Need Help: HTPC. What all is needed???

[DerrellB]

i was able to score a closeout HP Elite with the following specs for a really great price or at least I think. I want to know what all would I need to add/change out to make this a really nice HTPC. I have an idea to change out the video card, add a bluray drive, and maybe a tv-tuner. What are some of the software the people use for HTPC. I am a tech savvy person but the HTPC is new to me. I want to also be able to rip my blurays to the hard drive. Here are the specs on the computer as it is right now. Thanks

PROCESSOR
AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.8GHz / 4 x 512KB L2 Cache)

MEMORY
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
Total memory slots: 4 DIMM

HARD DRIVE
1TB SATA Hard Drive

PRIMARY MULTIMEDIA DRIVE
LightScribe Super Multi DVDRW w/Double Layer

GRAPHICS CARD
Integrated ATI Radeon 3000

TV TUNER
N/A

COMMUNICATION
N/A

NETWORKING
10/100 Mb/s Ethernet
KEYBOARD
HP keyboard

POINTING DEVICE
HP mouse

DIMENSIONS
15.23"H x 6.89"W x 16.29"L
SOUND CARD
Integrated 8-channel HD Audio - Realtek ALC 888S-VD
PORTS
Front:
USB: 2
Headphone: 1
Microphone: 1
Rear:
S/PDIF coaxial out
Video Graphics Adapter
RJ-45 Network (LAN)
Audio: Center/Subwoofer (yellow orange)
Audio: Rear Speaker Out (black)
Audio: Line In (gray)
Audio: Line Out (light blue)
Audio: Microphone (lime)
Audio: Side Speaker Out (pink)
USB 2.0: 4
DVI

DIGITAL MEDIA
15-In-1 Media Card Reader

OPERATING SYSTEM
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

[brettallica]

As far as software goes, there are many, many, many front-ends that will help with your HTPC. I think what Windows 7 has straight out of the box is a great start, though. It has a pretty complete media management suite (Windows Media Center) with which I think you should familiarize yourself before looking to the third-party front-ends. Just get a feel for how this works, and then from there you will get a better understanding of the other solutions out there, and how they all work. Think in terms of learning to walk before running.

I didn't notice this in your specs list, but I think you may consider purchasing an infrared transceiver so that your remote can talk to your computer. There are about a million options for this, too, but a stock Windows 7-compatible setup can usually be had for under $20 shipped, and that's with a remote and transceiver (try this link as an example). If you have a universal remote, you can just program it to work like the Windows remote, and — voilà — you can ditch the Windows remote. The transceiver will (most likely) be USB-based and come with a decent wire length, so it can be installed in a discreet way quite easily.

[DerrellB]

Originally Posted by brettallica

As far as software goes, there are many, many, many front-ends that will help with your HTPC. I think what Windows 7 has straight out of the box is a great start, though. It has a pretty complete media management suite (Windows Media Center) with which I think you should familiarize yourself before looking to the third-party front-ends. Just get a feel for how this works, and then from there you will get a better understanding of the other solutions out there, and how they all work. Think in terms of learning to walk before running.

I didn't notice this in your specs list, but I think you may consider purchasing an infrared transceiver so that your remote can talk to your computer. There are about a million options for this, too, but a stock Windows 7-compatible setup can usually be had for under $20 shipped, and that's with a remote and transceiver (try this link as an example). If you have a universal remote, you can just program it to work like the Windows remote, and — voilà — you can ditch the Windows remote. The transceiver will (most likely) be USB-based and come with a decent wire length, so it can be installed in a discreet way quite easily.

Thanks alot for the response. A remote is definitely on my list. Spec wise, what do you think besides the few upgrades I am planning. Just trying to get everything squared away before I hook it up.

[HyperRealist]

I'd get a gigabit network adapter if you plan on transferring rips to that NAS. And a mini wireless keyboard

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by DerrellB

Thanks alot for the response. A remote is definitely on my list. Spec wise, what do you think besides the few upgrades I am planning. Just trying to get everything squared away before I hook it up.

Definitely get a gigabit NIC like HyperRealist said. You will want/need that if you're dealing with massive amounts of data transfer. Everything in my house is gigabit on Cat6. I would suggest the same if you can swing it.

Specs-wise, you could go any number of ways. There are some better HTPC guys on this forum who could provide you with what's good as far as hardware to get, so hopefully they'll chime in here shortly. I would say 6GB of RAM is probably sufficient, but if you can afford more, I would max that puppy out. I just did a quick Google for hp elite max ram and it linked to HP's site, which said it'll go up to 16GB.

[DerrellB]

Yeah I thought about that, but I recently went to ATT uverse from Comcast. I had a Gigabit network before the switch but ATT 2wire modem/router is only 100 megs. I know there is a work around, I just havent decided to take the time to do it.

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by DerrellB

Yeah I thought about that, but I recently went to ATT uverse from Comcast. I had a Gigabit network before the switch but ATT 2wire modem/router is only 100 megs. I know there is a work around, I just havent decided to take the time to do it.

Just put everything in your network after the AT&T 2wire crapper and set yourself up with a gigabit network. I have Comcast cable, and while I don't know what the Comcast-provided combo modem/router transfer speed is, I don't care because I have an elaborate network on top of that. I use the Comcast device as a modem only.

The first thing in the line would be a gigabit switch of some kind that gets the gigabit ball rolling. This could be a switch or a router. Connect all of your devices to that. From there, once everything is running off of that, transfers from computer-to-computer (or any device) will be running at gigabit speeds, assuming of course that the device has a gigabit interface of its own.

[blurayall]

DerrellB-
Since you have a very nice surround sound system, I am recommending these to go along with your new PC:

1. Install this video card to give you a little more fire power and options- SAPPHIRE 100323L Radeon HD 6570
2. You can either use the existing Windows 7 MCE or XBMC for media player. I enjoy MCE the most because I can integrate Directv2pc, Netflix, Hulu, etc and it can handles Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats flawless.
3. Replace the existing DVD-ROM with LG Black 12X BD-ROM to enjoy high quality BD HD audio/video.
4. OEM HP MCE KIT REMOTE CONTROL/USB IR RECEIVER/EMITTER
5. Install one of these- TotalMedia Theatre 5 or PowerDVD 11 I preferred TMT5.

[Raiders12]

Looks like you inherited a pretty solid HTPC there...

Go with the upgrades mentioned above, maybe even buy a cheap Hauppage HDTV tuner for $50, so you can have DVR capabilities.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by Raiders12

Looks like you inherited a pretty solid HTPC there...

Go with the upgrades mentioned above, maybe even buy a cheap Hauppage HDTV tuner for $50, so you can have DVR capabilities.

This. I have one and it's fantastic.

Originally Posted by blurayall

DerrellB-
Since you have a very nice surround sound system, I am recommending these to go along with your new PC:

1. Install this video card to give you a little more fire power and options- SAPPHIRE 100323L Radeon HD 6570
2. You can either use the existing Windows 7 MCE or XBMC for media player. I enjoy MCE the most because I can integrate Directv2pc, Netflix, Hulu, etc and it can handles Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats flawless.
3. Replace the existing DVD-ROM with LG Black 12X BD-ROM to enjoy high quality BD HD audio/video.
4. OEM HP MCE KIT REMOTE CONTROL/USB IR RECEIVER/EMITTER
5. Install one of these- TotalMedia Theatre 5 or PowerDVD 11 I preferred TMT5.

Again, this although the Sapphire Radeon 6850, while 100 bucks more than that card suggested by blurayall, give you even better options. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rder=BESTMATCH

[blurayall]

Originally Posted by BohemianGraham

This. I have one and it's fantastic.



Again, this although the Sapphire Radeon 6850, while 100 bucks more than that card suggested by blurayall, give you even better options. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rder=BESTMATCH

if he have money and room in his case, the 6850 has my vote too.

one important thing i forgot to mention in my post #8- if you want to rip video from bluray camcorder to the hard drive, i'm recomending AnyDVD HD.

[blurayall]

great news for dts-hd and truehd lover. i played around with xbmc and mce tonight, and here are my results:

you can launch xbmc from this folder- xbmc_hd_audio. with your dts-hd/truehd capable video card and avr, you'll see dts-hd/truehd flash on your avr display. note- if you have any special playercorefactory configuration for external player, you might want to turn it off.

if you're using winy mce, here are step by step to pass-through dts-hd and truehd codecs to your avr via hdmi:

1. download- w7 codec pack
2. download- shark007 32bit. if you're running w7 x64, you have to download this too- shark007 64-bit
3. follow this step by step visual instruction after 1&2 downloaded and the settings have to be correct for it to work properly- (dts-hd and truehd pass-through)

you'll see dts-hd and truehd display on your avr during bd playback. i tried gnomeo/juliet (dts-hd) and how to train your dragon (truehd) using both xbmc and mce, and both players can playback dts-hd and truehd fine.

enjoy it!