the Media Center for the use in the car. I hope to put more songs on a CD with (hopefully) limited quality loss and have a larger variety of music in the 5 disk CD-Changer in the car.

Upload all the CDs onto the Media Center and start playing music

Convert selected old audio tapes into digital files

Convert few old home video tapes into digital files

Experiment with additional touch screen to playback music or start recording without turning on the flat panel TV

Try to eliminate multiple remote controls either through a universal remote or by controlling the cable box, TV set and audio amplifier through he Media Center PC.

Decide whether Gyrateon media center remote (with mouse) or a standard Gyrateon mouse is a better choice. Gyrateon remote is not adequate at all and is not replacing the Microsoft remote.

Additional touchscreen monitor for music selection and other functions when you don’t need the large flat panel (mainly non-video related functions).

Home Automation

VOIP phone

Home Theater setup

The Home Theater setup has Flat Screen TV, Media Center PC, Gyration keyboard, Cable Box and the Audio Amplifier and speakers, DVI Switch.

As you can see I have not yet optimized the remote control and currently all are in use: Gyration media center remote (as a mouse), Microsoft remote, DVI Switch remote, Cable box remote, Audio Amplifier remote and the TV remote.

DVI Switch

Given that I need to switch DVI input for the TV between cable box and the Media Center PC - I deployed a DVI switch with a remote control. This switch is also switching the optical input to the audio amplifier between the cable box output and the Media Center output.

Learnings

Converting Office PC into a Media Center: I started the project actually by buying first the DELL Dimension 9600 with Pentium D processor. The assumption was that I could first experiment with different configurations and than simply move the motherboard with all other components into the new stylish enclosure. This was mistake number one! Even though by buying the ready made computer I could achieve a relatively low price compared to buying components one by one - it turned out to be a wrong assumption.

Motherboard: I quickly learned that DELL is using a nonstandard motherboard which will simply not fit into the enclosure designed for a standard ATX motherboard. Here I got into an additional expense of buying a new motherboard.

Card Reader: The next discovery was that the 5-in-one DELL card reader had a nonstandard connector and I couldn’t connect it to the on board USB pins. I had to buy another one, typically sold as an optional component for the case.

CPU Cooling: The other discovery was that the CPU cooling was very bulky and had an extremely noisy fan, so it had to be replaced.

GPU Cooling: The nVidia graphics card also had a conventional design with a small and extremely noisy fan, making me to start experimenting with passive cooling solutions.

Sound Card: The Audigy card initially ordered with the PC turned out to be not an optimal solution for my needs. First of all it required a special analog cable to connect all the six channels of 5.1 to the amplifier, yet the cable was not included. More to it, I actually wanted to use optical cable to connect audio output to the receiver, Audigy 2 didn’t have an SPDIF output and in the end I decided to use the motherboard with on-board 7.1 audio and optical TOSLINK connector.

HDTV Tuner: Another surprise was with HDTV tuners. I really wanted to get the HDTV signal from the cable directly into PC. So, I ordered MyHD card which is capable of handling the cable signal directly, does all the MPEG encoding on card itself and has a DVI output. First disappointment was that the card is not MCE compatible and never will be. The other disappointment was that even though it had a DVI connector - the output signal was RGB and could be viewed only on a PC screen, but not on an HDTV which requires a true DVI signal. I ended up sending the card back and ordering the highly marketed ATI HDTV Wonder tuner.

Multiple forums claimed that other tuners are too buggy or not fully MCE compatible, which now appears to be just a marketing noise. The ATI card had both HDTV and analog inputs, so I though it will be enough to cover my needs with one card. Only when I started playing with it I uncovered that actually for it to work with MCE you need to have another analog tuner as a second one, otherwise MCE will not recognize the HDTV card. I found a workaround popularly knows as KRAM driver with an amazingly funny installation instructions (you kind of first install a different driver, but than have to do a roll back as if you uninstalling what you just have installed). It did actually work, but there were other implication of having a hack in the system, so in the end I decided to buy an additional tuner to comply with MCE requirements. Whether it is really related to it or not, but in a new installation with two tuner and no hack - the time it takes to start the Windows XP operating system is just 1.5 minutes instead of 3 minutes earlier (with the hack).

Another enlightenment along the way was that I actually will not be using the HDTV input much as I am not watching over the air broadcasting and my cable box will only give me an analog TV output signal which I can use for recording. I am planning to experiment with the Firewire setup (another hack) to be able to record some non-secured channels from the cable box, but even in that case I will not really need the HDTV tuner.

RAID: I originally wanted to have two hard drives in ROAD 0 configuration to increase the speed of writing and reading files. Only after extensive research I found that the improvement is only in the range of 10% and so it doesn’t make much difference. At the same time I learned that I don’t really need more than one hard drive with 250 GB, especially that the second drive gives more noise and heat requiring a speedier fan and, as a result, I have a noisier system. I am using only one hard drive in the current configuration.

MCE: Some software related bumps were around managing the music library. It turned out that MCE cannot upload the CD itself and you need to start the Windows Media Player 10 to convert the CD to digital files and actually add it to the library. Until I figured that out, I was constantly amazed that after I added a directory with music files in MCE My Music it disappeared the next time I started MCE.

Remote: Another area of trouble still is the remote control and keyboard. The DELL IR keyboard and mouse turned out to be unreliable at a distance of over 5 feet from the IR sensor. I was initially excited with the Gyrateon small wireless keyboard and a remote designed specifically for media center until I uncovered that this remote actually can not replace my Microsoft IR remote.

There were several reasons for that. The Gyrateon remote has gyro-mouse functionality which is really great and I continue using it. Yet, by design there are only few buttons on the remote and the remaining functions are supposed to be called by “shaking” the remote into different directions. I found it quite annoying to first press a “shake” button and than shake the remote to request a simple command like “go back” or “Page Up”. It also turned out that the “arrow up” and “arrow down” commands cannot be configured at all, making navigation through the MCE menu simply a nightmare.

The other reason was actually the fact, that the enclosure had an inbuilt IR receiver which allows you to shut the PC completely down and than still turn it on and let the operating system reload. Your assigned button on the IR Microsoft remote actually becomes your remote on/off button for the PC. You can even disconnect the front button on the PC if you are afraid of the kids turning it on just by playing around with toys.

The normal remote which operates with a USB receiver typically can only put PC into a sleep mode and than wake it up. It might be great and sufficient feature, yet not for me and not for now.

I learned that MCE is set up to wake up at night to upload the TV schedule from the Internet. The problem with it which I faced was that after waking up and uploading the guide it didn’t go back to sleep and ended up warming up the room and burning oil (I mean consuming electricity). I know there is a utility to change the time for this download and probably turn it off completely, yet I haven’t got time to try it out till now. There are also free software on the market, which will put your PC into sleet if it is not active for a while - funny, but works better than the OS settings itself...

It is on one of my first priorities, since it is really nice to have a Media Center available instantly from the sleep mode vs. 1.5 minutes required currently to load the operating system out of the complete shutdown.