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[jmone]

My aim with the build was simple (  )
1) Has to look and feel like any other peice of AV Equipment (has to pass the Wife / Kid Acceptabilty Factor),
2) Has to have good Video & Audio Quality &
3) Be reliable / stable (have I mentioned it needs to pass the W/KAF?).

The basis for my new MC12 build is:

• Shuttle SG33G5M - http://hq1.shuttle.com/products_page03.jsp?PLLI=551&PI=635 : A nice Small Form Factor PC with a PCI slot for the DVB-T card, a PCI-E slot if the inbuilt Intel HDMI graphics are not up to the job (also carries the sound).  Loaded it with a Q6600 (Quad Core), 2GB RAM, and 500GB HDD (that I already had & will add another - 750?).  All the plugs you would expect

• Other Hardware - MS MCE IR Receiver (also K'B, & IR Blasters) programed into my Yami RC, DVICO DVB-T Plus tuner with Analog inputs (which will be good when MC12 supports control of external boxs).  Wanted to add a BluRay player but as they are not yet supported by MC12 stuck with a cheapo DVD
• Software - MC12 of course running on Vista Ultimate.  Also loaded is Nero (for its splitter), PureVideo decoders, Dvico SW, Antivirus and that's about it!

The Build: Not toooo bad, only had to do the SW intall twice (don't ask - some bad chip driver, or bit locker stoped it booting and one point) and swap the drive for re-partitioning in another PC (for some reason the Vista install won't let you re partition a disk).  Assembly is stright forward and very well laid out for such a small case.  Everything went in as it should!


The Install:  All integrates nicely into my setup.


MC12 Config and Performance:  So far I've copied the files that will fit across (still took a day over a 100mb network - should of got that G'Bit Switch...).  I've loaded up Blue Too for T'View and done most of my settings from memory (will have forgotten a few I'm sure) and have now built the initial library.  First impressions are:

• Quad Core is overkill & I like it  : Yup this pupply is not troubled by anything - I managed to get ONE of the FOUR cores up to 40-50% playing a HD file without HW acceleration but most of the time they are under 10%
• Video / Audio Quality:  So far so good, after one day my "impression" is that the Intel integrated HDMI Video (& Sound) is better than my previous nVidia based setups.  Video is rich and smooth and with the right filters no tearing at 720p (I've not had much of a play at 1080i but I did not see any tearing unlike the nVidia cards).  I had to hunt through some files & downloads to find the "Intel TV Wizard" which seemed to do very little except let you pick your output format.  It should let you also set your overscan compensation but so far it has eluded me  - will keep playing.  Audio just appears over HDMI automagically and the drivers are loaded as part of the Intel Video drivers.  I had a few issues related to loading and unloading the Intel drivers looking for the "Intel TV Wizard" which I'd prefer to have avoided
• Filters: Still got to play some more (especially with DVB-T) but no surprises so far.
• DBV-T:  My biggest disappointment with the whole HTPC thing is Digital TV.  You just don't get as good a picture (especially with live sport) as you do with a cheap STB (a noticable jitter during panning / movement).  The good new is that this setup is better than the nVidia based one but still not there.  The upside is I've got more options, filters, and things to stuff around with before I give up!

The Result?:  To eary to tell but so far:
1) It integrates better than a traditional PC into our setup 
2) Apart from DVB-T  I'm happy with the Video & Audio Quality    &
3) Stability - Mmmm not sure yet, I've managed to get the "MC12 Not Responding" alot as I've been playing with filters etc or when coming back from S3 with DVB-T on (but resume works just fine when playing, audio or video!).  It will take a few weeks till I know and the big test is when I'm away from work that the W/KAF will be really put to the test.

More Later
Nathan

[thenoob1]

Cool thing - I will build a htpc for myself.

But I see only one problem:

You can't schedule recordings in theater view as we mentioned in a thread days ago. So I will use Media Portal which is a pain because of the worse sound quality if you compare it with Mc12.


PS: Your electricity bill will be high because of the quad core !!

[raym]

Do you get DVB-T jitter in Vista Media Center on the same hardware?

[jmone]

Do you get DVB-T jitter in Vista Media Center on the same hardware?

Have not bothered to run up Vista Media Center but I still get it in the Dvico S'W but it's not as bad as it was with the nVidia card (would like to see an ATI card to compare).  Sport is now watchable but still looks odd due to the jitter.  FYI - if your still running the Dvico card they have new SW out (you have to log in and check your Q&A).

Thanks
Nathan

[benn600]

I'm very intrigued by everything here.  This is very moving-forward ISH.  I built a home theater pc out of a cheap Athlon with a very nice Antec case.  It's the same width as stereo components.  It was around $100.  Then I put in a very nice graphics card--for my purposes--with 2GB of memory.

How exactly do you manage MC?  I'm assuming you have MC on your desktop as well.  I know Library Server is worthless in this case because it can't even stream video.  So I just point to my server's database--which is live and in use for library server and upnp server (for other devices).  Then, I checked the box to not show the readonly warning again.  It opens MC upon booting up and automatically enters theater mode.  I'm using a small $40 remote that offers unlimited customization.  The buttons are simply programmed to push the buttons Theater view responds to.

My problem is that my server crashes whenever I import my 500+ DVD collection.  My desktop doesn't have any trouble at all!  But without my DVD collection there is no issue on the server.  I need video because that's the primary use for a HTPC!  My collection is also very streamlined and high quality, housing only FLAC audio and DVD VIDEO_TS folders plus typical digital camera photos...no mp3s or avi's.

I'm seriously considering building another htpc but the key for me will be dirt cheap.  I would rather have a HTPC at most TVs than just a few.  It becomes an issue because there will always come the time when you want to switch to the full computer so you need to keep a wireless keyboard/mouse available, too.  But you've got to have a remote for the ultimate ease of use.

Keep talkin' I'm listening!

Quick question.  I've basically never used MC's TV feature but I have a few TV capture cards.  Does MC provide PVR functionality?  What are some of the features of TV in general?  In the kitchen, I have a Tivo and Xbox (with Media Center) but since putting Vista on my server (not by my choice), I can't get it to connect via Samba to my server's shared drive.  So I'm thinking it would be nice if I could replace TiVo and Xbox with a HTPC.  If MC has TiVo functionality then I could but even just TV playback would be acceptable.  I'm annoyed I can't use my Xbox anymore.  Any ideas on that lol?

[jmone]

Hi benn600 - here are some food for thought on your various Q's and observations (in no particular order)

RC & K'Board: My HTPC Build includes the MS MCE IR Keyboard & Remote which MC12 supports out of the box.  I use the Keyboard only when needed (eg config for Vista, MC12 etc).  I've programed the IR codes into my Yami Universal RC so the one remote controls all my AV devices without mucking around with any third party SW.  Nice and Easy but you need to make a registry change to turn "debouce off" (also in XP you need to add a patch to support the IR reviever).  Result is that it mostly behaves like any other AV device

MC12 Startup: I boot straight into T'View (Blue Too skin), just added MC12 to the startup group.

Network: I can play media from both Local and Network shares over 100BT network just fine - max utilisation so far is 25% on my HDV files (not surprising as these files are encoded at 25mbs).  I will upgrade my switch at some point to G'Bit but as I don't have any probs at the moment it is just not a priority.

Encoding:  I also am uninterested in keeping compressed or transcoded Audio and Video and use original CD/DVD to create lossless rips for everthing that I want to keep in the library.  For me I store all music as lossless WMA, and all Video in its original format (HDV, DV, MPEG etc) without transcoding (disk is cheap!).  I however rip, store and manage my Music DVD's by tracks just like you do with CD's for me it is in the format of "Music Video\Artist\Album\00 - Title.MPG" (letting you then have playlists that mix and match Audio and Music Video tracks etc - very cool).  I also use the same method to store Series based DVD's by Episode (eg "TV Series\Series Name\S01E01-Title.MPG) .  I tend not to store my DVD's but when I do I use the same software to pull out the main movie and prefered audio track as "Movies\Title.mpg (note: none of this re-encodes anything - it is all bit perfect but stores them as individual MPG files NOT all collection of VOBS in the VIDEO_TS folder).

Storage:  I was keeping two full copies of my media on both the HTPC and my main PC each with their own MC12 instance.  Given my now limited HTPC drive storage (and recent network testing) what I really want to do is add a NAS via gigabit that I can keep in the back shed that holds a full copy of my media in case the house burns down or we get cleaned completly out.  The HTPC would then just play the files over the network from either my main PC or the NAS.

TV/PVR Features:  This has come a long way in the last year with basic support up and going but is still behind the competition in the more advanced features.  So far you can watch, pause, and manually record a TV stream (will be added as a file to your video directory) from within T'View.  You can also schedule a recording (eg by CH, Date, Time, Duration) but only from STD View.  At this stage there is no EPG integration, control of third party TV equipment (eg sat box), CH mapping to #'s, or the ability to record and pause at the same time.

Dirt Cheap HTPC Build?:  Everyones Idea of dirt cheap is different and will depend on how you plan to push Video/Audio out to your AV Equipment (I hate to say it but there is no point having a top quality collection being degraded by poor HW/SW).  I've played with more combos than I care to admit trying to get to Quality Niverna on this and while I'm not their yet, I've been impressed with the performace of of my latest setup and in particular Intel's integrated X3100 graphics so far (compared to nVidia anyway).  You certainly don't need a Quad Core but in my testing I can get one core up over 50% but the others are idiling along.  I've also found the the Video Quality in Vista with Aero on is better than XP (no idea why) so you are going to want 2gb though I was just getting away with 1gb before.  So most modern components will be fine but watch out for noisy fans and components (like an external LG burner that sounded like it was going into orbit when playing DVDs).

Thanks
Nathan

[jmone]

Do you get DVB-T jitter....?

I now know that DBB-T jitter can be eliminated!  If I set my driver resolution to 1080i/25, with say the Vista MS MPEG2 Decoder and FFDSHOW post processing on with deinterlaing OFF - their is NO horizontal jitter at all.  Problem is that at this stage I've only got a 1024x1024 Plasma and the resulting picture is very soft and I get some other weird looking artifacts (like a vertical wobble when the TV image pans).  This is turning into an obsession!

Nathan