Setting up a HTPC for the first time can be a bit of a daunting experience. There are so many hardware choices which seem so critical, and then you have to install and configure everything – it’s times like this DVR/PVR’s look appealing by only needing to be plugged into the TV and turned on.
This started out as a quick seven-ish step guide to Vista Media Center, but it just kept growing. As I discover (or other people point out) any steps or general information that is missing I’ll continually update the article
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Install Vista Home Premium or Ultimate.
Both the 32bit or 64bit versions of Windows will work fine. For the record, I’m still using a 32bit for my HTPC, but on my desktop I’m running 64bit which plays back every file format I’ve tried.
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(Optional) Vista Home Premium Network Share Interaction
If you’re installing Home Premium and using password protected network shares, you’ll probably notice that upon every reboot (thanks to Chris Mayer for pointing this bug out) network shares will be lost, or you’ll have to reenter network credentials to open a networked folder. Unfortunately, it isn’t a “bug” as such, but a “by design feature” for Vista Home Basic and Premium.
The first fix everybody will point out is to go to the Windows Credentials Management tool in Control Panel -> User Accounts, but unfortunately this is unavailable.
There are a few “solutions”:
- Allow anonymous access to your media shares
- Use a script on login, net use \\server drive: /user:username password. This means your password will now be stored in a plain text file.
- Make your HTPC’s user account match that of your network share. ie \\yourserver requires “foo/bar”, so your HTPC’s username is foo, with a password of bar. It will never prompt for the username or password.
The last is the only real “secure” option, and also probably the easiest to setup. Combine that with auto-login (below), and the username/password aren’t an issue.
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(Optional) Enable Auto-User-Login
If you’ve got a password on your HTPC’s user account, by default it will prompt every time you turn the machine on, which is disastrous for machines that are operated by remote only. You can get around this by enabling auto-login.
Into the start menu type (minus the quotes), “control userpasswords2″ to bring up the Advanced User Control Panel.
Select the account you want to automatically logon, then untick “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer“, and a prompt will appear asking for the username and password.
(Thanks to Vince Koser for pointing out how useful this could be for a HTPC!)
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Install all the latest drivers.
Generally you can just discard the CD that came with your devices, as they’re usually horribly out of date.
If you don’t have access to another computer with a USB key and Windows hasn’t picked up your network card, you may need to use the motherboard/network card CD to install those drivers to get online.
- For motherboards, TV tuners, audio cards, etc, visit the manufacturers website.
- For video cards (including integrated), the three players in the game are ATI, NVIDIA and Intel.
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Setting up sound
Depending on both the capabilities of your HTPC and your sound systems, you need to set your default sound playback device appropriately.
This dialogue can be found under Control Panel –> Sound.
Analogue outputs (usually a green 3.5mm stereo jack on your motherboard) will appear as speakers or headphones
HDMI, Optical and Coax will all appear with a similar SPDIF/Digital Output Device.
Word of caution, updating your video drivers may reset your audio choice if the video card includes audio out over HDMI. This happened recently to me.
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(Optional) Enable Remote Desktop.
If you have Vista Ultimate, you can setup Remote Desktop so that you can perform maintenance without having to plug a keyboard and mouse into your HTPC.
Control Panel –> System –> Remote Settings –> Allow connections
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(Optional) Remove Password Policy For RDP
Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –> Local Security Policy –> Security Options
If you chose to enable RDP, but don’t want to have a password on your user account (which RDP requires by default), change “Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console only” to Disabled. Be warned, this obviously is a bit of a security risk, make sure you have other security procedures in place. It is easier/more secure just to enable auto-logon for the HTPC.
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(Optional) Install/Configure VNC.
VNC is an open source protocol for cross platform remote connections. Vista Home Premium doesn’t come with Remote Desktop (it has the client but not the server portion), so this will do the same job as in step 3.
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Install all Windows updates
The big one to look out for is obviously Service Pack 1 for the fixes to file transfers, but generally get any and everything that’s available.
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Run/Configure Windows Media Player
Windows Media Center and Media Player are very closely linked – you can’t have the two of them playing separate files at the same time because WMC relies on WMP for playback.
Ripping settings are probably the only that cannot be accessed within Media Center itself. In the Rip Music tab of Options, the highlighted values are what you need to change.
Rip Options
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Rip Location
Since I store my music on my server, I’ve changed the rip location to there, if you keep it on your HTPC, you might want to change partitions/etc.
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Audio format
Your choices are WMA, WMA Pro, WMA (Variable Bit Rate), WMA Lossless, MP3 or WAV.Personally, I use WMA VBR, because the quality is good enough but not as space consuming as WMA Lossless. I’m not suggesting either WMA or MP3 is a superior format, but not all MP3 encoders are created equally. If I was to use a MP3 encoder, it would be LAME, not a Microsoft one.
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Audio Quality
Given how cheap hard drives are these days, always push the slider towards the best quality end.
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Install codecs
Codecs allow you to decode (and sometimes encode, the word codec is short for “compressor/decompressor”, although often the encoding part isn’t implemented) video and audio. Windows Vista ships with a very limited number of codecs (mp3, mpeg2, VC1/WMV9), so other common files like DivX/XVid, H.264 etc won’t play back.Windows 7 will be shipping (and even the pre-release versions have them) with video for MPG4 (DivX/XviD) and H.264 as well as more advanced audio codecs – all my AVI files played back fine. However, the Matroska file format (MKV extension) is not natively supported, so something still needs to be installed for that to be played back.
My codec recommendations for Vista are:
- ffdshow – either grab the latest tryouts, or the CCCP codec pack is a nice bundle/preconfigured set
- and CoreAVC Pro; its a very fast software H.264 decoder, although its not free (make sure you uncheck “Haali Media Splitter Install” disabled if CCCP is installed)
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(Optional) Install HD-DVD/Bluray playback software.
The options are PowerDVD Ultra, WinDVDPlus, or Total Media Theatre. Only TMT has integration with Media Center where it places a launcher app, and when it closes restores Media Center. The latest versions of PowerDVD Ultra (v8+) do not playback HD-DVD’s anymore.
Don’t forget to configure whatever application you choose for Hardware Acceleration
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(For Australians) Install and donate to FreeEPG
In Australia, the other choice is the more expensive IceTV service. Over-the-Air (OTA) EPG information is very basic/unreliable and really only gives you now/next, but with FreeEPG, you get at least 24 hours in advance, but more often 7 days in advance.
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Install Video Browser
It rocks so much, it’s not optional. Okay, I’m a little biased being on the development team, but WMC’s management of video hasn’t evolved to keep up new media centers like Boxee or XBMC. Specifically, those other players can get/reader metadata, display posters, and generally organise better.
Default video navigation in Media Center
Video Browser, same view but with the help of posters
and metadata, its a lot more manageable.
Video Browser, alternative view, yay for the power of choice
(click any image for a larger view)
Video Brower and Open Media Library are two addins (I’m sure there are more) that give a lot more control of managing videos in Media Center.
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Run Media Center
- Use the wizard, configure TV tuner/EPG information (“The Guide”)
- Add folders to monitor
- Tasks –> Settings –> General –> Startup & Window Behaviour: Set to start WMC when Windows start
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Power Settings
Control Panel –> Power Options–> Change Power Settings
- Set the computer to go to sleep after however long you like, I have it set to 30minutes.
- (Still in the Power Options) Advanced –> Sleep –> Allow Hybrid Sleep –> Off
Unless you set this to off your Media Center will not send itself to sleep
Additional Settings –> Require a password on wakeup –> Setting: No
Setting this to no means you don’t have to click to log back into your media center after waking it up- Download and install MCE Standby Tool (MST)As stupid as it sounds, Media Center won’t idle to sleep unless it is at the main menu.
With the help of the MST, you can set a whole bunch of options to make your HTPC as energy efficient as possible.
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(Optional) These are somewhat less recommended and if you’re still having problems with your HTPC turning on/off when you don’t want it to without reason.
- Windows Updates –> Change Settings –> Set to manual so it doesn’t automagically install OR download.
This does mean you should from time to time install
- In Media Center –> Tasks –> Settings –> General –> Optimisation –> turn off/disable optimisation
- Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Disk Defragmenter–> Untick ‘Run on a schedule (recommended)
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(Optional) Cleaning up MP3/WMA Metadata
Media Center (and most music players these days, be it portable players like an iPod or Windows Media Player) use metadata to identify media these days, and in the case of music, it’s ID3 tags. You can use Windows Media Player (although I strongly recommended against it) or iTunes to manage metadata, but if you prefer to more control, Mp3tag or Tag&Rename (better but not free) are great tools for editing a host of audio formats (including but not limited to, MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, OGG).
To batch download album art, it’s hard to go past Album Art Downloader
Still got problems?
There are two fantastic community sites that may be able to help you out, The Green Button and XPMediaCenter.
My initial choice for a G33 board for my HTPC was to get whatever would work for the right price, with the goal of turning it into a gaming capable machine by adding a PCIe x16 graphics card which would also give me DVI/HDMI output. As cool as gaming on a 40" 1080p panel is, the keyboard and mouse just aren’t up to scratch in their current forms.
When I needed a new motherboard for a new system (my Windows Home Server box) and I learnt that Intel G45 chipset boards were around the corner, offering AVC/VC1/MPEG2 hardware decoding with DVI/VGA/HDMI out, I put one and one together and ended up purchasing a Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H motherboard, the only G45 motherboard I could find for sale (at $169) in Australia.
The G45 chipset introduces the GMA X4500 HD, which brings Intel inline with both ATI (780G/HD 3200) and NVIDIA (GeForce 8200) by offering an integrated video chipset capable of hardware assisted decoding of Bluray and HD-DVD’s. In reality this translates to reducing CPU usage during playback of hi-def discs by making the GPU do a lot of the work. Previous Intel chipsets have been pretty woeful in this regard, actually hampering playback if hardware assist is enabled.
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H Features
The back panel is fairly well endowed, HDMI/DVI being my main concern, but optical audio out, 6 USB ports, eSATA, Firewire, 10/100/1000 Ethernet port, and six stereo audio jacks.
Internally it consists of the usual assortment of ports you’ll find these days. The only things of interest are 5 SATA ports (6 total in the system, if you include the eSATA port on the back), two PCI slots, a PCIe x1 slot, and a PCIe x16 slot which is only capable of PCIe x4 speeds. I can see the reasoning – people who buy this board should really be using it in a HTPC, and with the newfound speed of G45 an dedicated graphics card isn’t needed, but it still seems "wrong". This is an issue specifically with the Gigabyte board not a blanket problem with G45 boards.
Oh, and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), for all the times you need your HTPC to be uberly secured?
Lets face it, the feature set on this makes it a perfect board for a HTPC, general home computer, or heck, even a workstation/personal server, which has always been the aim of the "G" chipsets from Intel (perhaps Larrabee will change this?). It is not designed as a gaming board, and the PCIe x4 slot posing as a x16 slot makes sure of that.
The Test
I had trouble enabling Cyberlink’s PowerDVD to take advantage of the G45′s hardware acceleration, so I turned to ArcSoft’s Total Media Theatre (TMT). TMT’s CPU usage always seems to be a little higher than PowerDVD’s (I’m not sure if it is the application or their codecs), but the latest version worked fine with offloading to GMA 4500 HD.
| |
CPU Load HA Off |
CPU Load HA On |
Power usage HA Off |
Power usage HA On |
V For Vendetta
HD-DVD/VC1 |
70 –> 80% |
~30% |
70 –> 80w |
70 –> 80w |
Jumper
Bluray (TS-Container)/H.264 |
90 –> 100%
(Jerky playback) |
~30% |
83w |
61 –> 70w |
Jumper used less power (with HW Acceleration On), despite identical CPU load, because the TS contained file was moved to a hard drive, instead of being read from the disc. I’m guessing a Bluray/HD-DVD drive draws 10 –> 15w while playing a movie.
As you can see Hardware Acceleration works for VC1 and H.264/AVC (and one would assume MPEG-2, but I don’t have any 1080p MPEG-2 sources) which reduces CPU usage as much as 70%, which in turn reduces power usage by as much as 22w. The Hardware Acceleration Off values are roughly the same as what the G31/33/35 chipset’s will achieve with power usage a watt or two higher.
The Bottom Line
Pro
- 8 Channel LPCM Audio (ATI’s 780G chipset only supports 2 Channel LPCM, but ATI’s newer 4000 series cards, and Nvidia’s GF 8200 boards have 8 Channel LPCM). While I’d love to use this until I get a better audio system it doesn’t matter to me. Still, it’s nice to somewhat future proof it.
- HDMI/DVI/Display Port support
- "Works as advertised" – X4500 HD does indeed do the hardware accelerated decoding for H.264(AVC), VC1 and MPEG2 as described.
- Dolby Home Theater (encapsulates all analogue audio to a DD stream, which is handy when you have a 6 channel analogue stream which would otherwise be down-mixed to stereo)
Cons
- Price. As it stands, it’s cheaper to go with a G31/33 motherboard, and throw in a low end video card from ATI or Nvidia and you’ll get the same hardware assisted decoding. On the other hand, that will net you higher power consumption, and if you choose a non-passive model noise will be increased.
- While the PCIe x16 is physically a PCIe x16 slot, you’ll only get PCIe x4 speeds out of it.
My HTPC how has Bluray/HD-DVD playback integrated into it, rather than using the external (and noisy-ish) Xbox HD-DVD drive!
I’m disappointed that there is still no great solution for playing Bluray/HD-DVD discs in Windows Media Centre though. To play with PowerDVD installed, you must launch an external program, and responds to the remote commands very poorly. Arcsoft offer a better product for this purpose in their TotalMedia Theatre, but it still launches an external program! What I want is a HD/BluRay decoder, that’ll plugin just like DVD’s do – but that seems to be awhile away unfortunately.
Despite some peoples fears, Intel’s G31 chipset plays back HD-DVD’s and BluRay discs just fine (well, so long as you have the right codecs and don’t let hardware accelerate it at all)!
If I was building again, would I go for the AMD or Intel versions of my HTPC? No!
How does no answer that question? Since building these HTPC’s, for AMD the 780g chipset has come out, and for Intel, the G45 (not G43 or G41, which don’t have AVC/VC1 acceleration) are making their way out. The chipsets have superior graphics capabilities. The 780g, for example, I’d actually enable hardware acceleration on, although the jury is out on G45 until we see cheaper boards coming out with it.
So why would I get something different if what I works has? It’d only be if I was starting from scratch – while my HTPC is perfectly capable, those are more capable for down the track…who knows…2160p may only be a few years away
This is sort of a ‘wrap up’ post for the ‘Building my HTPC’ series, so here is the list of previous posts:
And now for some interesting numbers… I recently purchased a power meter, it plugs into a socket, you plug a device into the power meter, and it’ll tell you interesting things like how many watts are being consumed.
*Assuming 12 hours a day sleep, 12 hours in use (remember, it does music too!), and that 1 kWh costs 15c. Your mileage will vary.
Price:performance, the AM2 system probably wins (since the measurement of performance in a HTPC in this situation is a binary ‘does it play back 1080p content or not’), but performance:watt Intel wins hands down. I’d be really interested to get some readings from AMD’s “BE” range of low power consumption CPU’s.
Sleep/standby mode on the two new systems uses the same amount of power that the system does while its turned off! If the HTPCs were in sleep mode, it usually takes it less than 10 seconds to boot up. By comparison, if my TV (Sony Bravia W series) has been off for more than 5minutes, it takes up to a minute to turn on!
If you end up buying the parts I have, or similar, remember to make sure you set in bios (or for my motherboard, set jumpers, see the manual details) the option to wake from S3/S4 via USB. This means you can wake up the computer using the Media Center remote, by pressing the On/Off button. It becomes a whole lot more usable when you don’t have to get off the couch to turn it on!
Another thing to note is that for Australian users, there is no Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for Windows Vista that just “works” out of the box, due to the networks not making it freely/easily available. However, Nick Hodge recommended Free*EPG, which I finally got around to installing on mums HTPC yesterday. Her reaction was “Wow, that’s awesome“, and she gave me permission to give Nick a hug on her behalf, just before she queued up two shows to record that night.
Windows Media Center: Making mums happy.
Well okay, technically not my HTPC, but my mothers. That’s right, my mum has a HTPC. She saw our one, thought it was pretty darn neat and decided she needed one as well (how cool is my mum? :D)
Parts
Total cost, AUD$709! (why is this more expensive than the previous one? includes optical drive, wireless card and media centre remote.)
This time I’ve gone for the AMD route. Why? Price. While its a very similar price to what I paid for my HTPC, it has many more features. AMD mATX motherboards seem to be much better featured at up to $120 less.
Take the Asus P5E-VM HDMI (LGA775 – Intel) and the M2A-VM HDMI (AM2 – AMD). Both have HDMI/VGA output (the M2A-VM has DVI as well), both have digital sound output. Both boast HD-DVD/Bluray playback over HDMI. Both have respectable chipsets from their respective CPU makers. That’s about where the similarities end.
The M2A-VM HDMI comes in at a tiny $99, whereas the P5E-VM HDMI will set you back upwards of $200! You can actually do a little bit of gaming (although, I wouldn’t recommend too much gaming..) on the M2A-VM’s intergrated video, the ATI X1250, whereas the GMA X3500 of the Intel board can just be plain nasty. Likewise, the video acceleration, which is what a board of this size is mostly likely to be doing, is far superior from the X1250. From my own experiences, hardware acceleration with Intel onboard graphics actually hampers playback speeds!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, the P5E-VM HDMI is a very robust board, with a lot of features. Just the price over a very similarly equipped AM2 board puts it to shame. I wonder if its cheaper to make AMD boards due to licensing fees, or if having the memory controller on die like AMD do cuts costs that much..
AMD/Asus M2A-VM HDMI/ATI notes/issues
Despite perhaps being better value, the AMD HTPC gave me a lot more trouble than my Intel HTPC.
- With ‘incorrect’ (default) LAN drivers, I was only getting 10mbps instead of 1gbps,
- The latest video card drivers (8.2 at time of writing) conflict with SP1 so that DVD playback through WMP/WMC (but not VLC) is unwatchable, using the drivers on the CD that comes with the motherboard allows you to view DVD’s however, those drivers that came with the motherboard instantly crash VMC when trying to view LiveTV…
Catalyst 8.1 fixes the issue. Tore my hair out fixing that one.
- The motherboard bios, by default, does not have power management enabled for the fan. Turn this one immediately, because without it, the fan on the heatsink can be freaking loud. That’s the scientific measurement, it is 1.5 Freaking Loud Values (FLV). With Power Management on, it’ll drop to 0.3->0.5 FLV’s
- Even though it has improved from the Socket 939 design, the mounting system for AMD’s AM2 stock heatsinks is still pretty poor compared to Intel’s push-pin method. That being said, you generally only need to do it once.
Final Notes
The only other part I didn’t mention was the Windows Media Center Remote/IR Receiver. I picked up one of them for myself, as well as one for mum. The Logitech Harmony 525 I bought works flawlessly with it, and it makes navigating media so much easier than using a keyboard/mouse.
Just like the Intel HTPC, this system plays back the 1080p content I have flawlessly, although my mother only has a 720p TV, so it isn’t as critical.
Despite Bluray defeating HD-DVD, I just bought myself a HD-DVD drive. Why? Well, a SATA (or IDE) Bluray drive will set you back over AUD$200 currently, and I just picked up the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Addon for a mere $48. That $48 also includes King Kong on HD-DVD!
“But you’re buying defunct technology!”
Yeah, that’s true, but I’m picking up a whole heap of movies for dirt cheap – not just cheap for HD content, but cheaper than buying the ‘normal’ DVD versions. How much cheaper? Well, EzyDVD are (were?) running a HD-DVD clearance sale:
| Title |
HD DVD Price |
DVD Price |
| Chronicles Of Riddick, The – Director’s Cut (HD DVD) |
$9.92 |
$38.99 |
| Chronicles Of Riddick, The – Pitch Black |
$9.92 |
$19.99 |
| Heroes – Season 1 (7 Disc Box Set) |
$29.83 |
$95.99 |
| Shaun Of The Dead |
$9.92 |
$12.98 |
| Terminator 2 – Judgment Day |
$9.92 |
$23.99 |
| Total |
$69.51 |
$191.94 |
(yes, I realise most of these can also be bought in packs with other movies, so the savings could actually be much lower, but I’m trying to illustrate a point)
So, what are the changes to the HTPC? PowerDVD Ultra is required for HD-DVD playback (UltraDVD would also work I guess, but I didn’t have that on hand).
With my particular HTPC, I had to make sure that PowerDVD’s options had hardware acceleration disabled, otherwise playback was choppy. I suspect that a lot of other HTPCs with integrated video probably face the same problem, enabling hardware acceleration actually hurts performance because too much of the processing is offloaded to the video chipset, and the video chipset is actually slower than doing it all on CPU.
The proposed HTPC went ahead, and the final list of parts was
Software
- Vista Ultimate 32-bit with Service Pack 1 (didn’t have the x64 install iso downloaded yet)
- CoreAVC
- FFDshow
Hardware
From my list of parts, the dedicated graphics card has been dropped (for now, its a money thing), and the CPU and motherboard were upgraded. The CPU was upgraded from an E2140 (1.6ghz) to a E2160 (1.8ghz) simply because that’s all the store had in at the time.
Case
The Antec NSK2480 is not designed as a HTPC case, but as a general desk case. The HTPC version of it is the overpriced Fusion 430 (aka Fusion V2), which comes with a 430w PSU (+50w), a VFD display and a ‘stereo’ looking volume knob – it really isn’t worth the extra AUD$100 for it.
There are really only two problems I have with this case (and I’d imagine would apply to the Fusion 430 as well); it uses very bright blue LED’s (which just require you to not plug in the HDD LED and separate power LED) and that there isn’t a way to “stealth” the optical drive – granted it isn’t a HTPC case so it doesn’t “require” it, but given how nice the case looks it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Motherboard & CPU
The CPU is a Conroe core, despite having the Pentium moniker instead of Core2Duo. The E2160 is a 65nm chip, clocked at 1.8ghz, with 1mb L2 cache and a 800mhz front side bus. The beauty is, its the cheapest dual core processor from Intel (that the store had in stock, with the E2140 being cheaper and slower) yet it is more than capable of decoding 1080p content.
The choice of motherboard was to opt for a better featured (specifically, included SPDIF out), more robust motherboard. Asus’ top of the line uATX motherboard goes for ~$250, and the P5K-VM is pretty much the next step down, but only costs ~$150.
While the motherboard was more expensive than what I “needed”, the cheaper ones available are generally regarded as ‘okay’ but not ‘rock solid’ if you attempt overclocking. By just ramping up the front side bus (FSB), still using the stock Heat Sink/Fan (HSF), I was able to get this CPU up to 2.94ghz. That’s an overclock of a fairly impressive 1.14ghz! Somewhat unneeded for HTPC duties as it decodes 1080p perfectly well, but for gaming and other duties I may put this computer through later on in its life, certainly an added bonus out of a $83 CPU
Remote.
Only a brief word on the remote, the Logitech Harmony 525. It is your ‘run of the mill’ universal remote capable of learning IR commands, but it also has USB connectivity to download IR commands from Logitech’s database. I won’t say the database is flawless, but it had an entry for Media Center, my TV (Bravia KDL40W3100), my speakers (no surprises on that one however, they are Logitech speakers that were hooked up to my computer – we still “need” to get an amp/standalone speakers) and even the air conditioner! On top of that, the ‘activities’ options are awesome – if I want to watch TV, it switches the TV on, the speakers on, and the speakers to the right input. Likewise, if I want to watch something on Media Center, it’ll switch the TV on, Speakers On, Change TV Input, Change Speaker Input, and even go to ‘My Videos’ (if I had a MCE IR Receiver).
I will give Logitech huge credit for the packaging. It is a standard looking blister pack which would normally require scissors and much bleeding, but this pack had a ‘tear away’ section, where little perforations in the plastic meant no cutting (or bleeding) was needed. The contents of the packaging also included 4xAAA Duracell batteries as well as 4xAAA Duracell batteries already in the remote!
Performance
Thanks to CoreAVC, it is actually possible to play back HD (1080p that is) material without a dedicated graphics card. This rig is capable of playing back H264 without any sync/stuttering issues. VC-1 plays back fine too, but every now and again it was as if it was dropping frames – I haven’t had the time to properly research the subject – VC1 is not decoded by CoreAVC as far as I know – meaning I was using the stock Vista/WMP11 decoder.
| Video |
Codec |
Min CPU Usage |
MAX CPU Usage |
| Transformers (1080p) |
h.264 |
55% |
70% |
| The Matrix (1080p) |
h.264 |
52% |
66% |
| Rush Hour 3 Trailer (1080p) |
h.264 |
30% |
55% |
| Heroes (S1E1, 720p) |
VC-1 |
42% |
60% |
Thanks to the power saving features of the CPU, it kept dropping down to about 1.9ghz (despite being overclocked to 2.9ghz) when playing back 1080p material – it simply has way too much oompf!
The other major codec to try out is PowerDVD, which has hardware acceleration through PureVideo/UVD, however that does not apply in this situation of onboard graphics. If I was to purchase the graphics card I intend to, yes, it would make a significant difference, however if I was to use CoreAVC which is a purely software/cpu decoder…well…the numbers in the table above won’t change.
Power DVD performance
| Video |
Codec |
Min CPU Usage |
MAX CPU Usage |
| Transformers (1080p) |
h.264 |
46% |
86% |
| The Matrix (1080p) |
h.264 |
64% |
88% |
| Rush Hour 3 Trailer (1080p) |
h.264 |
50% |
70% |
| Heroes (S1E1, 720p) |
VC-1 |
48% |
60% |
It’s fairly easy to see that CoreAVC uses a lot less of the CPU than PowerDVD does – as much as 22% in some sections! Throw in a ATI HD 2400 Pro for as low as AUD$35, and the tables would certainly be reversed.
One interesting thing to note is that although the only VC1 content in this test had a higher CPU usage under PowerDVD, it was a LOT smoother, and didn’t suffer from the occasional stuttering. It was also much faster at flicking through the video.
Final words..
I’m extremely happy with the performance, looks, noise and cost of this computer. All up, just AUD$667 (including remote)!
For Christmas, the wife and I bought ourselves a 40″ Bravia W Series LCD, and we’ve really started to appreciate 1080i TV broadcasts, and other HiDef content. We also happen to own two computers each (1x laptop, 1x desktop), so we decided to put one of them to use as a HTPC, since we lack the extra limbs to make use of two computers each at the same time.
Current Configuration
Software
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- CoreAVC
- ffdshow
Hardware
- AMD Athlon X2 3800+ (S939)
- Gigabyte K8NF-9
- 320gb Seagate SATA HDD
- Pioneer 111D DVD-RW
- 3gb DDR400 (2x1gb + 2x 512mb)
- MSI 256mb 7900GT
- Corsair VX-450 (450w) PSU
- Sony 40″ W Bravia LCD (KDL40W3100)
With us both being gamers, this system (‘my’ desktop), is more appropriate as its fairly capable. There is just one problem for HTPC use – its a little noisy.
The AMD X2 (S939) processes aren’t the greatest things on the block, but they’re certainly no slouch. Being an older CPU, the amount of heat generated (and power used) is significantly more than AMD’s current generation CPU’s, and depressingly more than Intel’s Core2Duo line up. The X2 3800+ for example, has a Thermal Design Power (the maximum amount of power the CPU will use) is 89w. Compare that to the Intel E2140, which has a TDP of 65w – although some reviews put its ‘true’ TDP well under 40w.
Back to the issue of noise, I’ve managed to silence the both the graphics card and CPU by putting on massive, and reasonably expensive, coolers. The 7900GT has a Thermalright HR-03, and the CPU has a Scythe Mini Ninja.
So with that all said, we’re going to buy a new system soon that will spend its life as a HTPC. The current computer will move upstairs to be the workhorse, and the other system (X2 3800+, mATX mobo, 7600GT) will be given to in-laws in a custom built case (more on that soon)
Proposed Configuration
Software stays the same (maybe X64?)
Hardware
- Intel Pentium E2140 (Yeah, its under the Pentium name, but is still a Conroe)
- Asus P5GC-MX/1333
- 500gb Western Digital HDD (quieter and cheaper than a Seagate)
- 2gb DDR-2 (maybe 4gb?)
- Sapphire 512mb HD 3850 Ultimate (or 8800GT/HD 3850 with aftermarket cooler)
- Antec NSK2480 (case)
Eventually we’ll add a HD-DVD or Blu Ray drive to it, but the current cost isn’t particularly worthwhile, given the “war” is still not over.
The crazy thing is it’ll cost roughly $720. By comparison, when I built the current HTPC, the ram was $200, the CPU ~$500, and the graphics card ~$550.
- The X2 3800+ was the low end of dual cores, but single core still made up the majority of sales – the E2140 is the slowest Conroe CPU out
- the 7900GT (was actually a 7800GT, it got upgraded under warranty) was a similar sort of card to the HD 3850 – not the fastest, but great value for money.
- 2gb of ram was still considered a massive amount, 4gb today is almost considered normal today, and will only set you back $130.
The case isn’t a particularly HTPC-esque case (I plan to use it for my distant-Windows Home Server case), but its a stop-gap solution until I finish building my own case out of Jarrah and Tasmanian Ash – but that’s for another post…
