The new project

I've been kicking around the idea for a while that I'd like to build a home theater PC (HTPC). I'm going to do it as my Christmas present to myself. As I put it together and set it up, I'll chronicle the process here.

The majority of the system will come from the computer that preceded my current rig. However, in order for it to serve as the new centerpiece of the home entertainment system, some changes are in order:

First, and probably most important, will be the new case. I've ordered a SilverStone LC03V in black to match the rest of the system. A good friend of mine built an HTPC using this case and is very happy with it.

Second is the TV tuner/capture card. I picked up a Hauppauge Win TV-PVR-500 MCE which has two tuners and can either record two shows simultaneously, or record one show while you watch another. Of course, given that we have digital cable with a tuner box, there are limitations. I'll discuss those later.

Next up is the fat hard drive that will store my recorded shows. I'm going with the Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB drive. This is the WD2500KS model rather than the WD2500JS that's in my desktop machine. It was only a few bucks more but it has a 16MB cache instead of 8MB and is designed to run at a higher duty cycle which it will be doing as the storage drive of an HTPC. If I find I need more space, I'll add another one and set up a RAID array with the two drives.

For the OS drive, I'll be using a Western Digital Caviar 80GB drive. That should provide plenty of space for the OS and any applications that I might want to run on this system. As it will be pretty much dedicated to its HTPC duties, I won't be installing large numbers of apps such as games or Office on it.

The current CPU cooler is a brand that I don't even remember. It's a basic copper-finned heatsink that originally had a 60mm fan on it. Since that fan was rather loud, I replaced it with an 80mm fan and an adapter. However, the design of the adapter is such that a good portion of the air does not flow through the heatsink and it's not as efficient as it could be. So, to keep the processor cool, and keep it quiet as well, I'll be using a Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu. I have the all-copper version of this cooler in my desktop system but the reviews I've read have indicated that there is little difference in the cooling effectiveness of the two. The aluminum/copper cooler is lighter, was less expensive, and should keep the AthlonXP 2800+ cpu plenty cool.

The power supply, video card, RAM, and optical drives will come from the old system, though I may replace one of the optical drives with a DVD burner in case I want to burn some recorded shows to DVD.

Although there are several software packages that will do the job, I'm going to use Windows Media Center Edition. I'll also need to pick up a Media Center remote and IR receiver. Microsoft makes a wireless infrared keyboard that is designed to work with Media Center, although I would need to buy a regular remote as well since the keyboard doesn't come with the necessary IR receiver. Alternatively, a company named Gyration makes a keyboard and remote set that uses radio rather than infrared so it has a longer range and doesn't require line-of-sight.

As for using the HTPC with the cable box, here's how it will probably work. Even though we have digital cable, the channels up to 99 are actually still analog and any cable-ready tv, vcr, or tuner card can receive them. Channels 100 and higher are digital and some of those are in high-definition. We don't currently subscribe to the high-def channels as we don't have an HD television. Also, support for high-def cable channels isn't currently available in a tuner card although I'm told that support is on the way.

The way I envision hooking it up is that I will split the cable and connect one line to the cable box and one line to the coax input on the Hauppauge card. The composite video and stereo outputs from the cable box will then connect to the corresponding inputs on the Hauppauge card. I'd prefer to use S-Video but the cable box doesn't support it. With this arrangement, the computer will be able to record one analog channel directly, and record any channel from the cable box. The computer will be able to change the channel on the cable box using a small module called an IR blaster. One didn't come with the tuner card so I'll either get one with the Media Center remote or may have to buy one separately. The cable box also has what appears to be standard 9-pin serial port on the back so I may be able to connect the computer to that instead. I'll have to do some research.

The video output from the computer will be via the S-Video connector on the video card (ATi Radeon 9800 Pro) connected to the input on the TV. Audio will be via the S/PDIF connector on the motherboard which will transmit digital audio directly to the Pioneer receiver/tuner/amplifier unit which supports Dolby Digital and DTS decoding. The cool thing is that the sound hardware on the motherboard can encode any audio into Dolby Digital so I should theoretically not require any analog audio connection between the computer and the receiver.

And that's the plan. I imagine I'll run into at least one snag along the way but I should be able to get this working as I'm not using any obscure hardware and the tuner card, the part most likely to be an issue, is one that is specifically designed to work with Windows Media Center Edition. Still, it will almost certainly be a learning experience.