Build Your Own Home Theatre PC

by ij99

Step 1 Find a suitable case for your HTPC

An old tuner, cd player or amplifier will be ideal for this. I prefer tuners since they have fewer buttons and dials.

Find one that is similar to your other HiFi separates. Most people will require silver models.
A few LEDs on the unit will be ideal for re-use as HDD and power indicators.
Rotary knobs (volume or station) can be re-used to vary fan speeds
If your HiFi separates have black strips on the front (see my amp below), you can simulate this in a tuner by placing a black printed acetate behind the tuning dial glass. You can also print any logo/text on the acetate.

Click here for ideal cases

Step 2 Buy the necessary components for your HTPC

HTPC components require a little more thought than ordinary PC parts. An ideal HTPC should be silent or very quiet!

Motherboard - Mini-ITX is my favourite due to it's tiny size. They come in different varieties and are either silent or very quiet. They also have decent sound, video & network capabilities built into the board.
Power - Small laptop style power kits are available for use with Mini-ITX boards. A silent model between 60-100W will do the job.
Memory - You need at least 512MB.
Disk - Laptop style hard drives are very quiet, produce little heat and use very little power. Traditional desktop hard drives are cheap but produce more heat and noise than laptop style drives. They also use more power although 5400RPM models use less than 7200RPM drives.
PVR (Personal Video Recorder) - This will allow you to watch and record TV on your PC. Buy a model which performs mpeg encoding on the card itself, leaving your cpu free to do other things. I use the Hauppauge Win-TV PVR 350.
Remote Control - Your PVR will probably have one of these included. If not, they are relatively cheap.

Step 3 Assemble your HTPC

I decided to use a silver tuner for my case	This is the tuner with the original parts inside
I removed all the internal components except the dials and buttons	Here I have installed the motherboard and power circuit. I am using a Zalman fanmate to reduce the speed of the CPU fan. It was quiet to start with. Now it's even quieter
Connected the power brick to the power circuit. I screwed the hard drive vertically onto the case for greater heat dissipation	Installed a PVR. Short cases should use an angled PCI adapter to rotate the PCI card by 90 degrees.

Here it is in my HiFi stack. Got rid of my VCR. Might get rid of DVD player as HTPC duplicates all of it's functions.
Most of the time I use an LCD monitor with my HTPC, for movies I prefer my projector. Use a VGA Y-Cable to achieve this.
The HTPC can send Digital signals to my amp so I can listen to movies in Dolby Digital Surround Sound
I can now access hundreds of movies and thousands of songs at the touch of a button!
I used the tuner's LEDs for Power and HDD lights. If I find time, I would like to re-use the rotary knobs to control the cpu fan speed.
I also connected the tuner's power button to the motherboard.
Don't need a CD Drive since this HTPC is networked

Step 4 Install software on your HTPC

Every HTPC is unique but the following applications are some of the most widely used. Most of them are also free for personal use.

OS - I have chosen to install Windows 2000 although many people are using Linux on their HTPC
Girder - This application is very useful. It allows you to use a remote control to perform almost any task on your PC
Interface - Your HTPC requires an interface for selecting music, video, tv etc. myHTPC, mythTV and SageTV are commonly used
Media players - Windows Media Player, Winamp, ZoomPlayer are just some of the popular ones
TV - Your PVR will come bundled with software to watch and record TV. Some of the interfaces I mentioned above also have their own TV software
Codecs - FFDshow will allow your HTPC to display movies better than high end commercial DVD players
Digital Sound - If you own a Home Theatre Amplifier, you can use it to receive digital sounds from your PC. Your PC will need an SPDIF socket (most modern motherboards have these) and an AC3Filter. Now you can enjoy DOLBY Digital Surround Sound from your PC

Step 5 Be part of the digital revolution

Make a fresh cup of coffee, put your feet up and press play.

All driven by remote control	TV Schedule
Weather	Movies

Build Your Own Home Theatre PC

Step 1 Find a suitable case for your HTPC

An old tuner, cd player or amplifier will be ideal for this. I prefer tuners since they have fewer buttons and dials.

Find one that is similar to your other HiFi separates. Most people will require silver models.

A few LEDs on the unit will be ideal for re-use as HDD and power indicators.

If your HiFi separates have black strips on the front (see my amp below), you can simulate this in a tuner by placing a black printed acetate behind the tuning dial glass. You can also print any logo/text on the acetate.

Step 2 Buy the necessary components for your HTPC

HTPC components require a little more thought than ordinary PC parts. An ideal HTPC should be silent or very quiet!

Motherboard - Mini-ITX is my favourite due to it's tiny size. They come in different varieties and are either silent or very quiet. They also have decent sound, video & network capabilities built into the board.

Power - Small laptop style power kits are available for use with Mini-ITX boards. A silent model between 60-100W will do the job.

Memory - You need at least 512MB.

Disk - Laptop style hard drives are very quiet, produce little heat and use very little power. Traditional desktop hard drives are cheap but produce more heat and noise than laptop style drives. They also use more power although 5400RPM models use less than 7200RPM drives.

PVR (Personal Video Recorder) - This will allow you to watch and record TV on your PC. Buy a model which performs mpeg encoding on the card itself, leaving your cpu free to do other things. I use the Hauppauge Win-TV PVR 350.

Remote Control - Your PVR will probably have one of these included. If not, they are relatively cheap.

Step 3 Assemble your HTPC

Step 4 Install software on your HTPC

Every HTPC is unique but the following applications are some of the most widely used. Most of them are also free for personal use.

OS - I have chosen to install Windows 2000 although many people are using Linux on their HTPC

Girder - This application is very useful. It allows you to use a remote control to perform almost any task on your PC

Interface - Your HTPC requires an interface for selecting music, video, tv etc. myHTPC, mythTV and SageTV are commonly used

Media players - Windows Media Player, Winamp, ZoomPlayer are just some of the popular ones

TV - Your PVR will come bundled with software to watch and record TV. Some of the interfaces I mentioned above also have their own TV software

Codecs - FFDshow will allow your HTPC to display movies better than high end commercial DVD players

Digital Sound - If you own a Home Theatre Amplifier, you can use it to receive digital sounds from your PC. Your PC will need an SPDIF socket (most modern motherboards have these) and an AC3Filter. Now you can enjoy DOLBY Digital Surround Sound from your PC

Step 5 Be part of the digital revolution

Make a fresh cup of coffee, put your feet up and press play.

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