Your HTPC - post your setup.

[saruman]

MotherBoard AMD AM2 S940 ASUS M2NPV-VM http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmen...3&l2=101&l3=296

 

AMD CPU/Processor AM2 Athlon 64x2 Dual Core 3600+ (Low voltage)

 

Antec NSK2400 Case + PSU http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=92400

 

WD 250 Gb SATA2 HDD

 

1Gb DDR2 533 Mhz Ram

 

Pioneer DVD-RW

 

Dvico Dual Digital Tuner http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/DualDigital.aspx using Fusion 3.6Beta Drivers

 

Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (MCE)

 

 

I am still waiting for the Antec Case to come into stock with my local supplier before I can assemble this.

 

The Display that I will be connecting it to is a Hitachi 42PD8900

 

" World's First HD1080 42V Plasma TV

42V Plasma TV with Built-In TV Tuner and Side Speakers

High Definition 1,024 x 1,080 Pixels ALIS Plasma Panel

1400cd/m2 Brightness Panel Luminance

4,000:1 High Contrast Ratio

Multi Picture Function

Twin HDMI Input

Direct USB Photo Input & SD Card Slot "

 

 

Once I have it all setup I will post back with pictures and more information

[Lenny_Nero]

My room is fairly small as well so its gonna be like earthquake in a box.

 

If you room really is small try hard to get a home demo, or find a place that has a small demo room because if you want good true low bass its much easier in a bigger room to get the sub bass because a 20 Hz bass sign wave is about 40 feet long. Its does not stop it dead but the placement becomes a much bigger deal. It might be better to fire the sub off at the corner of the room so it can radiates across the axis to try to cut down on standing waves. But in the end only you can work out the placement.

 

Far too many people will say that low bass does not have stereo and so it does not matter what you do with the drive units/box placement and never know how much better you might get them with a day or two spent playing with them in as many places as you can, the smaller the room the more important. I am lucky as I have an old house with big rooms and very high ceilings (this room my computer/music room is 23x20x19 foot, yep 19 foot to the ceilings hard work to keep it warm as well).

 

I just did a quick search and this one looked interesting I have just gave it a quick scan thru as I dont have the time. It also depends on what you want just home theater or an Audiophile music setup I am more into the latter and think its a bit easier to get the DVD's sounding better that music... I dream for a pair of Tone Scouts to run off of my 300b amps... one day maybe

[Thasp]

300 lbs amp.

 

My Adcom of 20 years went on fire the other day. The right channel popped, stuff turned red, and it smoked like crazy.

 

Right now I'm using a Marantz 1060 integrated, and boy do I miss the power the adcom had. This one has bass/mid/treble/loudness tone controls which I really like on a preamp. Some songs I do loudness on, bass +1 or +2, mid -3, and treble +2, and if I turn it up like this the bass distorts where it never did with the Adcom. The speakers are flat to 30 hz and begin rolloff there, 83 dB/1 watt/1 meter, and about 3 ohms, so 30 wpc just isn't going to do it in these conditions.

 

I hope I can have that fixed so I can go back to not worrying about distortion. Right now I am using a rather primitive method of seeing whether the amp has been pushed too far, I touch the vent at the amp right before distortion after it's played for a while, get an idea of the temperature, and avoid having it get that hot.

[dab]

I am upgrading my HTPC this week

Rig 3.

P5B Deluxe/E6600

2GB Team XTreem/BFG 7300GT OC(temp.)

WD 250GB, WD400GB, WD500GB

Silverstone Element 500W

 

All hooked up to a rinky Sony TV and an old sony receiver. Sa-weet!

[Devil 07]

TV + Front Speakers

 

Rear Speakers

 

DVD's

 

Toshiba 42H83 720p

 

Yamaha HTR-5560 6.1

 

Klipsch KLF 20 x2 Front L/R

Klipsch Synergy S3 x2 Rear L/R

Klipsch SC 5 x1 Front Center

Klipsch SS 3 x1 Rear Center

Klipsch KSW 15 x2 Subwoofer

 

Vista Home Premium PVR under-construction

 

This is the main set-up at my house. We mainly watch TV/DVD's on this system. The other system is hooked up to my gaming rig.

 

Kenwood VR-407

 

Yamaha NS-A50X x4 Front/Rear L/R

Polk Audio CSi20 x1 Front Center

JBL E250P x1 Sub-woofer

 

If that room wasn't such a mess of junk and late-night gaming left-overs I'd post a few pics of it. Maybe after I give it a good cleaning.

[Lenny_Nero]

300 lbs amp.

 

300 B single ended triode

 

See for pic's of what they look like or what 300b's themself and what 300B is all about

 

When looking for speakers look for efficient speakers, something that most people miss when getting speakers, and I have felt that it is often the most important part. In the car sound world it was the main reason why I could run lower than 500 watt amps and still blow the 3 and 4 K watt groups apart in the SPL runs.

 

You will often see something like 94db per watt, that means that they make 94db of sound pressure (the important bit) a 1 meter from the drive unit for 1 watt of power, the better ones will say a 'nominal watt' which is a regulated 2.83 volts.

 

For every 3db of SPL you get 2x the sound you hear, to do that with amp power you need 4x the power, I have a pair of 126db alloy basket 12" long throw subs that put in the good band pass enclosure (I have 'still' not built the right/best one I think I can) will be very happy with just a few watts.

[Thasp]

That's all familiar to me.

 

My bookshelves in the other room are 93 dB/1 watt/1 meter, and 8 ohms, and drop off after 90 hz, the -3 dB point is around 65 in room. Anything powers those.

 

The other pair I have goes down to 30 hz before any 0.5 dB dropoff occurs, are 83 dB/1 watt/1 meter, and 3.5 ohms.. so the bigger amp is required.

 

3 dB is not twice the volume, it's twice the power. 6 dB is measureably twice the signal, and 10 dB is audibly/subjectively twice as loud.. 10 dB being 10x the power.

 

The marantz I have now is nice, but I am unhappy with its power output. When I want to play around on the bass, it begins to distort at higher volues because it's rated to 30 watts @ 8 ohms. I like to simulate having a sub sometimes, and they do a good job at low end reproduction with a nice EQ and an amp that doesn't cry when I push it.

[goonting]

monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 940BW 19inches

Speakers: Creative SBS 350

Remote: Leadtek

 

HTPC setup:

Motherboard/Casing/PSU: Shuttle XPC SB81P

Tuner: Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP RM

Memory: 1GB DDR400 (2pc Kingston 512MB DDR400 3-3-3-8)

Hard Disk: 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9

Video: Nvidia 7600GT 256MB

Optical: LG DVD-RAM/-R/+R GSA-H10N

 

Is my rig good enough for my applications? I play mostly Divx files and DVD's. DO you guys think 1GB is enough? I got only 2 slots for this SFF.

[Thasp]

1 gig would be good for encoding video, much less just watching it.

[red930]

Here's what I have.

 

Click on either thumbnail for 1000x750 image.

 

It's the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 in my sig.

 

Technically it's not an HTPC since everything doesn't go through the computer first.

I'm using the Samsung LND3251D HDTV as a monitor as well as a TV.

Both the satellite dish and the Wineguard Square Shooter HD antenna (on top of the speaker) go to the DirecTV H20 receiver.

The receiver connects to the TV and a Sanyo DVW-6000 DVD/VCR player/recorder which in turn outputs to the ADSTech USBAV-720 capture device (on top of the sub woofer) and that connects to the computer through a USB cable.

The TV audio connects to a Sony STR-665 Amp which outputs to a Logitech Z-2300 system and a pair of KLH PR-1230EO speakers.

The eVGA 7800GT card goes through a DVI to VGA adaptor and then through a Cables To Go 25' VGA/Audio cable to the TV.

The computer uses a D-Link wireless card and a booster antenna (on desk) to communicate to the other computers in my office through a Toshiba router and Verison DSL modem.

I also have a Verizon VoiceWing VoIP phone adapter on the router and Skype VoIP USB phone on the DFI machine.

 

I'm hoping that ADSTech will come out with a USB or Firewire HD capture device similar to the NTSC one I have now.

It doesn't make sense to me to use a tuner card since the TV already has a built in tuner and the DirecTV receiver also has one.

Be nice if I could just output from the H20 directly to the computer with component cables.

If ADS or someone else doesn't come through then I'll upgrade the DVD/VCR to an HD recorder and replace the RGB component cables from the H20 to the TV with HDMI cables.

Not sure whether to go for the DirecTV recorder, Tivo or maybe a Samsung, Panasonic, Hitachi, etc. DVD recorder.

I've seen mixed reviews about all of them so I think I'll wait a bit.

 

Bill

[Lenny_Nero]

Is my rig good enough for my applications? I play mostly Divx files and DVD's. DO you guys think 1GB is enough? I got only 2 slots for this SFF.

If it does everythig that you want without any problems then yes... if not, then no.

 

I have 2GB on mine because its not just a HTPC, I call it my workhorse because I use it for everything, so I do use all of the 2GB I have and it does make things run faster. But I have built a new box for editing and encoding and to take over the bulk of stuff I do on the Asus/work horse.

I am also building a box to act just as a media/file/network server so the load will be spread around more and I will try it with 1 GB of memory and see if it works.

[red930]

Been reading about the Blackmagic Intensity PCI-e capture card with HDMI in and out and thought that I could record HDTV from my DirecTV receiver to my PC.

Then I did some research and found out that the #$%@% DRM copyright protection wouldn't allow that.

 

This afternoon I was looking at a post on AVSforums and someone mentioned that they were thinking about using this Gefen Component Audio to HDMI Adapter first and then sending it to the Intensity card.

This way it would bypass the protection since the signal would no longer be digital.

The card will convert either RGB or YPbPr to HDMI so I can use the component output from the DirecTV receiver.

 

What do you guys think?