Introduction
Determining your needs
Basic Hardware
Audio
Video
Video Card Configuration
LIRC
Input Devices
TV/HDTV Tuner Cards
Installing Linux
HTPC Software
HTPC Tips and Tricks
Conclusion

Basic Hardware

Now we take a closer look at each area of hardware and bring you up to speed on what to pick and why. Read through this information and add the correct information to each of your lists.

CPU

There are really just 2 brands of CPU's that most people will want to consider for their HTPC's (Right now). Intel and AMD. Another choice could be VIA C3 CPU's but their CPU speeds only go up to 1Ghz, making some features such as software HDTV decoding impossible. The reason is that in order to do On Screen Display, which is a nice feature for TV/HDTV, you have to modify the video output. If this is not done in software the video card has to support video overlay and video decoding, which does not exist in any card shipping yet. Once a card ships with this, each application needs to develop support for the card. My estimate is that this type of HTPC is about one to two years away and it is where technology and HTPC's will move into.) If you don't mind about overylay, then a VIA may work fine if your video card is supported by XvMC (MPEG2 hardware decoding).

If you do use an Intel or AMD, here are the facts and my thoughts. Intel CPU's are better at some things and AMD CPU's are better at others. My last 2 systems have had AMD CPU's because they are cheaper for about the amount of processing power. The differences that we care about between CPU's brands are in 3D processing and what I call "Media" processing. Intel CPU's are typically much better for 3D (Even if you have the best Video Card in existence, the CPU does effect up to about 30% of the performance). Intel CPU's do about 30% better comparing a P4 2.6GHZ to an AMD 2600 (Which is really 2.13GHZ). Also, Intel does about 30% better in "Media" processing. By Media processing I mean encoding and decoding audio and video files such as MPEG2, Divx, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3. If you are a hard core gammer you'll want an Intel, and will probably be spending a good $200-$300 for your CPU. For normal HTPC use, AMD is what I recommend to help save money. An AMD Althon XP 2500+ or a P4 2.2Ghz is my minimum recomendation. If you can get a better CPU than these for under $100, do that. $100 is a good price range for a CPU. If your only option is a 1.2Ghz or better, you may be able to use that CPU with a video card that supports XvMC, but I highly discourage this. The reason is you loose overlay and other possible functionality.

Hard Drives

The main HTPC concern (Once your HTPC is finished) will be your hard disk space if you're going to do TV or HDTV. I'll describe some tricks later for minimizing the disk space needed but still plan on getting as much disk space as possible (This makes frustration over having to delete your favorite shows so you can record more -- as you'll find out you record much more than you can watch) Once nice thing is that with Linux, we can do software raid. Software raid is the ability to make four drives look like one large drive. You can either dig up some 20GB or 30GB drives to get a useful amount of disk space, or buy 8 250GB IDE drives to create a 2TB disk. I do discourage putting a bunch of old drives together if you can help it. I personally buy my hard drives from CompUSA when they have amazing sales/rebates. (Make sure you keep copy your rebates in case they "loose" yours. I haven't had a problem, but others have.) Don't pay more than $.70 per gigabyte though. I paid $100 after rebates for a 180GB 7200RPM Western Digital drive (normally $230). I'll buy more of these as they go on sale, but get at least 100GB or larger. Consider no less than 150GB if you're doing HDTV. Also, you can always install a PCI IDE controller, and for each of those controllers, you can attach 4 more drives, but make sure you have a large enough power supply to do this. I will probably stop with 8 drives when I'm done, average of 200GB per disk, unless blue laser DVD burners come out in the next year. (Which are 28GB DVD's) I fill an average of 10 GB's a day, and I keep an average of 30 GB's per month. Sadly, you really can't get enough hard disk space for what you'll need to watch all the HDTV you miss. (All those Trading Spaces, Nature, and Nova shows... But then there is the libraries collection)

Memory:

Get the fastest that your motherboard supports. I'm using 256MB of PC2700 ram. It's enough for my needs, I probably could have done with 128MB, but 256MB is a safer choice for only a few dollars more.

Motherboard:

All motherboard makers have at least one motherboard that is junk. This is where your warranty can become very important. There is nothing worse than spending two weekends working to find out a motherboard has a hardware conflict with another expensive piece of hardware and is impossible to resolve. Asus, Intel, Shuttle, Gigabyte brands typically have stable motherboards, but not always. Try to find a motherboard that has an NForce chipset on it. NForce 2 is the latest chipset and it is a good choice because it already has on board DD/DTS audio via Coaxial and TOSLINK (Optical) outputs. Other good chipsets are Intel and VIA but if you want DD/DTS sound you will have to buy an extra sound card that does this. Other features of a motherboard that you need to consider are serial ATA, Firewire/1394, USB 2.0, and the number of PCI slots. Serial ATA could replace ATA 133 one day as it boasts transfer rates of 150+MB/s. This faster data transfer rate is only useful if information has already been read from the disk, so the average transfer rate will be about 30MB/s, same as ATA 133. Serial ATA also uses less power but the number of drives you can put on most motherboards is two. I still recommend not going with serial ATA because it is not cost efficient yet. Serial ATA drives will probably not become cheaper for the same disk size until two to three years in the future. If you do use serial ATA, just realize that the that you will be paying a bit more for future compatibility. One nice thing about serial ATA is that you can buy a PCI serial ATA card for $500 right now that supports eight drives, but that's expensive. Firewire/1394 is an interface that allows you to connect devices such as external hard drives, cameras, CD burners, etc. If you have a device that uses firewire you probably want to consider getting it on board or at least a PCI card that supports it. USB 2.0 is the newest USB technology and it is included on most motherboards. If your motherboard does not support it then don't buy that motherboard (The motherboard is outdated and is probably missing other useful features). Most motherboards also have 5 or 6 PCI slots. If you aren't able to get on board DD/DTS sound, on board networking, or on board 1394 you may only have 2 slots left for TV Tuner cards. I have 4 HDTV tuner cards, a sound card, and a 1394 card so I couldn't add anything else even if something cool comes out. If you only have 2 (or 6) PCI slots, you need to be aware that you may not be able fit everything you want into a certain motherboard. Finally, you get what you pay for. Saving a few bucks could mean countless hours wasted time just to find out the one feature you really need isn't included on your motherboard.

Network Card:

Most on board (On your motherboard) network cards work. If you don't have on board networking and will not reconsider my advice to find one that does, I recommend Netgear cards as they are cheap and very compatible.

Case, Power supply, and fans:

Ahh, the beauty part. This can be quite a bit more important than most people first think. Do you want a full or mid size computer tower case sitting next to, or on top of your nice HDTV or Plasma screen? That's probably a No. For myself, I took the typical computer case route and bought the cheapest case I found with a 350 Watt power supply. I bought this after I had been using my HTPC for a month on a 250 Watt power supply. I had been worried that the 250 Watt non-certified power supply was staying to warm, and that I should cave in and get at least a 300 Watts K7/P4 certified power supply for my AMD 2600 CPU.

Let me explain that myth. A 400-2000 MHz CPU takes between 40-60 Watts (Peak). A video card takes about 30-60 Watts, unless you're getting the latest NVidia 5x00, 4x00 that takes about 90 Watts (Peak). Hard drives take about 5 Watts. Your motherboard takes about 20 Watts. My system takes in total about 180 Watts Peak, average 150 Watts. I thought that my HTPC was staying warm because of so much power being pulled through the 250 Watt power supply. I bought a new case with a 350 Watt power supply and I was surprised to find that it was even slightly warmer than the 250 Watt power supply.

After a bit of research I found all this information out about how many Watts a computer or HTPC really needs. The reason there are now certified power supplies is because power supply companies had cut corners in the past and didn't provide enough power for some outputs from the power supply. The amount of power that was sent to the motherboard (Vs. hard drives and fans) was not enough to run the latest video cards or CPU's and it caused new systems to be unstable when needing peak performance. In my case, the 250 Watt power supply had enough output in Watts for my CPU and video card and I was safe. Buying a new power supply only provided me with the option to put all the hard drives I could want in the system. What I should have done when buying a new power supply, and what I am doing now, is buying a quieter power supply. The rumble of a computer fan can be very annoying in quiet points in movies or music. My recommendation for power supplies is to find the quietest one you can afford and buy that. Quiet power supplies either have the label of Silent or Ultra Quiet. This means they have a decibel rating of less than 40, but you want one that is under 30. Anandtech has a recent review and noise test levels for their power supplies and so does Toms Hardware.

Shuttle Cases
These are great little systems if you only want one or 2 TV/HDTV tuner cards. It has on board TOSLINK optical out for sound, it's quiet, has a 200 Watt power supply for a AMD Athlon 3000 processor. There's no need to have more than 200 Watts if you're not going to add more than one or two hard drives and a PCI card. Rarely would you need more than 200 Watts, let alone 350 Watts for any computer. The Shuttles come with Micro ATX or ITX motherboards that work well with Linux, and they have all the main computer needs on board. The case and motherboard together are only about $200. They are about 8 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 14 inches deep. Check www.shuttle.com for more information.
HTPC "AV BOX"
There are some very nice AV consumer electronic type cases out there. However, they're very expensive. Around $200 for the case, and often without a power supply. The good part is it's just a desktop computer with molding like that of an AV receiver, but you can put the normal 6 PCI cards in it, and normally the fronts have panels that fold down for access to the DVD or CDRW drive. This are great as you can put it with all your other AV equipment and it appears seamless. I personally won't buy one of these until they're under $60.
http://www.wspc.biz/intro.html

Heating/Cooling

Cooling as an important part of a computer system. The Shuttles for example, are low wattage so they can have quieter and smaller fans in them. Some people choose to get massive heat sinks so they don't need a CPU fan at all, and then get "ultra quiet" power supplies so the system is almost totally silent. This is actually very important. My HTPC is sitting next to an AV equipment cabinet. The computer is noticeably loud because of the power supply fan. If I had a desktop type instead of tower case, I could have at least tried putting it my AV equipment cabinet, but then there could have heating problems as it is a closed back cabinet. Just some things to consider. You can always replace a power supply or other fans and put an "ultra quiet" one.

Now for heating. Have you ever really figured out how much power your computer used? As I said earlier, mine uses 150 watts average. At $.08/Kilowatt cost for power, that's $91.10 a year I pay in power for the system. Then there is the cost of cooling it. By this I mean during the summer, you'll be needing to cool your home, and cooling the air your computer is heating. You may not think this is much, but it adds up. For ever watt you use in your home, you're generating 3.414 BTU's of heat per hour. So for every hour my computer is on, it create 512 BTU's of heat, or 12290 BTU's of heat per day. An air conditioner cools 36000 BTU's per hour for ever "Ton". Average air conditioners are 3 "Tons". Most homes also leak about 90000 BTU's per day. So by having my computer run 24 hours a day, it adds 10% more to my cooling bill. This is something to consider for any electronic device you run, but home computers and HTPC's are taking more and more power with each generation. This is another hidden cost in your budget that isn't bad to know about. Almost no one will think of this, and no, the heat generated in the winter won't offset the cost. Cooling is more expensive than heating, and most climates only heat 1/4th of the year. Just be aware that this could be an issue and plan accordingly for your HTPC.

Inputs (Keyboard, Mouse, Remote, Joystick, Game pad)

Being as it is still a computer, you will need a keyboard and mouse. Many people go for wireless keyboards and mice but this isn't always the best, or needed really. Any remote can perform any of these functions if setup right, including moving the mouse and being a keyboard. If you are planning on doing gamming you will need a good keyboard, mouse, and or joystick/game pad. Gaming inputs require higher precision inputs than what is required for listening and watching media.

Warranty

I can not stress enough how important it is to buy parts from a place with a good warranty. Always try to find a local computer store with good prices and good warranties. A stores return/refund policy is also very important. I recommend checking out Circuit City for computer hardware as their return/refund policy is, "We want to make sure you're completely satisfied with anything you buy from us. Try it out for 14 days. If something is not right or you've simply changed your mind, please return it within that time so we can either exchange it or give you your money back." They have no re-stocking fee if you get something, try it, and find out there is a hardware compatibility issue you can only solve by getting different hardware. Most companies consider hardware compatibility issues as not their fault. They won't refund your money and will tell you to contact the hardware maker, who will tell you it's always the other hardware devices fault. Because of only 14 days return policy, don't buy your hardware until you are ready to put it together and test it. If you get some hardware online and some local, buy online hardware first as that will likely take longer and be harder to return if you do have problems.

Where to buy a HTPC or Parts for a HTPC

It is possible to buy a ready to use HTPC online but I don't recommend any of them. I have researched 10 models from different makers. My conclusion is it is not even worth the $2000+ for $500 in hardware that is guaranteed to work together well. Most hardware is outdated and so is the software that it comes with. HTPC's are changing so fast that software is outdated every six or so months. If you want a good HTPC you have to start with what you can buy right this moment -- Not what was designed a year ago. Also, if you pick the right Linux distribution and PVR software then upgrading takes just 30 minutes every few of months.

There also isn't a place just to buy good HTPC all put together for a good price. Rarely do you find a PC with DD/DTS TOSLINK optical out, or with DVI video, or with a wireless keyboard and mouse. If you do find a good price on a PC, they probably cut a few corners somewhere that you will end up regretting. It's simply cheaper and better to buy all the right things as parts and put them together yourself. Building a computer is easy and everyone probably knows someone who can help if needed.

If you do want a Linux HTPC done correctly and with the latest hardware and software built for you, contact me.