good lord, reorganizing my entire digitial library is more time consuming than if i were to clean out my closet.

5/6/2010 11:54:56 PM

ive been reorganizing mine for over a year now

5/7/2010 12:10:18 AM

this lifehacker post has helped tremendously. every other time i've tried i just get discouraged and quit after an hour.

http://lifehacker.com/5475649/set-up-a-fully-automated-media-center

5/7/2010 12:14:28 AM

Nice, giving Ember Media Manager a try

5/7/2010 12:24:04 AM

Building an HTPC for a friend. He has basic cable and wants a TV tuner to use for DVR. Could anyone recommend one? I know the hauppauge 2250's are nice. Also has anyone used show analyzer for windows 7? He wants to be able to skip commercials.

Are the i5's cheap enough now? Or still go with an AMD?

Or actually an i3 for a htpc.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 1:47 PM. Reason : s]

5/11/2010 1:28:20 PM

i have a 2250 and a HDHomeRun, they're both good.

cpu, depends on whether you're going to use integrated graphics or not. amd is still best bang/buck though.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 3:25 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 3:24:58 PM

i have the 2250 and its not used at all anymore. even with basic cable it's worthless for everything but the broadcast channels.

5/11/2010 5:24:09 PM

Quote :

"i have the 2250 and its not used at all anymore. even with basic cable it's worthless for everything but the broadcast channels."

The guy I'm building it for just has the basic cable channels (ones under 100) unencrypted. How would the 2250 be worthless with basic cable? He doesn't use a cable box now. He just wants to add the DVR functionality. There's still plenty of people who just have basic cable. I wouldn't call it "worthless".

Probably going with an Athlon II X4 630. Something like this maybe for a mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131633

5/11/2010 5:36:14 PM

^guess he still lives in a market where they havent encrypted basic cable yet. AFAIK, eventually he's gonna get cut off. Once your cable company moves to all digital, you will only get broadcast stations in open QAM.

5/11/2010 8:52:24 PM

25ft TOSLink and 35ft 75ohm digital SDPIF should be OK lengthwise, correct?

5/11/2010 10:15:51 PM

^^I live in Charlotte and Time Warner hasn't encrypted everything yet. So you're saying eventually companies will switch to complete encryption (so you'll need a box) for all channels? Only being able to get the network broadcast channels over QAM? Not the other 1-100 basic cable channels?

5/12/2010 9:29:20 PM

Any good suggestions on some quiet 120mm fans? The ones I have werent that quiet to begin with, and have gotten louder with age...think its time to just replace them. Looking for a nice balance of quietness and cost.

5/29/2010 12:43:20 PM

Scythe S-Flex S-FDB fans, the fluid dynamic bearing fans, there's nothing quieter with higher airflow and longer life... best fans hands down.

I usually get the SFF21E - 120x120x25mm, 1,200rpm, 20.1dBA, 49.0CFM

About $12 -http://www.directron.com/sff21e.html

SVC has a nice selection of quiet fans as well - http://www.svc.com/silent-fan120.html

I've used these before, but they're sleeve bearings and last 1/5th the # of hours as the fluid bearing fans, but 1/4 the cost - http://www.svc.com/r4-s2s-124k-gp.html

[Edited on May 29, 2010 at 3:35 PM. Reason : .]

5/29/2010 3:28:28 PM

What format are you guys ripping your DVDs to for HTPC playback?

I want to rip my entire DVD collection to my HDD, and use Boxee or something similar to browse them.

What's going to give me good enough quality and a relatively low file size?

6/28/2010 6:23:32 PM

for Blu-ray i use .mp4 container, using H.264 for codec and AAC for audio, it's pretty universal unlike mkv, quality usually at 60-70%, use original resolution.

for DVD's i use avi container, using Xvid/mp3 typically, sometimes AC-3, depends.

[Edited on June 28, 2010 at 6:44 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2010 6:40:23 PM

Quote :

"I usually get the SFF21E - 120x120x25mm, 1,200rpm, 20.1dBA, 49.0CFM"

i have several of the same SFF21E's - looking at my Newegg invoice i got them for 19.99

6/28/2010 6:48:22 PM

^^Why not use H.264 across the board? It's light years better than xvid/divx isn't it?

6/29/2010 1:28:29 AM

Is it worth getting RoadRunner Turbo for my HTPC endeavors? Is it worth the $10/month more?

I dont plan on having cable TV...just want my HTPC to be the brains of my entertainment.

6/29/2010 9:27:04 AM

Truthfully I don't think it's really worth it. Unless you really want to download that 8.5 gig movie i mean linux distro 20 minutes sooner.

6/29/2010 9:33:39 AM

Yeah, I cant really see it making all that much of a difference as far as streaming ABC.com/Hulu tv shows....

6/29/2010 9:35:10 AM

Quote :

"^^Why not use H.264 across the board? It's light years better than xvid/divx isn't it?"

yea, i think it's because what all my old DVDrips were/are... i guess i should start using H.264 for DVDs as well, lol.

6/29/2010 11:28:20 AM

for containers use mp4 or wmv for codecs use h264 or vc1

6/29/2010 11:34:56 AM

no hopes for Blu-ray coming to Mac

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/30/steve-jobs-suggests-blu-ray-not-coming-to-mac-anytime-soon/

7/1/2010 1:42:51 PM

did you honestly think they'd put in something that takes away from itunes sales?

7/1/2010 2:40:49 PM

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/July-0-2010/coupons0701/index-landing.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL070110&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL070110-_-EMC-070110-Index-_-Header-_-ClickHere

All HTPC cases are on sale along with a ton of other stuff

7/1/2010 2:45:56 PM

nice

7/1/2010 2:53:32 PM

32 or 64bit Windows 7 for my HTPC build?

My hardware is compatible with 64bit...any reason NOT to run it?

7/1/2010 5:53:42 PM

codec support, blu-ray support, at least those are the two issues that plagued me.

shark007 has a codec pack for 64-bit (if you need it), powerdvd 10 supports 64-bit, for some reason though when i installed everything i had video and audio codec issues. went to 32-bit and everything just worked. some people have had tv tuner issues in 64-bit as well, but i don't know about that.

if it works for you and you know all your hardware/software supports it, then do it. i just didn't have the seamless experience

[Edited on July 1, 2010 at 6:05 PM. Reason : .]

7/1/2010 6:04:43 PM

you dont need any codec packs for windows 7

7/1/2010 6:22:02 PM

yeah i never had any problems with 64 bit

7/1/2010 6:42:05 PM

So im trying to figure out what to do to get HD streaming from my office to my living room. Right now i have a wrt54gl which works pretty well but im in a somewhat dense area and there are 5 or 6 2.4ghz APs near by, not to mention interference from other 2.4ghz devices. Sometimes it goes to shit and im thinking thats why.

So i guess my options are 1) do some 5ghz 802.11N bridging or 2) powerline ethernet.

In the realm of 802.11N there are a ton of devices and as we all know consumer wireless devices vary widely on price, performance, and stability. So I'm wondering if any of you have any experience with particular models you use that work well.

As far as powerline goes, I've heard mixed reviews. Some say it works great, others say it doesn't work at all. Again thats something thats going to vary based on home powerlines and devices used. However there are far fewer devices and even fewer people with experience with the stuff. So if you've used it before lemme know what you think. smoothcrim recommended me some zyxel devices.

I think i may actually pull the trigger on a pair of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833181060 just to see if it works. $50 is cheap not only for powerline ethernet, but its probably cheaper than im going to find a decent pair of 5ghz N devices.

So what ya'll think?

7/1/2010 7:26:21 PM

fuck it. i just order the powerline adapters from newegg. I'll let you know how they turn out

7/1/2010 9:19:48 PM

^ just run cat5 and then you don't have to second guess it or redo it later

7/1/2010 10:49:10 PM

i would if it were an option

7/1/2010 11:10:24 PM

also im really curious to see how well they work.

7/1/2010 11:10:59 PM

Quote :

"In the realm of 802.11N there are a ton of devices and as we all know consumer wireless devices vary widely on price, performance, and stability. So I'm wondering if any of you have any experience with particular models you use that work well."

I use an Airport Extreme Base Station with an Airport Express as a bridge to my bedroom. I've never experienced any network lag even when streaming 1080p content.

[Edited on July 2, 2010 at 1:22 AM. Reason : added bonus: my wireless now reaches all the way to the other end of the house now. ]

7/2/2010 1:20:28 AM

^I've used Airport Extreme as well.

I have the D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router and it's by far the most stable, best performing consumer router (2nd only to Airport Extreme) I've ever owned. Buffallo & Linksys routers with DD-WRT are a close 3rd, and everything else is junk. Unfortunately they fall in that order in terms of price too.

[Edited on July 2, 2010 at 11:39 AM. Reason : .]

7/2/2010 11:38:56 AM

So i got my stuff in. tl;dr: the powerline stuff works and was easy to get going, but its maybe marginally faster than 802.11g. However its nice to not have the interference issues. $50 for the pair (they are also 802.11g routers, heh) so i'd say its pretty good for the price.

I ended up going with a gigabyte mobo w/ onboard 4200hd and an athlon x2 240 for the htpc. I figure if I want to get more channels out of the bitstream I'll just buy a newer card. I dont have the speakers for it anyway so its moot. The remote and LCD on the antec fusion 350 are better than i thought they'd be. Theres some software that has to be installed, but its pretty cool. You can add any application to the thing and then map buttons on the remote to keystrokes to be sent to the app. The LCD displays info from a couple different places, but right now i've got it set to do time/temp for my city when chilling in windows and then the current playing media/EQ when in media center.

One thing is that it takes it a little bit longer than i'd like to go in/out of sleep. I have it set to S3(suspend to ram) in the bios and hybrid sleep is turned on in windows(7). Is this the best way to do a fast sleep/wake? Also it supports this Away mode thing that I haven't really looked into thats supposed to be another low power mode.

7/8/2010 2:38:27 PM

Anyone else with the HTPC 5000B case have a wonky power switch on their case?

I just built mine up and it wont turn on, and now I cant tell if it's maybe a messed up power switch or if I did something wrong.

My switch (knob) is extremely loose (wobbles around) and I cant get it to make that "click" sound that you would normally get when clicking a power button...

7/9/2010 12:54:08 AM

It's definitely a defective power switch on my nMedia HTPC 5000B. I'm sending this thing back and ordering something else. What are other good HTPC cases +/- $100?

7/9/2010 8:41:24 AM

i like the Antec NSK2480 or Black FusionRemote, but currently i just run a small mini-ITX solution.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129046

currently i'm using:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147133

7/9/2010 10:42:58 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129046
is the one i just got. It works ok so far. Like i said above, the lcd and remote are pretty good and not just useless fluff. It was a real tight fit getting everything in there though.

7/9/2010 10:45:02 AM

ATI is total amature hour. Like a retard i decided to install the latest drivers from ati along with whatever crap it comes with. Suprise suprise its a piece of shit. It installs some stupid ATI direct show filter for decoding h264 that only serves to create block artifacts everywhere.

I uninstalled everything ATI and went back to the windows update driver. Luckily it didn't fuck up the default microsoft ds filter, which works great.


This is the first ATI card i've had in a while and i figured they would have fixed this type of shit but they're still as terrible as i remember.

7/12/2010 11:06:40 PM

For those of you with Netflix, are you getting it through your Xbox 360? or through you HTPC? Which do you prefer? Did I hear that you couldnt get HD quality movies through your PC but you can on Xbox?
I cant decide which is the better option for me....


[Edited on July 14, 2010 at 7:21 PM. Reason : /]

7/14/2010 7:14:42 PM

for whatever reason netflix doesn't do hd streaming to the pc. only to ps3 and 360

7/14/2010 7:32:04 PM

For netflix I do xbox 360.


The only problem is that I have a 1st gen and that shit sounds like the deck of a goddamned aircraft carrier.

7/14/2010 7:33:07 PM

Quote :

"for whatever reason netflix doesn't do hd streaming to the pc"

That changed recently, as in May 2010.

http://blog.netflix.com/2010/05/now-streaming-in-hd-on-pc-and-mac_14.html

Quote :

"Now streaming in HD on PC and Mac This is Brent Ayrey, Director of Product Management at Netflix. I wanted to let you know that we now have a number of movies and TV episodes available to watch instantly in HD on your PC or Mac. HD streaming requires Silverlight 3, and you must have both sufficient bandwidth and a sufficiently large screen size to get an HD stream. When watching a title that has HD stream available you’ll see an icon in the player controls at the bottom of the screen - if the title is streaming in HD that icon will light up."

http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?dev=PC

Quote :

"These titles are available to watch in HD on your computer."

http://www.netflix.com/WiMessage?msg=59

Quote :

"Certain titles are available to watch in HD on your PC/Mac; and on your TV via a Netflix Ready Device. To watch in HD on your PC or Mac, you need the following: Silverlight 3 or higher A screen resolution of at least 800 x 600 A high-speed internet connection at time of playback (typically 5 Mbps or higher)"

I used to use my PS3 because I wanted HD ... now I can just use my Windows 7 MC for everything. Life is good.

7/14/2010 7:44:34 PM

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/home_theater_vengeance

Really really want a 3d HDTV. Played with one at bestbuy. At 240+hz and shutter glasses it's a more comfortable viewing experience than polarized imax glasses.

This would be a nice build. I'd upgrade to an i7 and do a gtx480 for gaming.

7/15/2010 9:44:31 AM

my HTPC is up and running...windows 7 style.

What software are you guys using to rip your DVD's? Right now i'm using DVD Shrink, but is there something better? perhaps more automated?

What other software are you using, and what do you use it for?

7/16/2010 3:00:47 AM

AnyDVD HD to rip to VIDEO_TS folders and strip out the trailers and junk. THen HandBrake to encode to .mp4 using H.264 for codec as mentioned earlier. The encoded dvds are around 2Gb instead of the original 7+Gb in the VOB format.

7/16/2010 7:59:22 AM