#1: The beginners guide to HTPC, part I. Author: Ozzik, Posted: 18-1-07 16:56:54 — Hey there!
This is actually the first guide, so it'll be eventually edited like a zillion times, as I'm not really sure about how clear I can describe all the steps in setting up the most beautiful and the most useful thing for your living room – The HTPC.
Since I'm writing this thing for everybody, don't get pissed for sometimes getting too technical, or on contrary – too specific about things that seem obvious to you.
Also, forgive me for my English.
And the last thing – any comment you have – it's always welcome. After all, this resource is meant to help others by sharing the info.
Here we go.
What is an HTPC?
HTPC stands for Home Theater Personal Computer and is actually the official name for what's also known as the Media Center.
The ideal environment for the HTPC would be a projector or Plasma/LCD TV and a good DD/DTS receiver (with speakers of course).
But what can you do if you can't afford the perfection? Don’t worry, if all you have is just a simple TV – it'll do just fine. Just make sure you have an additional a/v input for the PC.
What can it do and why do I actually need it?
Well first of all it's still a standard PC, so it can do pretty much the same things a PC does. What makes it so special is that you get a simple and aesthetic interface on your TV screen which can be controlled by a remote. Mostly it's used to control the media: movies, music, TV shows, pictures and additionally gives you some other info, as the weather, clock, events, and so on.
Another great feature is the TV recording/watching function, which actually imitates the famous TiVo.
Why do you need it? I guess you just don't know what you're missing, until you actually get it and start using. (Plus, imagine the fuzz you'll make among your friends!)
The basics
First you have to decide on the budget for the HTPC. Don't believe the rumors about taking out of the storage your old Pentium I computer and making it the best Media Center ever. That ain't gonna happen. The fact is that you will need at least one PC dedicated to this job. So if you don't have a spare computer that is at least PIII 800MHz(or an equivalent AMD) – you're gonna have to buy it.
Let's say that you don't want to sit on the couch in your living room with a remote in your hand waiting for the movie to come up for 2 minutes or a weather to show up 3 minutes after you pressed the button. In other words – you really don't want it to be slow. So let's specify the basic hardware requirements, which will provide not just the minimum needed, but also the reasonable performance.
As stated before, the CPU should not be slower than 800MHz.
I wouldn't recommend anything less than 256MB of RAM.
VGA card has to have S-Video or Composite output.
And of course, the audio card (for a stereo sound you may use the one that’s onboard).
A DVD drive.
A network card (onboard is ok).
A TV card (to use the TV features, such as pausing live TV and recording).
A remote control for the PC. You might also get keyboard and mouse just for troubleshooting.
The size of a hard drive depends on the size of your audio/video collection, plus if you're going to record from TV, remember, that it takes a lot of space, so 250GB drive is ok to start with, but you might need more than that in the future.
Features of the motherboard are not important when talking about the minimum requirements.
Budget leftovers
If you have some cash left, you may consider 2 things (whichever is more important to you): upgrade and aesthetics. And while upgrade speaks for itself (and will also be discussed further, aesthetics needs to be explained a little more).
Aesthetics
This is what some call WAF (wife acceptance factor). While most men can basically put a PC in the living room and live fine with it, women would never agree to that.
So what can we do? Fortunately, these days we have tons of solutions.
First of all, aesthetics means nice case, preferably horizontal, with color matching the rest of devices, such as DVD, receiver, VCR and so on.
Second of all, it means quiet, as in "no noise".
And finally, it means no cables.
Let's go over these.
First: case is not something difficult to buy, you can always find something for your (and your wife's) taste. And it's not that expensive too.
Second: Noise mostly comes from old hard drives and old cheap fans.
New hard disk won't make any noticeable noise and fans can be easily replaced with better ones (for just a few bucks).
Third: this is no problem at all, as you'll be controlling it with a remote.
So you'll only need a power cord and an AV cable.
Network cable is an option as you might prefer using wireless networking.
