JustGav Posted September 26, 2007 Share Posted September 26, 2007 Given that I work in IT this seems really odd to post but I don't do consumer end so I need some help.. Basically, got myself an ANTEC fusion HTPC case to finally replace the rackmount case I had my old machine in. I'm running Vista Media Centre and it is okay on my present system, AMD64 3200, 2GB Ram, Radeon 9600SE...however the motherboard doesn't fit in the new case, so I'm just going to replace the guts... What's worthwhile getting for a Vista media centre, bear in mind all I intend to use it for is playback of avi files, as well as the odd function within mediacentre... it is NOT a gaming machine, I've got consoles for that...Cost needs to be as low as possible, but don't want to completely scrimp on it. So initial assumption... AMD dual core or Intel dual core? Decent motherboard? (needs to be uATX) Graphics cards, what would be decent to use for mediacenter (Again stressing, this is NOT a gaming platform, nor will it be). Got two SATA disks, and 2 IDE disks (don't mind TOO much sacrificng the IDE disks), and a DVD writer (IDE) Thanks (sheepish grin) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pot Posted September 26, 2007 Share Posted September 26, 2007 I'm putting one together from an old Dell I got given from work... It's a P4 2.66GHz with 512mb of RAM, I've just bought one of those USB Digital TV Tuners (Which at the moment isn't picking up any damn channels grrr), and once I've found a PCI Graphics card so I can get the output to my TV it's just the sound to sort... For disk space I've got it mapped to a partition on my external HDD on my main PC. I know it's not going to be fantastic, but it's more of a mess about from something I got free and I'm going to do cheaply (I hope ) Sorry that's not answering your question though!... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted September 26, 2007 Share Posted September 26, 2007 Look up the Fatal1ty P190(?) Mobo. It's a small form factor (mATX - is that the same as uATX??) board for Intel CPU's. Stick with Intel, you want things to run cool! The PCI-E ATI HD2600XT Graphics card is the one for media centres. It's got hardware decoding on board for H.264 (HDTV). I'd personally run a SATA Raid 5 with 4 matching discs. Look for a DVB-S2 tuner card, these are the ones that can take on HD Satellite feeds. Hauppage(sp?) have a couple. These will need a PCI slot, as there are no PCI-E devices yet (that I've found). LG are going to bring out a Optical drive that can play back BD and HD-DVD formats soon, wait till that's out to replace your current optical drive as you don't want to limit your format choice in the future or waste money now. I've been looking into these a lot so drop me a PM for any specifics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted September 26, 2007 Author Share Posted September 26, 2007 Something like this you reckon? http://www2.abit.com.tw/page/uk/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=Fatal1ty+F-I90HD&fMTYPE=LGA775 This seems to have an HD output for 1080 as well via HDMI.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted October 2, 2007 Author Share Posted October 2, 2007 5 days later, much blood, sweat and tears and it is running finally.... Got the fatal1ty board.... Installed it, HD was still choppy, so took Alex's advise and got an HD2600XT. Still choppy... After numerous reinstalls of Vista 64, getting the codec order right, sorting out the apps and data, still choppy... Finally found out last night that the ATI 64 bit drivers have had UVD disabled, which is REQUIRED for HD decoding on the 2600... THANKS VERY MUCH for making that clear on the driver download ATI. So now using... Fatal1ty Board 190HD ATI 2600XT 4gb RAM 3 x 500GB SATAII disks Vista 32bit. So far very impressed with it, nicer interface than MCE2005, and HD is awesome when it runs properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesG Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 What new features does Vista Media Centre give over MCE2005? I'd like to upgrade my HTPC to Vista, but I'd lose support for my XBox media extender, so I wouldn't be able to watch telly upstairs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted October 2, 2007 Author Share Posted October 2, 2007 What new features does Vista Media Centre give over MCE2005? I'd like to upgrade my HTPC to Vista, but I'd lose support for my XBox media extender, so I wouldn't be able to watch telly upstairs I've got an XBOX 360 which has media extender capabilities, but to be fair I found it frankly CRAP... It can't play half of the avi's due to it's locked down MS codec structure on the 360. As far as features go, not really sure it gives much over what most people would use for an HTPC. I simply put it on because I like the interface (better graphics, more finished)... I'm sure there are some new features. I like the way vista does security, which I find is easier than XP's for general use. Not REALLY much in it at the end of the day because for all of the fancier graphics you still watch the movie in full screen with all the graphics gone. I'd REALLY not recommend 64bit as the UVD issue is a fairly serious one. I can also recommend buying CoreAVC which is a software H264 decoder and it is DAMN quick (It will in the near future support the ATI/Nvidia HD acceleration on the GPU). http://www.coreavc.com/ As far as codecs go I went with in the following order.. Vista Video Codec Pack 4.5.0 - http://www.jtow.net/users/triess/ FFDSHOW Tryout - Updates the ffdshow bit XVID - http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html CoreAVC - http://www.coreavc.com/ Software wise, kept it simple Vista 32 Cyberlink Media Deluxe Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 (For blueray and HD playback when I get a drive) AVG Antivirus TwonkyVision uPNP server http://www.twonkyvision.de (I use this for my Streamium to watch telly upstairs, the SL300i supports XVID, DIVX so works well) Directly connected to the TV via an HDMI cable, works very well, get 5.1 down the audio side and 1080i on the video side (all down one cable so SupraChick is happy about that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesG Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 Cheers Gav for the info. I think I'll have to stick to MCE2005 for now. My extender is an original XBox, and there's no point forking out for a 360 just so I can use Vista. I've been using the same installation for two years! It's getting a bit slower now, but it's set up perfectly so I don't like messing with it. I watch all my TV through it, so it's a major hassle to reinstall. I use CoreAVC for H.264 and it can even play MBAFF from BBC HD which is very CPU intensive. I had to seriously overclock my Pentium M to get it working smoothly though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted October 2, 2007 Author Share Posted October 2, 2007 Cheers Gav for the info. I think I'll have to stick to MCE2005 for now. My extender is an original XBox, and there's no point forking out for a 360 just so I can use Vista. I've been using the same installation for two years! It's getting a bit slower now, but it's set up perfectly so I don't like messing with it. I watch all my TV through it, so it's a major hassle to reinstall. I use CoreAVC for H.264 and it can even play MBAFF from BBC HD which is very CPU intensive. I had to seriously overclock my Pentium M to get it working smoothly though! To be fair, the only reason for the upgrade was that a disk failed in my old system, so I figured that was a good enough reason to replace the whole thing and go HD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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