Leaving cable/satellite behind! First HTPC build. Suggestions appreciated

Carlitos714

Carlitos714

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2009
Messages
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What's up [H]ard|Forum!!!!! After reading a bunch of threads in various sites, I finally decided to move away from cable/satellite TV and save some $$$. At home we really don't watch too much TV so I don't think we will miss Direct TV. We mostly watch our entertainment on the net. My wife watches her Brazilian soap operas, my step son his music videos, and I do everything one the net. There is one thing though that I will probably have to sacrifice. Soccer. I'm huge soccer fan and will have to find a way to watch my games!!!! I will be moving my family down to San Diego in about a month and for the first time in my adult life, I wont be paying for cable!!! I will be in Kuwait from July to Feb 2011 so I will only be here a few months to adjust.
My wife finally gave me the green light after explaining how we will have more money to do family activities and such. I am not an expert on these builds. I am still learning so bear with me if I get it all messed up. Anyhow this is what I have/is being shipped
I want this HTPC to have the option to do some light gaming. I will see how it goes. If I see that this htpc is not being used for gaming, then I will probably downgrade some parts.


Things I have/will receive soon
*47" Mitsubishi LCD 120 Hz
*C2D E6850 3.0GHz (will down clock to lowest speed as long as it doesn't affect pic quality)
*Zalman 9500 (fits pefect in my case)
*Gigabyte P35-DS3R
*3 GB of DDR2 533 mhz
*Corsair 520 HX PSU
*MSI 8800 GT
*DVD Drive
*500 GB Hard Drive
*Zalman HD 160
*Windows 7 64-bit (have ultimate and home premium. Which do I use?


Things I will add/might add
*Blue Ray Player
*2-4 GB of WD Greens
Sound Card? Is either card for a 7.1 surround sound or will onboard work? Recommendations for a different card? HT Omega?
*Asus Xonar DS (have)
*Asus Xonar D2X (have)

Will eventually buy a cable card!
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http://i716.photobucket.com/albums/ww162/Carltios714ebay/HTPC/CIMG3784.jpg

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I would go for the following
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H - this mobo will provide all the sound, video, networking
2gb ram dont really need no more than that for htpc
AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz more than enough

you can find cases with a psu with it.
also you will not need any extra fans, htpc generally do not get that hot.
If you are using this thing for gaming than you might want to go with more power but you do not need lot of expensive equipment.
I would spend the money on extra hard drives and bluray drive.
windows 7 home edition is good
no sound card
if you download tv shows than the tv tuner you probably wont need.
 
dajaga said:
I would go for the following
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H - this mobo will provide all the sound, video, networking
2gb ram dont really need no more than that for htpc
AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz more than enough

you can find cases with a psu with it.
also you will not need any extra fans, htpc generally do not get that hot.
If you are using this thing for gaming than you might want to go with more power but you do not need lot of expensive equipment.
I would spend the money on extra hard drives and bluray drive.
windows 7 home edition is good
no sound card
if you download tv shows than the tv tuner you probably wont need.
Click to expand...

The problem with downloading TV shows is that they are bandwidth hogs, especially if the shows are in anything above 360p. Plus, most broadband providers are now imposing strict monthly bandwidth caps - and downloading shows in anything above 360p will eat up much if not all of that bandwidth cap. And if you exceed the bandwidth cap, many companies (Crumcast is notorious for this) will revoke your Internet privileges for one year (meaning that you cannot even go online to surf the Web for one year since you will be disconnected for that amount of time). Others will charge you a hefty additional per-GB surcharge (this can go as high as $20 per GB) for exceeding this cap. (And that's not to mention that not all TV shows are streamed online, and most of those that are tend to be very recent hit episodes from the major over-the-air networks.)

So, if you have a lot of TV shows to watch on that HTPC or if you plan to archive TV shows, a TV tuner card is a better choice than downloads.
 
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E4g1e is right, if you plan on ditching cable you'll miss out on most of what cable/satellite has to offer. However, if you live close enough to a major metro area (within 60 miles) you could get an antenna and get the basic digital channels broadcast out of the city. Grabbing an ATSC/ClearQAM tuner will let you tune those channels in over the antenna. The Avermedia Duet is a good one.

Also, you can save some cash by simply downgrading to standard cable where you can usually pick up the basic clearqam channels (as well as analog channels) with an NTSC/ClearQAM tuner. This is the route I went, I get Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC in digital HD through ClearQAM and the basic cable channels for the basic cable price. Combine with Windows 7 Home Premium Media Center and save about $30 a month.

So if you don't mind missing recent shows ditching the tuner is no big deal as I'm sure you'll have no shortage of movies and older shows downloaded to your media center and Netflix is part of 7MC if you've got a subscription to that. Downloading all the content you plan to watch is likely to get you in hot water at some point however.
 
E4g1e said:
The problem with downloading TV shows is that they are bandwidth hogs, especially if the shows are in anything above 360p. Plus, most broadband providers are now imposing strict monthly bandwidth caps - and downloading shows in anything above 360p will eat up much if not all of that bandwidth cap. And if you exceed the bandwidth cap, many companies (Crumcast is notorious for this) will revoke your Internet privileges for one year (meaning that you cannot even go online to surf the Web for one year since you will be disconnected for that amount of time). Others will charge you a hefty additional per-GB surcharge (this can go as high as $20 per GB) for exceeding this cap. (And that's not to mention that not all TV shows are streamed online, and most of those that are tend to be very recent hit episodes from the major over-the-air networks.)

So, if you have a lot of TV shows to watch on that HTPC or if you plan to archive TV shows, a TV tuner card is a better choice than downloads.
Click to expand...
Well I dont know what it is like down in the states but up in canada, I can download 100gb a month and I dont get any calls from telus. but I also use usenet, I think they do not really care about downloading it is the uploading that the care about.
 
dajaga said:
I would go for the following
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H - this mobo will provide all the sound, video, networking
2gb ram dont really need no more than that for htpc
AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz more than enough

you can find cases with a psu with it.
also you will not need any extra fans, htpc generally do not get that hot.
If you are using this thing for gaming than you might want to go with more power but you do not need lot of expensive equipment.
I would spend the money on extra hard drives and bluray drive.
windows 7 home edition is good
no sound card
if you download tv shows than the tv tuner you probably wont need.
Click to expand...

I already have everything except the tv tuner, storage hard drives and blue ray player. Having to sell my gear and gettin what you recommended for not is not an option. It will be a pain in the a$$ to do that, but I will consider your option for the future.

2 gb of ram is what i will probably use later on but I already have 4 gb of ram. Im gonna try it out with both see if there is any major power consumption with 2 and 4 gb. i doubt it will.
I do download some moves but i want the a tuner so i can watch sports here locally in Southern Cali
 
here is sorta my opnion on the items listen

*C2D E6850 3.0GHz (will down clock to lowest speed as long as it doesn't affect pic quality)
You can buy a 2.8ghz amd dual core for less than 60$

*Zalman 9500 (fits pefect in my case)
Do not need any extra fans

*Gigabyte P35-DS3R
You can find mobo with sound through hdmi, optical audio, and a video card, try to find one with ati 4000hd.

*4 x 1 GB of DDR2 1066 mhz
2 X 1gb ddr2 should be about 50$

*Corsair 400 CX PSU
should look spending extra 50$ and find a nice looking case with a psu in it

*EVGA 9800 GT
Why spend 100+ for a graphics card when you can get one that will work just as good for htpc that is built in to the mobo

*DVD Drive
Instead of buying a dvd drive and wasting money just spend the extra $ for a bddrive

*500 GB Hard Drive
why not just get a 1 or 2 tb hdd drive instead of having something that cant hold much you will spend extra 20$ if that.

*Zalman HD 160
While that is a super nice case you can find stuff that look just as nice for half the price.

*Windows 7 64-bit (have ultimate and home premium. Which do I use?
Windows 7 32bit home edition is good, why spend more, generally 64 bit sometimes have more problems.

Things I will add/might add
*Blue Ray Player
instead of dvd player just buy this

*2-4 GB of WD Greens

Sound Card? Is either card for a 7.1 surround sound or will onboard work? Recommendations for a different card? HT Omega?
Do not waste money on audio card, only time they are good is if you need analog connection, which most equipment today have optical or audio through hdmi

TV Tunver (I narrowed down to these two) recommendations? Suggestions?
**Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
**Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1850
Will eventually buy a cable card!
I do not know anything about tv tuners

-----------------------
Remember you do not need to spend $1000+ for a htpc unless you are using it for gaming too. My last htpc I spent about 400$ and I have no complaints. If you are gonna spend all the money on a htpc with out gaming, give me the money and i will build you one that works great and pocket the rest :D
 
Carlitos714 said:
I already have everything except the tv tuner, storage hard drives and blue ray player. Having to sell my gear and gettin what you recommended for not is not an option. It will be a pain in the a$$ to do that, but I will consider your option for the future.

2 gb of ram is what i will probably use later on but I already have 4 gb of ram. Im gonna try it out with both see if there is any major power consumption with 2 and 4 gb. i doubt it will.
I do download some moves but i want the a tuner so i can watch sports here locally in Southern Cali
Click to expand...

Well if i knew you already had all that I wouldnt of suggested all that other stuff.
But man that is one beast of a HTPC, :D good luck
 
pain.angel said:
E4g1e is right, if you plan on ditching cable you'll miss out on most of what cable/satellite has to offer. However, if you live close enough to a major metro area (within 60 miles) you could get an antenna and get the basic digital channels broadcast out of the city. Grabbing an ATSC/ClearQAM tuner will let you tune those channels in over the antenna. The Avermedia Duet is a good one.

Also, you can save some cash by simply downgrading to standard cable where you can usually pick up the basic clearqam channels (as well as analog channels) with an NTSC/ClearQAM tuner. This is the route I went, I get Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC in digital HD through ClearQAM and the basic cable channels for the basic cable price. Combine with Windows 7 Home Premium Media Center and save about $30 a month.

So if you don't mind missing recent shows ditching the tuner is no big deal as I'm sure you'll have no shortage of movies and older shows downloaded to your media center and Netflix is part of 7MC if you've got a subscription to that. Downloading all the content you plan to watch is likely to get you in hot water at some point however.
Click to expand...

I will be in San Diego so i will be ditching cable/satellite and do what you recommended. Get an antenna. do you know of any good antenna?
 
dajaga said:
here is sorta my opnion on the items listen

*C2D E6850 3.0GHz (will down clock to lowest speed as long as it doesn't affect pic quality)
You can buy a 2.8ghz amd dual core for less than 60$

*Zalman 9500 (fits pefect in my case)
Do not need any extra fans

*Gigabyte P35-DS3R
You can find mobo with sound through hdmi, optical audio, and a video card, try to find one with ati 4000hd.

*4 x 1 GB of DDR2 1066 mhz
2 X 1gb ddr2 should be about 50$

*Corsair 400 CX PSU
should look spending extra 50$ and find a nice looking case with a psu in it

*EVGA 9800 GT
Why spend 100+ for a graphics card when you can get one that will work just as good for htpc that is built in to the mobo

*DVD Drive
Instead of buying a dvd drive and wasting money just spend the extra $ for a bddrive

*500 GB Hard Drive
why not just get a 1 or 2 tb hdd drive instead of having something that cant hold much you will spend extra 20$ if that.

*Zalman HD 160
While that is a super nice case you can find stuff that look just as nice for half the price.

*Windows 7 64-bit (have ultimate and home premium. Which do I use?
Windows 7 32bit home edition is good, why spend more, generally 64 bit sometimes have more problems.

Things I will add/might add
*Blue Ray Player
instead of dvd player just buy this

*2-4 GB of WD Greens

Sound Card? Is either card for a 7.1 surround sound or will onboard work? Recommendations for a different card? HT Omega?
Do not waste money on audio card, only time they are good is if you need analog connection, which most equipment today have optical or audio through hdmi

TV Tunver (I narrowed down to these two) recommendations? Suggestions?
**Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
**Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1850
Will eventually buy a cable card!
I do not know anything about tv tuners

-----------------------
Remember you do not need to spend $1000+ for a htpc unless you are using it for gaming too. My last htpc I spent about 400$ and I have no complaints. If you are gonna spend all the money on a htpc with out gaming, give me the money and i will build you one that works great and pocket the rest :D
Click to expand...

from the original post. ahhaha i already have these or being shipped

Things I have/will receive soon
*47" Mitsubishi LCD 120 Hz
*C2D E6850 3.0GHz (will down clock to lowest speed as long as it doesn't affect pic quality) $60
*Zalman 9500 (fits pefect in my case) $25
*Gigabyte P35-DS3R $60
*4 x 1 GB of DDR2 1066 mhz $75
*Corsair 400 CX PSU $33
*EVGA 9800 GT $56
*DVD Drive $15
*500 GB Hard Drive got from my hp computer i had a few year back
*Zalman HD 160 $80
*Windows 7 64-bit (have ultimate and home premium. Which do I use? gift

total i have spent is $404. all parts bought on forums, plus I'm selling my GTX 280 and GTX 260/216 SC so they are basically gonna fund this build. In reality it can be used as a lowend gaming computer. thanks for the advice. I will take in considration what you recommened. thank you for your comments
 
dajaga said:
Well I dont know what it is like down in the states but up in canada, I can download 100gb a month and I dont get any calls from telus. but I also use usenet, I think they do not really care about downloading it is the uploading that the care about.
Click to expand...

In most of the broadband providers here in the States, the cap applies to downloads. With the most popular 16 Mbps cable plan from Crumcast, the cap is 250 GB per month. (Time Warner Cable has caps of 10 GB, 20 GB, 30 GB and 40 GB per month, depending on the plan.) If you exceed that cap twice within six months, Crumcast automatically terminates the customer's Internet account - and that customer is now ineligible to reapply for a new Internet account with Crumcast for at least one year. (And note that only the Internet portion of the Crumcast customer's account is affected; the television and phone portions are not affected.)
 
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Carlitos714 said:
I will be in San Diego so i will be ditching cable/satellite and do what you recommended. Get an antenna. do you know of any good antenna?
Click to expand...

The DB4 or DB8 are great choices depending on how far you are from the source. They are some of the best available.
 
Carlitos714 said:
great advice man cuz as of right now i know nothing of antennas!!! very much appreciated!!!!!
Click to expand...
We can rattle off a dozen great antennas but they may not be the right one for your specific location (source transmission towers being spread apart too widely etc etc).

Personally i'd follow the method i outlined in that link.

It's tempting to take the easy way out but you may end up losing a few channels that way.

Here's an example thread where someone is getting very specific advice for his situation: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1249529 <-- if you provide them the right info you'd get similar help ;)
 
Last edited:
SJetski71 said:
We can rattle off a dozen great antennas but they may not be the right one for your specific location (source transmission towers being spread apart too widely etc etc).

Personally i'd follow the method i outlined in that link.

It's tempting to take the easy way out but you may end up losing a few channels that way.

Here's an example thread where someone is getting very specific advice for his situation: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1249529 <-- if you provide them the right info you'd get similar help ;)
Click to expand...

thanks man i just dropped a thread on that site. thank you

added some pics
 
Carlitos714 said:
thanks man i just dropped a thread on that site. thank you

added some pics
Click to expand...

No prob, i'll provide a free bump for your AVS thread to try and stir up some more ideas.

Oh, and if you do buy a single indoor antenna, then you definitely want the Quantum ANT-102 (rotating + remote control + amplified) which reviewed extremely well here. It's especially good for your location since you have transmission towers in multiple directions.

The above antenna might require constant rotation to hit all of your transmission towers though. But there's another technique people use to avoid rotating antennas all the time, and that would require two cheaper indoor antennas joined with a special splitter/combiner. You would aim each antenna towards a different transmission tower, the signal then gets combined and fed into your TV's coaxial tuner. That review i linked above also discusses cheaper indoor antennas which you can find on amazon or ebay.

Otherwise i'd wait for at least a few more opinions before purchasing anything.

Good luck.
 
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