Building a PC into a home entertainment system.

seamus

(Reposting here)

I have a barebones machine sitting at home that we want to build into a fileserver/home entertainment system.

So we're looking for surround sound stereo system to play all the mp3's on the machine, TV in/out for recording TV and playing DVDs, and of course, a remote control to allow us to control it all without getting off our asses.

So what do I need? Relatively beefy CPU notwithstanding, what cards and software do I need to get this off the ground?

Pure n00b in this area, so links wouldn't be looked down upon.

Chalk

id go for something like a 9800 all-in-wonder pro*

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/aiw9800pro/
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=VID5007&productID=0

even comes with a remote control according to the review.



*requires money to burn - but some of the lower models are fairly cheap [9600]

seamus

Ouch, but that's a brilliant start, cheers.

No point in us working from my barebones machine with oldish mainboard if we're going to be spending that kind of cash.

BigEejit

May I suggest a Hauppauge PVR-250 (http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr250.asp) for doing recording .... nearly every video card built within the last two years does s-video out .... any soundblaster newer than the Live! 1024 (4 years old?) can do surround ... but check on that ... do you want DTS/Dolby Digital/5.1, or do you want Surround (4 or 5 speakers) ... if you want digital you may want to invest in a newer sound card (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=302655&cks=PRL) .....

I am in the process of doing this as well .... but the most important thing is quietness .... so I am using a Hauppauge Primio FM (bought here on boards) a SB live 1024! (surround) and a old agp Ati card of some description for the s-video out, no fan goodness .... Using a dual P3 700 (both passively cooled) and a gig of ram. Also a seagate 7200.7 160GB hd which is nice and quiet ....

Next I'm on the lookout for a nice quiet PSU (silent if possible) at a reasonable price ..... harder to find than you would think. In the meantime I have changed the two fans in my enhance 450w psu for quieter ones .... but its still barely noticeable....

Finally software .... free or quite expensive .... if you used the PVR-250 there is a nice slick linux setup at http://mythtv.org .... or if using the cheapo stuff like me there is the setup mentioned here: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1626414,00.asp....
Your other choice is some media centre edition of windows, which is expensive (and I am not sure if it is readily available yet)

seamus

Holy shnit.

I was looking at coding my own Interface in Java for an IR remote, but as usual, it seems to already be out there. Cheers BigEejit.

BigEejit

I was just looking and if you go with Freevo (http://freevo.sourceforge.net) there is a nice database of stuff that people got working:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php?find=freevo&search=find&sort_mode=lmodified_desc
Lots of tuner cards supported .... including my cheapo Hauppage WinTV primio ....
I'm thinking of going with Fedora Core 2 .... simply because I have it all downloaded at work (all 5 disks!!)

BeatFreak

Xbox + "special" chip + HDD = Prefect home entertainment system

Or in numerical terms,

€150 + €50 + €50 (depending on size) = €250

And it will do everything you want it to do with bells on.

We have three in the house at the moment and I'm thinking of buying another for an Xmas pressy for someone. I know it's not what you asked but just an FYI

EDIT: I missed the recording part on the first read/skim I'm not sure if the Xbox can manage that, can't see why not but I'm not 100% certain.

Chalk

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=200736

some lad selling a 5.1 soundblaster for a tenner, might be a cheap starter card

Ciaran500

Chalk wrote:

id go for something like a 9800 all-in-wonder pro

You should stay away from the AIW cards or any of the other software cards. They will require more processor power and if anything is trying to use your processor the video will stutter and drop frames. Any of the more expensive hardware card have a dedicated chip built in to take care of all this leaving you CPU free.


EDIT: THere is no possible way to get your Xbox to record as it has no inputs.