Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Special > Miscellaneous > Confessions of a Serial HTPC Builder Part 1

In Use

10:42 - Tuesday 28 March 2006 by Michael Baggaley

Using a PC to control my home theatre turned out to be a lot of fun. It had all of the functionality of a DVR, like TiVo (skipping advertisements was very liberating). However, unlike a TiVo, I could also stream my recorded shows to my laptop over a wireless network and watch them anywhere I wanted to. Access to my music collection turned out to be great for parties. I could have the HTPC play music all night without ever repeating a song. It was also nice to be able to play virtually any multimedia file from Wave to Xvid. After converting several DVDs from my personal collection to Xvid and transferring them to my hard drive, I began to see the potential of using the HTPC as a movie jukebox. My DVD player and VCR were soon resting quietly in a closet and I haven't missed them yet.

On the other hand, I found that the 8500DV was not the best choice for my low budget HTPC project. The remote, DVD decoder, TV Tuner and TV-out functioned well, but the 8500DV was not a long-term solution. It was not supported well by ATI, and its software-based TV tuner was not powerful enough to run some of the media center programs that I wanted to try. (ATI switched to hardware TV tuners after the 8500 series, so the rest of the All in Wonder Radeon cards are much more versatile).

I also found that multimedia files take up a lot of space and the 60GB hard drive filled up much faster than I expected it to. The CPU and memory were a little underpowered for my taste as well. For example, I was able to enjoy the benefits of the HTPC, but periodically TV playback would hiccup and the CPU often seemed to struggle to keep up.

I was fortunate enough to get my hands on an evaluation release of Intel's new Digital Home Capabilities Assessment Tool (DHCAT). The DHCAT is a benchmarking program developed by Intel that measures a home theatre PC's ability to multitask using different combinations of common HTPC applications. I was not very surprised to find that my HTPC scored very poorly. Most of the tests were skipped by the DHCAT (I assume because my hardware was so limited) including all of the TV tests and connectivity tests. Given the poor results, I think it's important to keep in mind that my HTPC worked well enough that I was able to use it for several months without major headaches. It was not built to handle HD and did not multitask well, but for a budget HTPC it was still functional.

DHCAT results running stock 8500DV drivers

DHCAT results running up to date 8500DV drivers.

Key:

Basic: tests audio, video, recording, compression, and multitasking using non-HD content.
HD: involves the same types of tests as "basic" using high definition content.
Connected: tests for streaming capabilities while multitasking.

I was able to increase the score by three points with

PC Mark score

To put this score into perspective, the highest PC Mark score at the moment can be found here.

Closing Thoughts

As any PC builder knows, every build is a learning experience. HTPC builds provide the usual opportunities to see how cases and components go together. But they also let you experience the performance of your creation in ways that are much more entertaining than using it for boring old "productivity" applications. What I learned was:

Old leftover hardware is often sufficient to run a low-end HTPC; An HTPC should be as quiet as possible or it will be a distraction in your home theatre; Water cooling is a great way to keep an HTPC quiet, but it's expensive and takes up a lot of space; Flashy cases with windows or lights look completely out of place in most home theatres; ATI All in Wonder cards are great, but software-based TV tuners are not compatible with all media center programs; Small hard drives fill up very fast since multimedia content takes up a lot of space.

Since this was one of my first HTPC builds, some of these "lessons learned" may look obvious to those of you with many systems under your belt. But they serve as a good comparison for the next builds that I subsequently will describe in upcoming articles in this series.

I was clearly unsatisfied with the look of both of the large and brightly coloured cases outlined in my first build, so I decided to jump to the opposite extreme and build a micro ATX HTPC that I hoped would fit in better in a home theatre environment. This second system, which I'll review next time, includes upgraded hardware and a different media center program. I'll also describe the performance benefits these components and software offer.