sam9s HTPC Project! powered by XBMC!!

[sam9s]

Hello friends welcome to Sam's HTPC thread....

Well after 2 weeks of research and development and another week to successfully deploy it, finally completed building MY HTPC,

Following is my story and complete built

To begin with one might ask with Media players all over the place giving an out of the box experience and I; already owning one, what was the need to go for an HTPC??

Well following are the 3 main reason for the same .... ofcourse there were many other small factors as well, but the following remains the main.

1. My POHD does not support HD audio and I was not willing to spent another 10-12K to get a new Media Player just for this drawback (reason in the 3rd point)

2. YAMJ, every single media player I have seen (except TViX maybe) has a pathetic YAMJ, along with a crap interface ..... yes even extremer or new POHD2, all lack a polish quality media interface and yes, much needed elite YAMJ

3. Last but not the least, since I upgraded my PC and assembled a new one, I had my old hardware at hand, so decided to use it as my HTPC. All I added was a case and a mid level GPU

(details discussed later in the post.)

Now I had a very specific objective for the my HTPC, as to how it needs to be configured and how it should behave, which was very much in the lines of an actual media player. Few of the points that I had in mind for my HTPC ....

1. It should definitely have the feel of a media player, no windows feel at all, should boot directly in to my Media Center. Though the base would ofcourse be windows (one can opt for linux as well) but I opted to go
for windows .....

2. Boot time as fast as possible (just like media player), will upgraded to SSD later.

3. Quality YAMJ and polished look and feel...... with the entire interface drooling with quality. (This was one of my main reason to ditch media player along with HD audio support)

4. Support for HD audio. (DTA MA and DD THD streaming)

5. Remote for HTPC just like a conventional Media Player

Now that we have a small introduction before moving further I would like to show you the final product, so that you may have an idea what lies ahead.

For the Media Player I decided to choose the awesome front end media center from Xbox called XBMC or Xbox Media Center. There are loads of other media center applications as well like for example "Windows Media Center", "Media Portal", "Media Browser" etc etc and
every media center has its own pros and cones, but XBMC with its cones was the most polished looking media center with max number of TPA plugins and themes .....

Following is the video that shows the complete bootup of the HTPC in to XBMC and explorers the few main functions of the same.

If the end product is liked and there is enough interest in the thread, I will share more details as to how I configured XBMC to behave like how I wanted to.
The video is in two parts since youtube does not allow to load a video which is more then 15 minutes. Plus the quality is bit poor, I recoded the video in 720p but the entire size landed to be pretty huge, around 5GB, so I had to compress it and lessen the resolution to 640x480 to get it under 500MB .....so bare with me on the quality of the video. But it would given you a fair bit of an idea as to how XBMC looks and feel.

Part 1

YouTube - ‪XBMC Demo part 1.mp4‬‏

Part 2

YouTube - ‪XBMC Demo Part 2.mp4‬‏


To begin with the hardware .....

Remember HTPC is not big deal, you dont need a powerhouse of a hardware to actually get the max out of your HTPC, not even 3D, with my current config I could have used it as my 3DvHTPC as well if I had the 3D display .....

The config (remember its the old hardware I used.)

1. Intel C2D [email protected] Ghz
2. ASUS P5B Delux mobo
3. 4GB DDR2 RAM
5. nVidia Zotac GT440 GPU (This is New)
6. Silverstone LC10-E HTPC cabinet (This is new as well)

Point to not is that I chose to go nVidia way this time for multimedia needs. If you do some research you will come to know that though ATI leads the GPU segment with their HD series, but when it comes to A/V playback capabilities nVidia is said to be better. Specially with CORE AVC codecs used with their popular CUDA technology. Plus there are some rare bugs with video playbacks with ATI that pushed me to go for nVidia for my HTPC. GT4XX series is the best known for A/V playback with full support for HD Bitstreaming and 3D playback.

For case ... well Silverstone LC-10 was the cheapest HTPC case from Silverstone, and I did not want to go for any conventional case. Though there was few from Thermalake that I really liked.

Apart from it I used ....

1. Logitech wifi keyboard combo
2. ANDROID XBMC remote
3. ANDROID TMT5 remote

The applications used ...

1. Xbox Media center XBMC
2. Total Media Theater 5

One can use Power DVD or MPC-HC (with ffdshow)as well

3. Media Center Master

Following are the pictures of my hardware and XBMC. The skin I have used in the below snaps are "Transperancy!" and "MediaStream Redux". Have shared loads of snaps so bare with me ...

First my hardware ....

Now my XBMC Pics ....

Suggestions, Questions are welcome ......

Regards
Sammy

 

[Kevian]

Hey Sam Good job bro. I did this on my laptop with kubuntu just to get a feel of XBMC. I guess XBMC is the only one which has sleek UI among many alternatives as of now. There are few useful plugins like lyrics, subtitles, radio etc. I believe you have already experimented on them. Great System.

Njoi

 

[idlebrain]

Very Inspirational Sam....I'm sure many will follow this route.

 

[ashishkesarwani]

Sam, Good work buddy.

 

[sam9s]

Sammy........let me first congratulate you on XBMC project..

which OS you are using, is it XBMC live installation on ubuntu kernel or windows.

if you are using windows OS have you set your XBMC to boot as shell?

how do you playback Blu-Ray?

I am using Windows 7 x64 ulti for the moment, but I dont load explorer, instead guide windows to load XBMC even before explorer loads, making it boot faster. How ever the idea of XBMC live is also not bad, but if you plan to use Live I will recommend another product based on XBMC live only, its called Open ELEC. Its basically based on XBMC itself and acts as live as well, but is been customized to give a
better experience. I have tried it and I would definately suggest it above XBMC Live!.

About BluRay..... are you asking about Bluray ISO or Discs, for Disc I actually already have Pana BD60 BD player. For ISO I use the combination of Virtual Clone Drive and Total Media Theater5. A small script tells XBMC to mount the ISO in my drive and TMT5 to play it, so that I get for HD audio. Checkout my video.

Hey Sam Good job bro. I did this on my laptop with kubuntu just to get a feel of XBMC. I guess XBMC is the only one which has sleek UI among many alternatives as of now. There are few useful plugins like lyrics, subtitles, radio etc. I believe you have already experimented on them. Great System.

Njoi

Yep I have the subtitle and lyrics plugin. Radio I havent tried yet, but will definitely give it a try

 

[ashishkesarwani]

Sam, I have few questions related to your HTPC

1. The power footprint of it and the noise factor in Dbs?
2. Can it read data automatically from a remote media server or say a NAS?
3. The breakup cost of all the individual components used in constructing it.
4. Also is it possible if we don't turn on the display, then we are able to control and access the entire library through an Android Tablet or phone over wifi?

Thanks

 

[sam9s]

^^

1. The power footprint of it and the noise factor in Dbs?

well as I said HTPC is no big deal as for as hardware goes. My GPU does not even take external power. The case has its own high quality 2 80 mm fans at the back which are sufficient. The official dB for the fan is rated to be 21dB, and frankly my HTPC is far far silent than my regular PC case which itself is a high quality case (CM690)

2. Can it read data automatically from a remote media server or say a NAS?

what do you mean automatically???? I do not have a NAS, but yes it can pick up data from it if pointed in that direction through Network settings.

3. The breakup cost of all the individual components used in constructing it.

Well I used my OLD hardware so I cant actually provide a break up even if we take the current cost of the hardware, it should not go beyong 10K excluding the display ofcourse. I only bought the GPU (4500) and the case (6500)

4. Also is it possible if we don't turn on the display, then we are able to control and access the entire library through an Android Tablet or phone over wifi?

Yes its possible ... checkout the following link ....

PlugPlayer for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

XBMC has UPnP option ...

There are other applications as well .....

 

[akhil7j]

Congrats Sammy,

Finally after a long debate you ditched Media Players and are on HTPC line. Good decision.!

HTPC is any time better than Media Player. They are futureproofs and lots of scalability options. Upgrade is easy and cheap. Ofcourse they need a little config but its always worth. Atleast you dont have to replace your media player for Bitstreaming or 3D or any other new feature.



Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

 

[vinsks]

Congrats Sammy,:clapping::clapping:

awesome setup.... i think i should drop myself at your place for solid movie experience...
or Drop a 1TB HDD (at least) so that you can copy HD movies for me. :lol::lol:

 

[sud98]

Congratulations. XBMC is one sexy interface.

 

[sam9s]

Congrats Sammy,

Finally after a long debate you ditched Media Players and are on HTPC line. Good decision.!

HTPC is any time better than Media Player. They are futureproofs and lots of scalability options. Upgrade is easy and cheap. Ofcourse they need a little config but its always worth. Atleast you dont have to replace your media player for Bitstreaming or 3D or any other new feature.

See there is only one solid reason I support Media Players, and that is an out of the box experience. Even now I say if a total out of the box experience is what you want, media player is the choice for you. With HTPC you have to configure things to make it work like a media player. But yes I would definitely say the rewards are far too satisfying

Congrats Sammy,:clapping::clapping:

awesome setup.... i think i should drop myself at your place for solid movie experience...
or Drop a 1TB HDD (at least) so that you can copy HD movies for me. :lol::lol:

why not ... most welcome anytime ....... and you can have all my HD movies BUT I believe in barter system, bring the same for me and we can exchange all ........

Congratulations. XBMC is one sexy interface.

 

[akhil7j]

See there is only one solid reason I support Media Players, and that is an out of the box experience. Even now I say if a total out of the box experience is what you want, media player is the choice for you. With HTPC you have to configure things to make it work like a media player. But yes I would definitely say the rewards are far too satisfying

You will never get "everything" out of the box. Thats what I was saying from day one.



Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

 

[grubyhalo]

Looks very good. Any specific reason you opted for Windows instead of Linux?

 

[cmsajith]

Great effort and Congrats..

Could you please write down step by step instructions which you followed for configuring the Media Centre?

 

[venkatcr]

Fantastic work, Sam. I also use an HTPC extensively, and have sold off my DVD players. I plan to insert an audio PC into my system. Though it is already working, I need to change the cabinet and put it in an HTPC cabinet so that it can sit inside my rack.

I have three queries:

1/ Does anyone have any idea as to how to make PowerDVD use external audio filters?

2/ After reading Sam's thread/post, I tried TMT 5.x and it bitstreams DTS HD beautifully. I tried Grease that has Dolby TrueHD, and TMT converted that to multi channel audio. If that is solved, my HTPC would be the ideal Blu-Ray/media player solution.

3/ In some case when I hit the stop button on TMT, the receiver roars with some noise for a few seconds. This never happened with powerDVD. Any ideas?

I could, of course, work with EDID, but I am leaving that as a last resort.

Cheers

 

[hydra]

Excellent setup there, sam9s. You've obviously put a lot of thought and effort into building this HTPC and it has certainly paid off!

 

[akhil7j]

Fantastic work, Sam. I also use an HTPC extensively, and have sold off my DVD players. I plan to insert an audio PC into my system. Though it is already working, I need to change the cabinet and put it in an HTPC cabinet so that it can sit inside my rack.

I have three queries:

1/ Does anyone have any idea as to how to make PowerDVD use external audio filters?

2/ After reading Sam's thread/post, I tried TMT 5.x and it bitstreams DTS HD beautifully. I tried Grease that has Dolby TrueHD, and TMT converted that to multi channel audio. If that is solved, my HTPC would be the ideal Blu-Ray/media player solution.

3/ In some case when I hit the stop button on TMT, the receiver roars with some noise for a few seconds. This never happened with powerDVD. Any ideas?

I could, of course, work with EDID, but I am leaving that as a last resort.

Cheers

1. PowerDVD has its own codecs so you cannot use external filters. Even i like ffdshow based players so that I can use my own filters. (For this reason, somehow I like MediaPortal)

2. Check the audio setting in TMT5. There is an option of bitstreaming. Make sure you have checked that. Otherwise, when you play your BD, check the DDTrueHD in BD settings. Sometimes the default audio track in you BD is not set as HD (perfect example, The Dark Knight).

3. The same happens with me. Even with Foobar if I use WASAPI plugin and stop the track, some noise comes to all speakers. When i disable WASAPI, it works normally.

EDID on Intel boards is waste. It will never work untill they fix it and release new drivers. If you have some other board or GPU, then no idea.

 

[akhil7j]

Great effort and Congrats..

Could you please write down step by step instructions which you followed for configuring the Media Centre?

I second that.

 

[vinsks]

why not ... most welcome anytime ....... and you can have all my HD movies BUT I believe in barter system, bring the same for me and we can exchange all ........

i would love it :licklips::yahoo:
let me arrange 1tb hdd first

 

[sam9s]

Looks very good. Any specific reason you opted for Windows instead of Linux?

Thats whatThad E Ginathom asked in the other thread and this what I replied .....

Thats a valid question, but there are few things I do load under windows that gives me even more user friendly experience, for example my TMT5 remote works on a tiny server that loads on windows, the script that loads the external player is for windows, plus I also use WOL with an application to switch on my PC from hibernate mode remotely. Yes I know all this must be applicable in Linux as well, but I do not have linux experience at all. So getting things done would have reqired another learning curve and time consumption. For that reason chose wins 7. I will try win 7 lite version and try to get things done and if it works as intended I might switch to win 7 lite ....

Fantastic work, Sam. I also use an HTPC extensively, and have sold off my DVD players. I plan to insert an audio PC into my system. Though it is already working, I need to change the cabinet and put it in an HTPC cabinet so that it can sit inside my rack.

I have three queries:

1/ Does anyone have any idea as to how to make PowerDVD use external audio filters?

You can not use external filters with Power DVD (akhil answered that), I'd say opt MPC-HC and use ffdshow external filter, workes perfectly.

2/ After reading Sam's thread/post, I tried TMT 5.x and it bitstreams DTS HD beautifully. I tried Grease that has Dolby TrueHD, and TMT converted that to multi channel audio. If that is solved, my HTPC would be the ideal Blu-Ray/media player solution.

The most prominent reason for this can be "TMT always loads the default audio, which in many cases is not the HD audio (like in Dark Knight) you have to manualy go in to the Audio settings and choose HD audio. This what happened with me in case of TMT5. Akhil narated the same experience that I shared with him.