A Practical Home Theater PC

Written by Lee Tang, January 2010

 

I. Introduction

In December 2009, I decided to build a DVR.  My main requirements were for it to be able to view and record shows in HD over-the-air, pause live TV, display an electronic program guide, and have a nice interface.  Earlier in the year, I installed Windows 7 on a new machine and experimented with Windows Media Center.  This software fulfilled my DVR requirements, so I set out to build a system based on WMC in Windows 7.  The end result is a system that does exactly that, and since it's a computer, I am able to view Hulu content on it as well. 

 

II. Component List

Hardware

  • AMD Athlon II X2 240 Processor
  • Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H Motherboard
  • Antec NSK1480 Case
  • SiliconDust HDHomeRun Dual ATSC/QAM Digital TV Tuner
  • 2GB DDR2 800 RAM
  • 750GB SATA Hard Drive
  • DVD Burner
  • Dell Microsoft Media Center Edition Remote with IR Receiver

Software

  • Windows 7 Home Premium
  • Hulu Desktop
  • HULU Desktop Integration 1.0 Plugin
  • ATI Catalyst 9.8
  • Adobe Flash 10.1

 

III. Hardware Architecture

I did a lot of research prior to choosing components, especially on the Guide to Building a HD HTPC thread at AVS Forum.  Many of the components I chose are discussed on that thread.

I ended up choosing the components listed for very specific reasons.  The Athlon X2 is a lower-power CPU (65W) that has two cores which is useful for Flash video.  The Gigabyte board has integrated graphics (Radeon HD 4200) that are sufficient to drive a 1080p display.  In addition, that motherboard has built-in optical SPDIF out for 5.1 surround sound via TOSlink.  The HDHomeRun allows me to place the tuner, and thus antenna, at a spot in my house with optimal OTA reception, independent of where my TV and HTPC are located.  The case looks like a piece of A/V equipment instead of a computer, so it fit well with the rest of my home theater setup.

 

IV. Software Architecture

I wanted to run a minimal set of required software on this devices for a variety of reasons.  First, I wanted to minimize the number of programs running at any time to maximize useful distribution of memory.  Second, as a dedicated HTPC, I did not want extraneous programs running that may cause conflicts and take system resources.  Finally, I wanted to maximize disk space for recorded shows. 

Windows 7 Media Center is the main program that enables viewing and recording shows.  Hulu Desktop enables the viewing Hulu content from a 10-foot interface.  These two programs run independently.  However, the Hulu Desktop Integration plugin allows a user to launch Hulu Desktop from within WMC.  When the user closes the Hulu Desktop application, this plugin automatically relaunches WMC, making for a fairly smooth transition between the programs. 

 

V. Hardware Assembly

Putting together this computer was not as straightforward as other builds I've done, primarily due to the small form-factor case.  Everything was a very tight fit.  The case includes only three metal standoff posts for the motherboard, which I had to reposition to the very back of the board in order to be able to slide the I/O ports from the board through the back panel.  Although the motherboard includes a few expansion slots, I don't think I would have been able to fit any additional cards onto it, which makes the integrated graphics that much more important.  The case will only take half-height PCI cards in case I did want to put something extra in.

 

VI. Software Installation

When I booted the Windows 7 DVD, the installer took about 5 minutes before giving me a prompt to continue the installation.  I discovered that the Gigabyte board enables the Floppy controller by default and reports to the OS that there is a 1.44" drive installed.  This very issue is discussed in this thread.  I went to the BIOS to disable the floppy, and installation was a lot quicker.

While in the BIOS, I dedicated 512MB of memory - the maximum possible - to integrated graphics.

After installing Windows 7, I installed the latest AMD/ATI Catalyst driver (version 9.12).  Everything worked fine, until I put the computer to sleep.  After waking up, WMC came right up, but as soon as I started playing a video file or attempted to watch live TV, the system froze.  I found out that many people were having this problem with the Catalyst 9.12 driver.  The fix was to roll back to Catalyst 9.8, and the system worked fine after waking from sleep.

At the time of this writing, the latest official Adobe Flash release was 10.0.  However, 10.1 beta was available - and 10.1 enables acceleration in certain hardware, including the 785G chipset that is present on the Gigabyte board.  I installed 10.1 beta to speed up Hulu Desktop.  I believe that the acceleration only works with later version of Catalyst (9.11 and up) but I am unable to take advantage of that due to the sleep/wake issue.  In the meantime however, Hulu is smooth and viewing is perfectly acceptable even without the hardware acceleration. 

 

VII. Conclusion

I set out to build a nice HD DVR that would be capable of receiving over-the-air ATSC feeds, and I accomplished just that.  In addition, I'm able to view Hulu content on my TV using the same Media Center Remote that I use to control WMC.  There are some additional features to this system that may come in handy for some.  For example, you can stream Netflix Watch Instantly content through the WMC interface.  However, it will not be in HD (you would need a closed client to do that, such as a Roku box or an Xbox 360).  Another nice capability is that you can view your pictures and listen to your music through your network using the Homegroup feature. 

There was a good amount of trial and error involved with the gotchas pertaining to the floppy drive and video driver versions, but once those were resolved, I ended up with a nice system that records shows when I want to (even waking up out of sleep to do so), is totally silent when it does sleep, and has a very slick interface.  On top of that, there are no subscription fees to pay for the program guide info, or for the content itself, since I'm using an over-the-air feed.  As if that weren't enough, an over-the-air ATSC feed is uncompressed, and as a result, the highest quality HDTV feed you can get - better than cable.  Not a bad setup for a weekend's worth of work!