Need some help with HTPC setup

[Slayten]

I finally broke down and bought a projector (Samsung SP-H710AE) so now I have to get off my ass and get an HTPC (or two) up and running.

I think I want to go with a media server setup. I'm going to list what I have, and what I have been looking at to complete the set up. Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Server:
Have:
Case - Antec Titan 550
PSU - Antec truepower 550w ATX12v 2.0
M/B - Tyan S2882G3NR-D Thunder K8SD Pro
CPU - Opteron 246 x 2
O/S - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition
Looking at:
RAM - Corsair CMX1024RE-3200 1gig x 2 (1gig for each cpu for now)
Hard Drives - Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 SATA-II x 3 in a raid 5 config

1st HTPC (Livingroom projector):
Have:
Case - Antec Sonata II (will get HTPC case when I can afford)
PSU - Antec Truepower 450w
M/B - Asus A8N-E
CPU - AMD a64 3200+ (I also have a AMD Opteron Duelcore 170 socket 939)any idea's?
RAM - Corsair XMS TwinX1024-3200C2 1 Gig
Hard Drive - Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300 gig
Looking at:
Video Card - (make suggestion please, was thinking one of the 7800gt's)
HDTV Card - (make suggestion please)
Sound Card - Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum
Optical Drive - Plextor PX-716A
O/S and PVR - I'm looking at the Hauppage PVR-500 w/remote and nVidia DVD Decoder and Windows MCE 2005 bundle
As for PVR software - should I go with BeyondTV or SageTV?

2nd HTPC (Bedroom) this is xtra crap I use for folding right now.
Have:
Case - Crap case I found in garbage
PSU - Antec Truepower 430w
M/B - Asus A7N8X-E
CPU - AMD Athlon xp 3000+ or AMD Athlon xp 2500+ (the 2500 overclocks better)
RAM - Corsair TwinX1024-3200C2PT 1 gig
Hard Drive - Maxtor Diamondmax 10 200gig
Optical Drive - Plextor PX-716A
Video Card - ATI 9700 pro (I know, I need one!)
O/S - Windows XP home (Windows MCE 2005?)
Looking At:
Windows MCE 2005 w/remote and PVR-150

Main Gaming Rig: (I wouldn't mind being able to stream to this)
Have:
Case - Themaltake Xaser II
PSU - PC power & Cooling 510 express
M/B - DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert
CPU - AMD FX-55
RAM - OCZ Platinum pc3200 1 Gig (OCZ PC4000 Platinum 2 Gig on the way)
Video Card - BFG 7800GTX OC x 1 (saving for the other)
Sound Card - Soundblaster Audigy 2 platinum
Hard Drive - Hitachi 7K500 SATA 1
Optical Drive - Plextor PX-716A
O/S - Windows XP Pro (I have a copy of Windows XP Pro x64, haven't put on yet)
Monitor - Dell FPW2405
Looking At:
PVR-150 w/remote, PVR software
X-Fi sound
2nd 7800GTX

I would appreciate any suggestions of what I can use to make this a better set up. I have heard that Windows Server 2003 is not good for Media Servers, any idea what I should use?
Thx for your help!!

 

[CrimandEvil]

Whats the setup you have in the living room like (TV, reciever)? What kind of TV do you have in the bedroom? What inputs do the TVs have?

 

[Slayten]

The living room will have the Samsung SP-H710AE
Inputs:
1 - DVI (HDCP)
2 - Component (180i/720p/576p/576i/480p/480i)
1 - S-Video
1 - Composite
1 - PC-input (15 pin D-Sub)
1 - RS-232c

The bedroom has a POS Magnovox 27"
inputs:
1 - S-Video
Component

I plan on buying a LCD or DLP when I finish the livingroom setup.

I have Comcast right now and plan on getting the Digital package when this is setup, so I'm assuming it will have a set top box

let me know if you need anything else! Thanks again

 

[CrimandEvil]

Whats your living room's sound system like?
First off if you need to get a new OS for these boxes then I would suggest getting MCE, it's like XP Pro but at a lower cost. You can always disable the MCE app if you'd like to use another PVR app.

For your setup I'm going to suggest that you go with SageTV as it would be the best choice for what I'm about to outline.

Bedroom PC
For the bedroom I would go with the 2500+ (not OCed, it isn't really needed) with the Asus mobo, 512mb of memory (the most you'll need) with a decent size HDD (80 gigs or so). I'll explain why soon.

I would pick up a 6200 for a video card as it supports component out as well as has better svideo output then the 9700 (if you need it). For a case you might want to look into a Silverstone LC02 or LC04 (if you want a nice case of it).

Living room PC
That all looks pretty good. For a video card it sort of depends on if you plan on gaming or not, a 6600 GT is more then enough for an HTPC with a little bit of gaming thrown in but if you want to do more then that you might want to wait and see how the 7600 GT shapes up. If you're not gaming then you could drop the Creative card (they're not much liked for HTPC usage anyways) and if you have a reciever then you could just use the onboard to SPDIF out to it. For gaming I would consider one of these cards:
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_in...ue-71-gold-retail-bgihdaxmg/cName/sound-cards
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_in...on-71-dts-connect-bgihdaxpd/cName/sound-cards

But if you're planning on alot of gaming then it makes more sense to go with a Creative card.

For an HD tuner one of these would work very well:
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_in...tv-tuner-card-atsc-qam/cName/hdtv-tuner-cards
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_in...rial-hdtv-receiver-pci/cName/hdtv-tuner-cards

The Fusion5 is a better tuner but it does have it's own share of problems, it's very picky about which PCI slot it is in so you might have to juggle it around.

I would also suggest going with a smaller HDD for this build as well, something like an 80 gig would be enough.


Now I'm going to suggest that you setup a client/Server setup as it would be the best solution IMO for you. With SageTV you can run it on your server in Server mode and get a few SageClients for the living room and bed room setups and stream all the recordings to them. The server would hold the PVR cards (I would suggest something like two PVR500s and probably a Fusion5 or two if you have room). The clients would be be setup with Meedio as it's a good frontend and has a plugin to run SageTV (or Client) embedded which would make for a nice streamlined look (SageTV is best for PVR work, everything else still feels like it's tacked on). This is why you don't need large drives in the HTPCs, they'll be in the server.