yea, it's a great front-end, but it lacks dvr/tv support, my issues revolved around resolution changes, it would lock up the display and/or crash on me.

11/21/2008 2:38:15 PM

i want to find an HTPC that will screw into the back of an LCD tv. anyone seen any worth a damn?

11/24/2008 9:30:50 AM

just look around there's lots of options out there that are small enough to do this.

just search for a mini-itx htpc, or get an media streamer like appletv or popcorn hour

11/24/2008 11:26:41 AM

will popcorn hour mount behind an lcd tv?

11/24/2008 12:20:21 PM

why wouldn't it? i mean nothing that i know of comes with mounting holes specifically for mounting behind a TV, but you could rig it easy, it weighs like 3-4lbs w/ hdd

11/24/2008 12:39:27 PM

oh - because the lcd tv would be mounted on the wall

11/24/2008 1:08:46 PM

well it's pretty darn small, 1.25" in height, Apple TV is 1.1"

11/24/2008 1:40:39 PM

yeah - just wondering how i could still mount the tv to the wall and that together

11/24/2008 2:25:46 PM

a large zip-tie, i dunno, it's not like there's pre-made fabrications for that kind of stuff.

11/24/2008 2:39:17 PM

there should be i guess i could nagger rig it though

11/24/2008 3:23:04 PM

i agree, it's a cool concept, just not sure what the TV manf. would think of it though

11/24/2008 3:41:25 PM

well all lcd tv's have the same screw placements right? i'd think you could find a case that had screw holes all through it so you can use long screws to fix a mount to the back of that.

at least it should be done

11/24/2008 3:44:30 PM

ok, this is what i think i'm about to order, what do y'all think?

particularly the mobo/cpu combination. i'm not especially well versed in hardware, so this is after a night's worth of research. will an athlon x2 fit in that mobo? it says it supports "Athlon 64 X2" but the 4850e info page doesn't say anything about 64 X2. are all X2s implied to be 64? ok pretty sure this will work now thanks wikipedia

LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C37B Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case $154.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112186

ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $78.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131324

AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor - OEM $48.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103299

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151

i've got 2 GB memory, hauppage pvr-150 and a dvd-rom i'll throw in it too

[Edited on December 3, 2008 at 9:47 AM. Reason : mobo/cpu ?]

12/3/2008 9:26:24 AM

But can it watch Hulu, ABC and Netflix instant? Otherwise pretty slick.

12/3/2008 10:00:18 AM

it will be in my bedroom with vista home premium for media center (or i can switch to vga and just use it as a pc) and i have an xbox 360 in the living room as a media center extender. so yes and yes

oh yeah, couple questions. will the 70mm fans on the case be horrible? can i switch them out myself? also, will i need to get a different powersupply or heatsink? will i have hdcp problems with the hdmi on that motherboard?

[Edited on December 3, 2008 at 10:06 AM. Reason : .]

12/3/2008 10:05:31 AM

if it's going to be in your bedroom i'd get 120mm fans if they fit. my desktop has two 80mm fans and it's loud as shit, but that's mostly due to the case itself. personally the DVR in my bedroom almost drives me nuts with it's hard drive noise, so i'd make it as quiet as possible.

12/3/2008 11:33:05 AM

water cooling?

12/3/2008 12:02:02 PM

yeah, my HTPC in the living room isn't a big deal because you can't ever hear it over the surround sound...in a bedroom, though, i'm betting you'd hear a lot more operational noise

12/3/2008 12:33:25 PM

What would you recommend for sound? My TV has Optical out and now the media center does hdmi to the tv.

Also, I got Boxee running on my Linux box, it's pretty bad ass. Still quite buggy though. Works well for my bedroom "TV" watching.

12/4/2008 10:16:41 AM

getting a popcorn hour for xmas

12/4/2008 1:49:05 PM

i've heard a lot of people get pretty hype about those things. i don't get the appeal

12/4/2008 2:10:51 PM

Yeah, you can't play games, or run programs on them. I would have to have an HTPC PLUS a popcorn hour, when i could simply have a HTPC. Although for people who already have a console and don't need computer functions on their HDTV i guess it's alright.

We just always use the HTPC for working on powerpoints, or projects, and for lan gaming in addition to playing media. I can't imagine living without a computer hooked up to our tv.

12/5/2008 4:11:17 PM

Quote :

"Although for people who already have a console and don't need computer functions on their HDTV i guess it's alright. "

alright? it's more than alright, it's the best option out there (sans maybe a hacked appleTV) in terms of a networked media streamer, and i bet you there are more people in this market who want something small and low powered than the number of people who need a HTPC to play games, etc.

12/5/2008 7:51:35 PM

Quote :

"and i bet you there are more people in this market who want something small and low powered than the number of people who need a HTPC to play games, etc."

True. As long as everyone out there knows all the options. I thought there was a pretty low bitrate/720p limit on Apple TV. I'm just saying personally an HTPC is the only option for everything i want to do. But if all you want is a low-powered media player than Popcorn hour is great.

12/5/2008 8:05:18 PM

then*

12/5/2008 8:09:22 PM

^thanks.

12/5/2008 8:10:38 PM

Question about Popcorn Hour: Can it's bittorrent client save files to a network location or only to the HD?

12/6/2008 11:51:33 AM

MediaPortal v1.0 out!

http://www.team-mediaportal.com

12/25/2008 6:10:25 PM

^WOOHOOOO. i love media portal.

12/25/2008 8:52:48 PM

anyone have MCE remote working with mediaportal? iMon and MP are fighting over who controls mine

12/25/2008 9:42:09 PM

why are you using iMon?

doesn't the MCE remote have it's own IR USB receiver?

i use my logitech 880 to send MCE codes to my IR USB receiver. although i use VMC in part because the 880 can control it flawlessly

12/26/2008 12:20:23 AM

^^my friends media center remote works with it. in fact i have an old cyberlink remote i got in 2004 with my laptop and it worked with it. I was very impressed with all the options mediaportal has for configuring different remotes. I'll have to check out version 1.0 now.

12/26/2008 1:27:15 AM

iMon controls the front LCD display on my case, as well as controls the IR receiver. iMon seems to not pass on the button presses to MP unless I have them mapped to MP keyboard shortcuts in the iMon software

on the other hand, the remote and all of it's buttons work in VMC perfectly

12/26/2008 1:48:21 AM

^ahhh one of those fancy HTPC cases with an LCD on the front? Which case do you have?

12/26/2008 1:50:01 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129030

Antec Aluminum Veris Fusion Black

12/26/2008 1:52:10 AM

love that case, i had the NSK2480 which is that case w/out the LCD, great case!

12/26/2008 1:43:54 PM

i almost got that one too, ended up going with this one for $50. so far so good
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121027

12/26/2008 5:37:25 PM

The small LCDS are nice. These are a little excessive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163097

12/26/2008 5:44:13 PM

it was hard to choose between the silverstone and the antec, but i ended up going with the antec and love it, definitely recommended

12/26/2008 9:28:37 PM

I'm a huge fan of Lian-Li cases. Yes they're a bit expensive, but I love their style.

I'm going with this for my HTPC project tentatively:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112185

[Edited on December 26, 2008 at 10:31 PM. Reason : -]

12/26/2008 10:30:21 PM

i was gonna get that one but they were out of stock at the time and i didn't want to take the $40 bump for the PC-C36B

12/26/2008 10:32:24 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043


That's right....


8- 1.5 TB drives. Very quiet...oh I love my HTPC

12/27/2008 12:17:28 AM

did you upgrade the firmware on those 1.5's? don't use in raid if you haven't

12/27/2008 1:24:39 AM

I'm not using Raid....

yeah the firmware was a sucking for a bit.

besides windows can't see more than 2TB raid atm.

[Edited on December 27, 2008 at 6:13 AM. Reason : d]

12/27/2008 6:12:27 AM

yes it can - 64 bit - GPT partition

12/27/2008 1:38:09 PM

what software do you guys run on your HTPC?

I have BeyondTV but dont use it all that often.. just curious what everyone's take is

I saw Media Portal listed

2/11/2009 4:05:09 AM

Xbox media center or boxee but I didn't need dvr capability.

2/11/2009 8:45:16 AM

^^ i've been using vista home premium media center

2/11/2009 8:59:25 AM

i have XP.. does ^ that do all your DVR needs?

I'm wondering because mine is what I'd say is a Quasi-HTPC. It's hooked up to the TV as a monitor so I can watch videos and what not. I do have a tuner card and BeyondTV can record shows, but I definitely don't watch live TV through my PC. My wife has inquired about getting TiVo and I'm wondering how much I can improve my HTPC so that maybe TiVo wont be much of a step up

2/11/2009 9:13:11 AM

for the most part. QAM channels are kindof a pain, and we actually have the htpc in the bedroom and use a xbox360 as a media center extender to watch tv and videos. another gotchya from that is the xbox media center extender has limited codec capabilities, so all my dvd backups that we watch have to work with that. we've been using the netflix instant watch plugin lately too which has been excellent.


anybody using a USB tv tuner? i need to upgrade my tuner cards, but i'd need low profile PCI cards and that kinda limits my options so i am considering using a USB tuner. any experience?

[Edited on February 11, 2009 at 9:49 AM. Reason : .]

2/11/2009 9:44:22 AM