New HTPC System

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: oneshot47

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: Goi
Do I hear Bose? Hehe...

P4s are better if you're gonna be doing any sort of video post-processing via ffdshow. Many avid HTPC enthusiasts do that, including rescaling to HD resolutions, sharpening, denoise3d, de-interlace, etc. All these are operations that will kill any AMD processor, even the A64s. In fact, P4s can barely handle them either unless u have a 3+GHz model.

Can these things be done at recording time, so it just takes longer to process incoming video before it is ready to be viewed? Or do they have to run at playback time (maybe PCI-E will end up helping someday if that's the case)

He obviously went for 'bang for the buck' and there's absolutely no way any intel system could be as fast as this one for the price.

"Bang for the buck"? Bose? Couldnt be farther from the truth.

I already own the speakers...I just don't want to go spending $2000 on the HTPC.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Aganack1
I own that case and to be honest it sucks... the door on mine after about a month wont close tight. its not easy to work inside of. make sure your cpu socket isn't close to the edge of your board, your power supply will be right on top of it. it only holds two hard drives (which i thought would be plenty considering i had never owned more then one before... i now own 6 and had to switch cases.) it only supports 60mm case fans which in a htpc kind suck becasue they are loud.

Do you have a recommendation for a better case?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: oneshot47
"Bang for the buck"? Bose? Couldnt be farther from the truth.

Indeed - I definitely wasn't talking about the Bose!

 

[Aganack1]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Aganack1
I own that case and to be honest it sucks... the door on mine after about a month wont close tight. its not easy to work inside of. make sure your cpu socket isn't close to the edge of your board, your power supply will be right on top of it. it only holds two hard drives (which i thought would be plenty considering i had never owned more then one before... i now own 6 and had to switch cases.) it only supports 60mm case fans which in a htpc kind suck becasue they are loud.

Do you have a recommendation for a better case?

What is important to you in a HTPC Case?
is it important that it is a desktop or a tower?

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Lyfer
I hope your gonna OC that cpu. XP2200 seems mighty slow for a HTPC. Why not an Athlon 64 2800 with cool n quiet enabled? (just slap on a Thermalright SLk948 with the stealth fan).

Are there any Athlon64 boards that have Soundstorm? I haven't been able to find any.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Aganack1

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Aganack1
I own that case and to be honest it sucks... the door on mine after about a month wont close tight. its not easy to work inside of. make sure your cpu socket isn't close to the edge of your board, your power supply will be right on top of it. it only holds two hard drives (which i thought would be plenty considering i had never owned more then one before... i now own 6 and had to switch cases.) it only supports 60mm case fans which in a htpc kind suck becasue they are loud.

Do you have a recommendation for a better case?

What is important to you in a HTPC Case?
is it important that it is a desktop or a tower?

I want something that has the look and feel of HT equipment-hence the Ahanix. I've looked at others from Silverstone (I believe) but haven't found anything I really liked. I like some of the other Ahanix ones but they are all microATX.

 

[rbV5]

You could check Digital Connection, they have HTPC Cases and other Home Theater equipment to check out.

Head over to AVS Forum for a great site full of dedicated enthusiasts if you haven't checked it out. Be sure to check the HTPC forum.

It really pays to do your research, there's just so many variables/approaches to consider.

Edit: fixed link

 

[clarkkent333]

If you want to fix your overscan issues your going to need Powerstrip. It can create custom timings for your setup.

 

[Alternex]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Aganack1
I own that case and to be honest it sucks... the door on mine after about a month wont close tight. its not easy to work inside of. make sure your cpu socket isn't close to the edge of your board, your power supply will be right on top of it. it only holds two hard drives (which i thought would be plenty considering i had never owned more then one before... i now own 6 and had to switch cases.) it only supports 60mm case fans which in a htpc kind suck becasue they are loud.

Do you have a recommendation for a better case?

I'm building a HTPC and getting this case
Silverstone LC03 http://www.systemcooling.com/silverstone_sst-lc03-01.html
They also have a VFD version but it's a bit more expensive.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Goi
Do I hear Bose? Hehe...

P4s are better if you're gonna be doing any sort of video post-processing via ffdshow. Many avid HTPC enthusiasts do that, including rescaling to HD resolutions, sharpening, denoise3d, de-interlace, etc. All these are operations that will kill any AMD processor, even the A64s. In fact, P4s can barely handle them either unless u have a 3+GHz model.

Last night I hooked up my file server to my TV to try out my All-in-Wonder again. For fun, I decided to try ffdshow w/TheaterTek to see how well it worked. The system I used this on was an Athlon 1.4GHz (NOT XP), 768MB PC2100 RAM, 60GB hard drive (2MB cache), Windows XP Pro. I was able to watch a ripped movie (done in DVDShrink with no compression) through ffdshow with minor stuttering...the playback was very good IMO. If a 1.4 can handle it I would say 80%, then couldn't an XP2500 or around there do it fine? I don't see how I'd need a P4 3.0 or anything, unless I was doing something else CPU intensive in the background (which I never would).

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Goi
Do I hear Bose? Hehe...

P4s are better if you're gonna be doing any sort of video post-processing via ffdshow. Many avid HTPC enthusiasts do that, including rescaling to HD resolutions, sharpening, denoise3d, de-interlace, etc. All these are operations that will kill any AMD processor, even the A64s. In fact, P4s can barely handle them either unless u have a 3+GHz model.

Last night I hooked up my file server to my TV to try out my All-in-Wonder again. For fun, I decided to try ffdshow w/TheaterTek to see how well it worked. The system I used this on was an Athlon 1.4GHz (NOT XP), 768MB PC2100 RAM, 60GB hard drive (2MB cache), Windows XP Pro. I was able to watch a ripped movie (done in DVDShrink with no compression) through ffdshow with minor stuttering...the playback was very good IMO. If a 1.4 can handle it I would say 80%, then couldn't an XP2500 or around there do it fine? I don't see how I'd need a P4 3.0 or anything, unless I was doing something else CPU intensive in the background (which I never would).

The comments sound a little like video card reviews: if you want PERFECT reproduction, with never a dropped frame, the athlon is likely not going to cut it. If you can handle a dropped frame every-other movie or so, it will probably be okay. And you weren't recording any channels while watching right? I would think the HT bonus of P4 would also help, when you want to watch something and record at the same time. For a non-HT system, I find even a relatively 'light' second task can lead to a real performance drop on the intensive task, presumably due to the overhead of switching back and forth.

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Goi
Do I hear Bose? Hehe...

P4s are better if you're gonna be doing any sort of video post-processing via ffdshow. Many avid HTPC enthusiasts do that, including rescaling to HD resolutions, sharpening, denoise3d, de-interlace, etc. All these are operations that will kill any AMD processor, even the A64s. In fact, P4s can barely handle them either unless u have a 3+GHz model.

Last night I hooked up my file server to my TV to try out my All-in-Wonder again. For fun, I decided to try ffdshow w/TheaterTek to see how well it worked. The system I used this on was an Athlon 1.4GHz (NOT XP), 768MB PC2100 RAM, 60GB hard drive (2MB cache), Windows XP Pro. I was able to watch a ripped movie (done in DVDShrink with no compression) through ffdshow with minor stuttering...the playback was very good IMO. If a 1.4 can handle it I would say 80%, then couldn't an XP2500 or around there do it fine? I don't see how I'd need a P4 3.0 or anything, unless I was doing something else CPU intensive in the background (which I never would).

I found the occasional stuttering (~ every 15 minutes or so) to really detract from my movie watching experience. My Athlon XP 3200 would run at about 70% CPU usage most of the time with FFDShow and ZoomPlayer, but spike to 100% during that stuttering. My P4 never reaches that 100% usage and never stutters. My feeling is if you're going to spend all those bucks on a nice home theater system to reproduce the movie theater experience, why settle for stuttering?

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
The comments sound a little like video card reviews: if you want PERFECT reproduction, with never a dropped frame, the athlon is likely not going to cut it. If you can handle a dropped frame every-other movie or so, it will probably be okay. And you weren't recording any channels while watching right? I would think the HT bonus of P4 would also help, when you want to watch something and record at the same time. For a non-HT system, I find even a relatively 'light' second task can lead to a real performance drop on the intensive task, presumably due to the overhead of switching back and forth.

But from what Goi was saying, even an Athlon64 can barely handle post-processing with ffdshow. And yet on my regular 1.4, it was near-perfect. And I would be using an XP, which is a generation or 2 beyond this processor, not to mention MUCH better hardware all-around (this is just a cobbled-together system for testing with what I had around). Maybe I'm wrong and it will be terrible, but given this test I don't see how that can be possible, and considering that I'm looking at an extra $200 JUST for the processor if I go P4, I think that money would be better spent on more disk space.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Boogak

I found the occasional stuttering (~ every 15 minutes or so) to really detract from my movie watching experience. My Athlon XP 3200 would run at about 70% CPU usage most of the time with FFDShow and ZoomPlayer, but spike to 100% during that stuttering. My P4 never reaches that 100% usage and never stutters. My feeling is if you're going to spend all those bucks on a nice home theater system to reproduce the movie theater experience, why settle for stuttering?

Because I'm trying hard to NOT spend a terrific amount, I want to get as much as I can for as little as I can. From what I've seen (and read at HTPCNews), an Athlon can handle it just fine, and I think that I need disk space more than a P4.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: vetteguy
But from what Goi was saying, even an Athlon64 can barely handle post-processing with ffdshow. And yet on my regular 1.4, it was near-perfect. And I would be using an XP, which is a generation or 2 beyond this processor, not to mention MUCH better hardware all-around (this is just a cobbled-together system for testing with what I had around). Maybe I'm wrong and it will be terrible, but given this test I don't see how that can be possible, and considering that I'm looking at an extra $200 JUST for the processor if I go P4, I think that money would be better spent on more disk space.

Hey, if it were me, I would buy the XP as well

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Boogak

I found the occasional stuttering (~ every 15 minutes or so) to really detract from my movie watching experience. My Athlon XP 3200 would run at about 70% CPU usage most of the time with FFDShow and ZoomPlayer, but spike to 100% during that stuttering. My P4 never reaches that 100% usage and never stutters. My feeling is if you're going to spend all those bucks on a nice home theater system to reproduce the movie theater experience, why settle for stuttering?

Because I'm trying hard to NOT spend a terrific amount, I want to get as much as I can for as little as I can. From what I've seen (and read at HTPCNews), an Athlon can handle it just fine, and I think that I need disk space more than a P4.

Fair enough, from what you've been describing as the usage pattern for your HTPC, I agree.

But just to give you some more options to chew on, if you're not disinclined to overclocking, you can pick up a used P4 2.4C for ~$115 (which is how I got mine) and an Abit IS7-E mobo for ~$80 new (which is also what I bought mine for). I am using the retail hs/f to overclock it to 3ghz. Altogether about $40 more than the CPU/Mobo combo you chose. EDIT: Actually it'll come out to the same price since I forgot you are also buying an aftermarket hs/f for the mobile Athlon XP.

I only bring this up in case you're like me... a terminal upgrade whore

About a year and a half ago, I too built a nice Athlon XP / nForce2 based HTPC for watching DivX movies on my HD RPTV and to listen to mp3's on my receiver and it worked great. Then I bought a projector and read about this wonderful thing called FFDShow to makes DVD's look spectacular. Then I find that while my Athlon XP ran FFDShow fine 95% of the time, I found that remaining 5% irksome enough to justify upgrading.

But like I alluded to before, that's just me being a terminal upgrade whore

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Goi
Do I hear Bose? Hehe...

P4s are better if you're gonna be doing any sort of video post-processing via ffdshow. Many avid HTPC enthusiasts do that, including rescaling to HD resolutions, sharpening, denoise3d, de-interlace, etc. All these are operations that will kill any AMD processor, even the A64s. In fact, P4s can barely handle them either unless u have a 3+GHz model.

Last night I hooked up my file server to my TV to try out my All-in-Wonder again. For fun, I decided to try ffdshow w/TheaterTek to see how well it worked. The system I used this on was an Athlon 1.4GHz (NOT XP), 768MB PC2100 RAM, 60GB hard drive (2MB cache), Windows XP Pro. I was able to watch a ripped movie (done in DVDShrink with no compression) through ffdshow with minor stuttering...the playback was very good IMO. If a 1.4 can handle it I would say 80%, then couldn't an XP2500 or around there do it fine? I don't see how I'd need a P4 3.0 or anything, unless I was doing something else CPU intensive in the background (which I never would).

It depends on what you're doing with ffdshow. Last I knew(from avsforum's ffdshow FAQ thread), the optimal settings are:
1) denoise3d with certain parameters
2) Lanczos resize to double DVD resolution, or HD resolution, or your projector's native resolution

These 2 alone would maul any Athlon XP. AFAIK, these operations are extremely cache intensive, as the P4EE CPUs perform quite a bit better than the regular Northwoods/Prescotts.

If you're only resizing to say 1024x768 with a lesser quality but faster resize algorithm such as bilinear, and perhaps doing some gradual denoise, then a 1.4GHz Thunderbird will absolutely cut it. In fact, the HTPC I have at home is running on exactly that CPU and performing these 2 post processes just fine. That's the limit of the system though. It will not go any further.

 

[jose]

If you go to the AVSforum, make sure you don't mention "Bose", or you will get alot of grief. They take their audio seriously..

Regards,
Jose

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Goi
It depends on what you're doing with ffdshow. Last I knew(from avsforum's ffdshow FAQ thread), the optimal settings are:
1) denoise3d with certain parameters
2) Lanczos resize to double DVD resolution, or HD resolution, or your projector's native resolution

These 2 alone would maul any Athlon XP. AFAIK, these operations are extremely cache intensive, as the P4EE CPUs perform quite a bit better than the regular Northwoods/Prescotts.

If you're only resizing to say 1024x768 with a lesser quality but faster resize algorithm such as bilinear, and perhaps doing some gradual denoise, then a 1.4GHz Thunderbird will absolutely cut it. In fact, the HTPC I have at home is running on exactly that CPU and performing these 2 post processes just fine. That's the limit of the system though. It will not go any further.

What about a Prescott? Would they be better than a Northwood?

If you go to the AVSforum, make sure you don't mention "Bose", or you will get alot of grief. They take their audio seriously..

I know, that's why I tend to stay away from that place. Lots of attitudes, lots of egos. They yell at people for asking questions, call them newbies, and demand they read through 150+ page threads before having their "blessing" to post any questions.

 

[JavaMomma]

If you don't mind overclocking a little, a Mobile XP can also easily hit 2400Mhz if you do happen to need more CPU power.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: Goi
It depends on what you're doing with ffdshow. Last I knew(from avsforum's ffdshow FAQ thread), the optimal settings are:
1) denoise3d with certain parameters
2) Lanczos resize to double DVD resolution, or HD resolution, or your projector's native resolution

These 2 alone would maul any Athlon XP. AFAIK, these operations are extremely cache intensive, as the P4EE CPUs perform quite a bit better than the regular Northwoods/Prescotts.

If you're only resizing to say 1024x768 with a lesser quality but faster resize algorithm such as bilinear, and perhaps doing some gradual denoise, then a 1.4GHz Thunderbird will absolutely cut it. In fact, the HTPC I have at home is running on exactly that CPU and performing these 2 post processes just fine. That's the limit of the system though. It will not go any further.

What about a Prescott? Would they be better than a Northwood?

I really don't know. The Prescott does have more cache, but at the same time its pipelines are longer and so branch penalties would be more. Since I don't have both CPUs to perform any testing, I can't help you there. I'd imagine lotsa people over at avsforums would know.