NEW to HTPC!!...want input. (1 Viewer)

[Angelo_Petralba]

Well here is my Gaming PC that I built and want to give it double duty as an HTPC. What all do I need, besides/ speakers, amps tv..ec to get this going.

My System is as follows:

RADEON 9600XT 128Mb
DVD+RW 4X RICOH
AMD 2500/333 ATHLON XP BARTON - OCed to 3200
NFORCE2 A7N8X-E DELUXE ASUS
DDR 2X256M PC-3200 - Gail
ANTEC CASE with TRUE 380W PSU - Sonata
40GB 7200RPM ATA100 WD - My old Gateway Seagate Drive
SB Live 5.1
Live 5.1 Surround Speakers

Edit: OS - XP Profesional corporate edition.

How do I hook all these to my Receiver/TV?? Do I even need a receiver??

Im stumped. (Specially wiring the stuff)

Angelo

 

[Scott L]

What do you want to do with it?

As far as connections, your nForce2 mobo should have a digital output to connect your receiver with. The 9600xt has an S-video output to an analog NTSC TV you have. If your display is progressive though there are better options.

 

[Angelo_Petralba]

ok, so basically this HTPC is only a DVD player/Scaler...am I on the right track?
I just want to be able to watch DVD's in the room and maybe paly some games online with a BIG screen tv rather than this 21" Monitor.

Angelo

 

[RobertR]

Yes, the HTPC functions as a player/scaler. Unless I’m mistaken, the SB Live also has a digital output. Hook it up to your receiver the same way you would any other digital source. As for the video, what kind of display is your big screen TV? HTPCs really only make sense with projectors that are high resolution and have a connector that can take advantage of it, such as VGA or RGBHV or DVI. I run VGA into the RGBHV connections on my projector from my HTPC, and I scale DVDs to 1280x720 for anamorphic, and 1280x960 for nonanamorphic.

See here for more info:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...threadid=31225

 

[Don_Goreham]

You seem to have everything you need for a HTPC as far as hardware. I'm not sure why you have the soundblaster as the A7N8X comes with Soundstorm audio, 5.1 analog, and digital out. At least mine did.

Do you have a big screen display already? If you don't, you want to make sure that it has a vga or a DVI input. You will more than likely need to use a program called powerstrip to set a custom resolution that your display can accept.

Use an RCA cable to attach the digital output of the mobo to the digital input of your receiver. Or you could use the analog outs.

If you have any more questions I would be more than glad to help.

later,

Don

 

[Angelo_Petralba]

OK-

Thanks for the links and it seems like I DO have a capable machine to do an HTPC.

I want to integrate it into my Home Theater set-up which consist of the following:

Hitachi 53SDX01B RPTV - HDTV Ready set
Sony STR-DA5ES Receiver
Parasound 855a Amplifier.

Now, from what I'm reading, All I need is some sort of connection from my Video Card to my TV or Receiver that will convert the Video and play at higher resolution on my Hitachi.

What type of connector will I need? Is this set-up READY for HTPC?

I do have the S/PDIF connector from the Mobo...Is this the same as Digital Coax?

My Video Card has S-Video and DVI connectors, How can I get it to connect/convert it to Component Video??? Will S-Video be good enough?

Man, this is getting quite exciting just reading some info.

Angelo

 

[Angelo_Petralba]

Just an Update-

I finally hooked up my HTPC to my HDTV yesterday (but with only S-Video) and everything seems to be working fine except the video needs to be a little better.

The sound is hooked up via the SPDIF and I get DD and DTS great, BUT it seems to be a little on the soft side of things or it seems to be loosing a lot ot LOW END response.

I played it straight for over 5 hours (3 movies) and that thing stayed at 50 Degrees although it is a little noisy due to the Video Card Fan.

Overscan is definitely a problem when I view some ATI demos, but Im sure Dscaler and PowerStrip will probably fix it. (I just need to get familiar with the software).

When the DVI->Component comes in from ATI, I'll try that and see if I get better video quality.

Thanks for the input and links

Angelo

 

[Sami Kallio]

You will get considerably better picture with the DVI adapter.

 

[SethH]

I realize this is a little off topic, but it seems a crime to put all this into a pc, overclock the pc, and then only put 2x256 MB of RAM in it. Windows XP will eat up a large portion of 256 MB at any given time which only leaves you with ~ 256 to work with. If you're taking the time to overclock and put all this other stuff into it I would think at least 1 GB would be in order. I realize it may be a financial issue, but look around on Ebay and you can probably pick up 2x512 fairly cheap.

 

[Angelo_Petralba]

seth-

Thanks for the input. I do plan on getting more memory soon, it was nt on sale at NewEgg at the time.

Angelo