Build your own Stand-Alone...

[therealjoeblow]

As a preface - this is *not* meant to be inflamatory, it's for discussion purposes, because I *really* don't get it...

I just don't understand the big deal with standalones and why everyone's so keen on getting one, or trying to force compatibility with them. Why would anyone want to shell out between $150 and $300 for a proprietary box that has insurmountable inherent design limitations (ie non-upgradeable hardware), and software limitations that may or may not ever get addressed, which leave you at the mercy of waiting for firmware upgrades that are probably out of date already by the time they arrive?

For less money and a small amount of effort, you can assemble your own with none of the limitations. Here's the specs on my own 'stand-alone' that:

a) I can do whatever I want to in terms of hardware and software upgrades

b) can play every format that I can throw at it now and into the future (probably forever) - xvid, divx3,4,5, mpeg, DVD, VCD, SVCD, XCD, realmedia, quicktime, matroska, ogg, avi, mp3, ac3, dts, you name it

c) every member of my family can operate without knowing a thing about computers, including my 5 year old daughter

d) and cost me less than a standalone would:

-Last time I upgraded my main machine, I took my old Celeron 633 on a Soyo MB with 256mb of SDRAM, and threw it into a mini-case that I got from my local computer shop for $25 (I could have saved the $25 if I didn't mind keeping the larger standard case). It has the old 20 gb harddrive in it, running Win2kSP4, and the old 100mb ethernet card in it, and the old SBLive 5.1 sound card (the new machine came with onboard 5.1 surround sound).

-I got a used ATI Rage Fury Pro (with TV out) card for $25

-I bought an ATI Remote Wonder for $50

-I bought a Liteon DVD drive for $25 that will read ANYTHING!

-I installed: Divx 5.1.1; XviD 1.0RC3, AC3 Filter; Matroska Splitter; Tobias Ogg package; CoreAAC; CoreVorbis; VSFilter; XCD Filters; WinDVD 5; Winamp 2.9; Zoomplayer 3.x with customized skin made for TV display; Quicktime 6, Realplayer 10, Slysoft AnyDVD (removes macrovision), ATI Catalyst drivers (set to large fonts and TV out as default display), ATI Remote Wonder Software with WinDVD, Winamp and Zoomplayer Plugins, McAfee Antivirus software; Kerio Personal Firewall

And that's about it - this thing now sits nicely in my entertainment unit premanently connected to Line2 on the TV, and connected to my home LAN so I can push/pull files directly to the internal HD, or use the DVD drive if I want. I rarely ever have to use the keyboard, only if I need to update a codec or something, but that I can do the day it's released, never having to wait for mythical firmware updates.

And, like I said, you turn on the TV, click the DVD button on the ATI remote and you're up and running (hotkeys can be programmed on the remote to run zplayer with the appropriate commandline options to play all files on CD, set full screen, etc) - my 5 year old watches her divx cartoons all the time on this without an issue, she has no idea she's using a computer, as far as she knows it's the 'standalone DVD player'. But with no format limitations - if you can encode it, this can play it, including your entire MP3 audio collection, so you can dispense with the CD player too. And because I'm not using it as a real computer, it's rock-solid stable - the only time it reboots is when there's a power failure.

So, why would anyone seriously want to go any other route? Comments?

[Barker]

Do you leave this system running 24/7? What kind of noise does it produce when running? How many fans are installed in it?

I wanted to do this also, but I was concerned about my electric bill skyrocketing and the noise associated with fans and hard drives. I was thinking about doing it with an older (cooler) cpu that will run fine with just a heatsink (no fan) and use a flash card for the OS and temp file storage. That will probably leave the video card fan and the power supply fan as the only moving parts. Probably will be more expensive (for the flash memory).

Glad to hear the remote and tv-out combo works so well for you!

Regards,
Barker

[clayts450]

Noise and, I suppose, aesthetic appeal are my main reasons for wanting a standalone.

There's something rather nice about having a sleek machine nestled into my AV rack atop my other home audio/video treats.

The fan noise on a PC must surely be distracting ?

However, you do raise some pertinent issues - I firmly believe your approach is the one which will be the norm, rather than the exception, in the years ahead (see Media Centre PCs for example).There is more and more convergence between PCs and home cinema every day.

If the fan noise is eradicated, then you're spot on - most of us probably have half decent sound cards and graphic cards, and the software to do the deed.

However, I think the explosion in DVD's success (and I suspect DivX/XviD to follow suit once the US get hold of budget players) is in the accessibility and, more importantly, ever decreasing price in standalone players. Not all of us can afford a half-decent PC, yet $30 or £30 is manageable in anyone's money.

Interesting thoughts, and I'm certainly not discounting it for one minute - the PC as the home entertainment hub isn't that far away.

Bad news for folks like me running a predominantly DVD hardware site :( ;)

[Zhnujm]

I am using a pc much longer than a standalone player, its just 2 different things that you cannot easily compare. Some years ago i had the same thoughts as you, but things changed.
Maybe you have to try a standalone to see if its working better for you or not, i for myself dont play dvd/divx on my pc anymore.

An yes, my playback-pc makes no noise and is also remote controlled. Its still there because i use it for tv-capturing and as server.

[therealjoeblow]

I've never really measured with an ammeter, but as I understand it, the typical computer uses around 100 watts under normal computing load, arond 60 watts at rest, fully powered on, and 15~30 watts in low-power mode (from 'monitor off & harddrives spun down' mode @ 30w to full sleep mode @ 15w).

You can search the web for 'computer electricty useage' and the like, I found some details at:

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

My multimedia machine is turned on 24/7 with the harddrives set to spindown after 15 min of inactivity. I don't use sleep mode but I did try that for a while. There were no major issues but the remote won't wake up the machine - you need a newer motherboard to have the usb port (where the remote reciever connects) bring it out of hibernation. It gets 'real' use for probably 10~15 hours a week on average, between watching a couple or 3 movies and listening to music. Wifey doesn't complain about the power bill, so I'm assuming it's not a huge issue.

As far as fans - just the processor fan and the powersupply fan. It's noticeable, but just barely, but since the entertainment unit has glass doors, when they're closed you don't really hear it anymore. The back of the ent-unit is open enought to allow the warm air from the multimedia machine and all the other a/v equipment out - you need to take that (overall cooling) into consideration.

[Charbax2]

a standalona DivX player with ethernet port and space for any IDE harddrive will soon cost 50 euros..

Cause a standalone DivX player is just a chip, a player, a fast memory and sound and grafics stuff..


Computers are bulky, noizy and are not straight to the point..

the point is Video, On-demand and lots of it. Who needs Adobe Photoshop, Flash plug-ins and Excell!!!


So look forward to soon everybody will throw away their stupid computers and instead only need a standalone DivX player/recorder with internet connection at home and a wireless networkable wifi/3G portable DivX player/recorder.

[steven_m64]

if you worry about sound you can use a VIA cpu thay put off little heat and you can get a fanless passive heatsink for it, with a good quiet power supply.

as for the aesthetic part if you look around you can find pc cases that look exactly like a dvd player or if you have the brains you can make your own its not that hard.

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by steven_m64
As for the aesthetic part if you look around you can find pc cases that look exactly like a dvd player or if you have the brains you can make your own its not that hard. Yeah... (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64708) ;)


Bye

[Wolfman]

what about a monitor for your HTPC.. or do you do all stuff on the tv screen.. you need a spare pc ...and the knowledge to set it up and running... also boot times...if off,/heat issues if left running. standalone is on and go every time.......every single time...............as long as your firmware is right and the media is compatible and the interleave works ok and your player handles multiple avis but not wma etc etc :confused:

[steven_m64]

Any better hdtv's come with dvi ports and some even vga ports.
also if you have a ati all in wonder you can just use the component out adaptor.

a set top can only play some videos but a htpc can play ANY video, surf internet and even play games. have a good tv tuner you can turn it into a tivo a regular set top cant do that.

it wont get hot if you design it well, boot time's? you would set it to be on 24/7 with it going into standby whn not needed.

ALSO you can now buy HDTV cards and make it record hdtv also.

[Wolfman]

And where do you leave the keyboard and mouse? is that stacked neatly by the side of the telly (or remotePC if you have two pc's) :rolleyes:
Its a nice idea if you have a spare Pc.

[steven_m64]

for those looking to build small ones you might want to have a look at this website

http://mini-itx.com/

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by Wolfman
And where do you leave the keyboard and mouse? is that stacked neatly by the side of the telly (or remotePC if you have two pc's) :rolleyes:
Its a nice idea if you have a spare Pc.

-Monitor not required - TV-out connection (S-video cable) with large fonts is the *only* display on this machine.

-Mouse not required - the ATI Remote Wonder emulates the mouse with plenty of functionality

-Keyboard sits neatly ontop of the pc case (you remember the original IBM xt case from 1990 or so? It was'nt the typical tower we're used to today, but a long, flat thing that sat on your desk under your monitor?) Well, these days, they're making cases of similar formfactor again, but a lot slimmer and smaller - the one I've got is the same width as home theatre components (18"w, by about 4.5" high, so it really does look like a home theatre component)

This thread is starting to get a bit off topic for what I originally described. If you go back and read my original article, this is *not* intended to be a multipuropose computer, *not* for surfing, *not* game playing or anything but watching movies of any and all formats. Therefore, as I initially said, it truly *is* a stand-alone multimedia player, but with 100% compatibility and upgradeability, now and into the future.

Sure, you *can* make it al all-in-one machine for gaming, surfing and whatever else too, but now you're talking about a much more powerful unit, you'll need lots of memory, a fast processor, high end video, etc. I guess, though, that's one of the added benefits of using the PC over a stand alone, you *can* do whatever you want, from one extreme to another, there really is no limit, which, again, was the point of starting this discussion too - no limits (and why would anyone want to impose these with a proprietary standalone if you have another alternative at similar cost...)

As far as the 'extra PC for a multimedia machine' goes, though, again, as I said, you don't need to go out and spend over a thousand bucks on a new, 2nd machine - rather, the next time you do an upgrade, you can probably reuse most of your own parts, supplement with what you need to complete it for between $50 and $100 and 'Build your own Stand-Alone'...

[Wolfman]

you would set it to be on 24/7 SO your not running windows then! It definitely needs a reboot at least once a week. Remote PC allows you to do anything you want on a remotePC, as long as you have it set up correctly.. howver you still need a mouse and keyboard otherwise the machine wont boot properly. And unfortunately, what happens when the HD goes kaboom.Howver if you use a network and one of the ruggedized hard disk or Compact flash (1gb now 4gb soon) who needs a std hard disk?

without knowing a thing about computers, including my 5 year old daughter Daddy, I want to see that blue screen with the funny writing on it ;)
Thats called windows dearest!

[steven_m64]

i use linux and windows and i never had to reboot once a week.

ive had this windows box on 24/7 for the last 3 months(since the last power failure).

you can run without a keyboard and mouse or you can use a wireless keyboard and mouse while just hiding when not needed.

This (http://mini-itx.com/reviews/nehemiah/), RAM, Hard drive, Case, dvd-rom, will have you a verry powerfull small player.

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by Wolfman
SO your not running windows then! It definitely needs a reboot at least once a week. Remote PC allows you to do anything you want on a remotePC, as long as you have it set up correctly.. howver you still need a mouse and keyboard otherwise the machine wont boot properly. And unfortunately, what happens when the HD goes kaboom.Howver if you use a network and one of the ruggedized hard disk or Compact flash (1gb now 4gb soon) who needs a std hard disk?

Daddy, I want to see that blue screen with the funny writing on it ;)
Thats called windows dearest!

1) Reboot once a week? With Win2kSP4? You've got to be kidding - Even my main workstation only gets rebooted when I want it to, probably only once every 3 or 4 weeks, and that due to software install requirements. The HTPC - never, unless there's a powerfailure.

3) You ever read the specs on modern harrdrives? MTBF averages 300,000 hours - that's 34 years! I wouldn't worry, since I change mine out every 3 due to space constraints anyways. How many modern drives have you ever lost? I look after 50 machines at work, and over the last 10 years, and at least 3 upgrade rounds (that's over 150 harddrives), I've lost only one, and it turns out it was mishandled (ie. dropped) during shipping. In any case, for the HTPC, it's a simple thing to ghost the fully installated and configured disk image onto a CD, and if it goes south, repair it in 10 minutes.

3) Bluescreens??? - same comment, You must still be using Win98. Not with Win2kSP4 in 3 years on all 3 of my personal machines (mine, the Kids' play machine and the HTPC), except for one conflict with Kerio Personal Firewall, and that was a known issue caused by a bad software install.

3) You ever read the specs on modern harrdrives? MTBF averages 300,000 hours - that's 34 years. I wouldn't worry, since I change mine out every 3 due to space constraints anyways.

Believe me, the way my multimedia machine is setup, it *is* bulletproof, and the kids use it all the time without fail as proof. You're obviously not a believer (and therefore clearly haven't tried it). That's fine, your perogative - just don't be inflamatory with criticisms about things that aren't based in fact please.

[Wolfman]

well I've lost two hard drives in three years .. so I should be good for 70+ years.. And no i dont suffer windows crashes now but I do need to reboot, simply for performance sake, as I run more than 1 program at a time, and I do install and use new programs on a frequent basis (and uninstall them). And no I am not a true believer, I have no personal stake or need to advocate any solution. Windows is the least worst solution I have available..I use winxp pro.
No crashes?, no hardware faults? no reboots? works out of the box? bully for you.

[jimmy basushi]

i atucally use a win98 system as my gateway computer (my freebsd box died, and i havent got around to installing freebsd on this one :rolleyes: ) and i get 1.5 - 2 weeks uptime on it running nat, firewall and seti@home.

it uses a 1.5 gig harddrive that i bought 6+ years ago, and have been running constantly since then.. i just cant turn it off anymore cause it has problems spinning up.

wolfman - i think you'll find thats the route of any problem you have with windows. installing new programs, it just cant handle having to much crap on your system.

[dead]

if somebody can tell me how i can make a stand alone player that would virtually have no noise, at least when your watching the movie, that'd be great

[monty0815]

@wanked
If you want no noise at all you should just find components, that don't need cooling. So maybe a via cpu (if that is fast enough for your needs) and a graphic card with passive cooling. Then there are the hdd and the cd-rom, which you could prevent by streaming from samba shares or similar.

cheers, monty

[langman]

Using a old PC adding a few items "it costs you $125" is an option. I also though of that. $125 was without the CPU, ram, etc. You can sold that old PC for a few $??, or pass it down to your children. Making a few calculations left me with no other option than to buy a standalone for $185 or less. With this you get OPTIC, COAX, 5.1 audio out, no noise, better looking, etc. No need for software MS$, winDVD, etc.

[dead]

i really don't care much about the noise, but i don't want to hear the comp running while watching a movie, can somebody give me some details on what i could build for under $200?

[int 21h]

Stay away from those VIA CPUS, they really aren't worth the trouble.

Practical ways to eliminate noise:
Replace all the fans with these: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-999-602&catalog=62&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=0&section=3

Get a Zalmann (or comparable) large sized copper CPU cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-118-101&depa=0

Practical ways to increase stability and the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor):
Get a remote control... the Hauppage PVR250 comes with one. This has the added advantage of giving you Mpeg-2 hardware based encoding (that works in Linux).
Don't use Windows. Windows is finnicky and not very versatile (and even though I use WindowsXP everyday, it doesn't seem to work as well as Linux for a PVR). Use Linux, you can do all of the things that you can in a Windows PVR but with alot less horsepower. Not too mention, things like LVM (Linux Volume Manager) give you many, many configuration options (for example, tonight I expanded my HTPC's video partition by 60GB without losing its contents or even turning off the television)
With a package like MythTV, you can view DVDs, view movies, listen to MP3s, record television, schedule television recordings (with commercial skip of course), navigate with an onscreen program guide, etc, all just like a Tivo with no monthly fee. I have my MythTV hooked up to my satellite reciever via a serial cord and it even changes the channel for me when its time to record something (similar to ReplayTV and Tivo's IRBlaster idea).

Practical advantages to MythTV over other PVR systems
You only need to run one backend for MythTV. You can plug multiple tuners into it and record multiple shows simultaneously. You can run frontends wherever you want in your house. The frontend has been ported to Xbox (for modded Xboxes only), so you can watch your recordings right from the living room without adding a computer to that room. Using a computer for a standalone gives you high resolution output for your HDTV (or for planning in the future, if you're poor like me :) )

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll mention it here as well, there is a great, very easy to follow guide for getting MythTV up and running with Fedora Core here: http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/#intro

I followed it around 6 months ago and have been running very smoothly ever since. I've definitely fallen in love with how it has changed tv watching. If you're just curious about what MythTV is, you can check out more here: http://www.mythtv.org/

If you still insist on using Windows because of worries about Linux, you can try out something called SageTV, which is not an entirely bad product, its not free, and it only works with hardware based encoding chipsets, but its still pretty decent. It is what I first started testing this idea on before I switched to MythTV.

[dead]

does it matter what motherboard i choose and also what graphic card would be good for a stand alone player and also capturing shows

[int 21h]

I use a Hauppage PVR-250 to capture television with a nforce2 based motherboard running an AMD AthlonXP 2200+. I use an old nvidia geforce card for TV-out functionality.

Works great.

[techz]

I am VERY interested and am definately going to do this,
i have an old pc w/o a hdd, going out to buy a small hdd, its a
P2 333, 64MB RAM, ATI AIW Rage 128 w/32MB, and ran quite smoothly til the hdd crashed, all that i need is a remote, a small hdd, and i'm done, i knew i joined this forum for a reason :D

[Dimmer]

I tried to hook up composite TV-out of my ATI Radeon VIVO card to the TV, and I found that the quality is not that good in comparison with a standalone DVD player connected to the same input. The picture was less sharp and a bit blurry as is out of focus. Is it just my card or is it a normal occurence for TV-out cards? Unfortunately, I don't have S-Video in on my TV.Originally posted by therealjoeblow
Why would anyone want to shell out between $150 and $300 for a proprietary box that has insurmountable inherent design limitations (ie non-upgradeable hardware), and software limitations that may or may not ever get addressed, which leave you at the mercy of waiting for firmware upgrades that are probably out of date already by the time they arrive?@therealjoeblow: If you live in Canada, you can go to Costco and get an Apex-like standalone for CND $80 (with taxes that's about US $60), which would play anything you want from any non-standard disc. All these cheap players have CD-upgradeable firmware and everything you need for hacking Macrovision, regions, etc. Although it's an interesting project making a home theatre PC, you can't beat the aestetics of the all these modern slim shiny standalones, even though most of them come with ugliest remotes.

[langman]

@ Techz

That 333MHz is going to be to slow

[dead]

Originally posted by dimmer
I tried to hook up composite TV-out of my ATI Radeon VIVO card to the TV, and I found that the quality is not that good in comparison with a standalone DVD player connected to the same input. The picture was less sharp and a bit blurry as is out of focus. Is it just my card or is it a normal occurence for TV-out cards? Unfortunately, I don't have S-Video in on my TV.@therealjoeblow: If you live in Canada, you can go to Costco and get an Apex-like standalone for CND $80 (with taxes that's about US $60), which would play anything you want from any non-standard disc. All these cheap players have CD-upgradeable firmware and everything you need for hacking Macrovision, regions, etc. Although it's an interesting project making a home theatre PC, you can't beat the aestetics of the all these modern slim shiny standalones, even though most of them come with ugliest remotes.

you sure apex standalone players can play xvid and you can upgrade the firmware to the last codec?

[Dimmer]

Originally posted by dead
you sure apex standalone players can play xvid and you can upgrade the firmware to the last codec?There are many players that support xvid nowadays. You can check out http://www.dvdrhelp.com, they list over a hundred of these. Of course, firmware updates come out not as often as new codecs.

[techz]

Originally posted by langman
@ Techz

That 333MHz is going to be to slow

its just to play divx and other movies, not dvd's got a standalone dvd player already hooked up

[Wolfman]

its just to play divx and other movies, not dvd's DIVX/XVID requires greater "horsepower" than playing mpeg2, mostly because its more compressed.

[langman]

The 333MHz will play DVD's. For MPEG4 (DivX, etc) you need at least a 600Mhz. I got a 400Mhz, 600Mhz and 2.4GHz PC. The 400 play them, if you use DivX player but not so smoothly. The 600 is OK, but its busy, hit Ctrl,Alt,Del in XP while its playing a MPEG4 movie and see under the performance tab how busy the processor is.

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by langman
The 333MHz will play DVD's. For MPEG4 (DivX, etc) you need at least a 600Mhz. I got a 400Mhz, 600Mhz and 2.4GHz PC. The 400 play them, if you use DivX player but not so smoothly. The 600 is OK, but its busy, hit Ctrl,Alt,Del in XP while its playing a MPEG4 movie and see under the performance tab how busy the processor is. Depends also on your playback purpose...

- Resolution n' bitrate

- Extra settings like QPel, GMC n' BVOP's

- Post processing (De-blocking n' de-ring)

- Other filtering (Resizing, de-noising etc.)


I would like to have a 4GHz CPU for all this stuff... :D


But for DVD-resolution @ moderate bitrates with no pp n' no extra stuff... 500MHz should be enough !!!


Bye

[MoFoQ]

strange, I can play divx (3.11 and up) avi's just fine (with no visible flickering or such) with an old 233MHz. Of course, using ffdshow/ffmpeg.

[techz]

Originally posted by MoFoQ
strange, I can play divx (3.11 and up) avi's just fine (with no visible flickering or such) with an old 233MHz. Of course, using ffdshow/ffmpeg.

My HERO :D

[therealjoeblow]

Originally posted by Dimmer
I tried to hook up composite TV-out of my ATI Radeon VIVO card to the TV, and I found that the quality is not that good in comparison with a standalone DVD player connected to the same input. The picture was less sharp and a bit blurry as is out of focus. Is it just my card or is it a normal occurence for TV-out cards? Unfortunately, I don't have S-Video in on my TV.

@therealjoeblow: If you live in Canada, you can go to Costco and get an Apex-like standalone for CND $80 (with taxes that's about US $60), which would play anything you want from any non-standard disc. All these cheap players have CD-upgradeable firmware and everything you need for hacking Macrovision, regions, etc. Although it's an interesting project making a home theatre PC, you can't beat the aestetics of the all these modern slim shiny standalones, even though most of them come with ugliest remotes.

If this is a Radeon, Are you using a recent version of the Catalyst drivers? Older versions (or non-radeon ATI cards, ie, Rage 128, etc) don't support some of the advanced settings. If so, go into the detailed settings page for the TV display - on the various tabs, you'll find "Flicker Removal" - set that to OFF (slide the slider all the way to the left) - when turned on, it blurs the display very noticeably; "Composite Sharpness" - set to Maximum; "Contrast" - set to maximum; "Color Saturation" - set to about 3/4 or 75%; "Dot Crawl" - set to normal (if you have a newer high quality TV with a 3d/y filter, it will do a much better job of removing dot crawl than the ATI driver will, the driver tends to blur things a bit when this is enabled).

With those settings, I find that I get a *better* picture using composite than with the S-video; no matter how I tweak it, the S-video always seems to be more washed out. In both cases I'm using ultra shielded home theatre grade cables with machined and gold plated connectors, so it is not cable problems. Anyway, the composite connection is plenty sharp enough that @ 800x600 (my standard HTPC mode resolution) I can easily read normal text on the TV (ie. non-large fonts). I use IE on this unit all the time to read IMDb pages for the movies I'm watching without any trouble at all.

I've got this connected to a Panasonic 32" HDTV monitor (CT32HL42). The quality of xvid and divx encodes done with recent builds of AutoGK look indistinguishable from the original DVD's played back on this setup. Sure, when switching to VGA you can see the difference, but on the TV - no way. Noone that's seen my ATI Radeon output to the Panny can tell that it's an encoded avi file.

As far as spending $80 on a stand alone, I stand by my original comments - The HTPC is *so* much more adaptable, upgradeable, and useful for other purposes too, I'd *never* buy a dedicated stand alone. NEVER. I guess you're either from one of 2 camps - yay or nay, and as I said, that's fine, we're all entitled to our own preferences.


** Someone else was asking about remote controls - the ATI Remote Wonder or Remote Wonder II both work *very* well (the RW-II has a nicer look and feel to it, but uses the same drivers and really ,provides the same functionality) , and come bundled with any of the ATI All-in-Wonder boards for no extra. ATI's latest driver offerings are bulletproof, and so much better than they were years ago. You would not be disappionted with any of their Radeon cards with TV out and Remote Wonders.

[Dimmer]

@therealjoeblow
Thanks for your comments. I use the recent Catalyst drivers, but my card is a bit old - drivers recognize it as Radeon 7200. It only allows TV out in 640*480 mode, but since I don't have a HDTV set, higher resolution would't make much difference. I played with this for a while and then gave it up in favor of the standalones since they are cheap like dirt, and I'm not into downloading movies hence I don't care about the codecs. However, I use the same card with the great results to capture the digital cable programming, and I already burned a small DVD library of the old TV shows that haven't been released on DVD, which I watch then on a standalone.

What I'm really waiting for is a drop in price of the large LCD panels. Then it will be HTPC time for me!

EDIT:
The thread was started by saying that it's cheaper to build HTPC than to buy standalone. In the course of discussion, it became obvious that HTPC is way more expensive than standalone, but also a way more fun.

[Wolfman]

poweroid in the UK are making what everyone here is describing, with the emphasis on noise reduction. It uses a Zalman CASE which is only £820 .. but it has no fans* . The whole PC is virtually noiseless and comes in at a very resonable £1870 with all the top rated components.
p4 3.2 1gb pc3200 250gb

* it has no fans bcoz it costs £820 :D