Building a Mid-End HTPC

Building a Mid-End HTPC

Punit Lodaya, Sep 22, 2006 1700 hrs IST

An HTPC can let you enjoy your movies, at the same time lets you surf and play games sans console. Well, read on and know yourself.

Advantges of HTPC

Quality

Video output from an HTPC is of a much higher resolution than common, standard definition home theater components. Up sampling DVDs to 720p for display on a connected HDTV will give a picture that rivals far more expensive and dedicated home theater equipment. Depending on the equipment used, audio can also experience a noticeable quality improvement.

Digital Video Recording

Television shows can generally be set to record on your HTPC from any computer in the world with an Internet connection or even your mobile phone. Recording space can easily be upgraded, and/or shows can be burned to DVD. These features are also possible with HDTV when using an HDTV tuner card & appropriate software.

One Media Location

HTPCs often include online storage of music and movies, usually "ripped" from the original media onto hard disks. This allows more convenient access to the content, as well as search by artist, genre, director, etc. This can be located in a media server that the HTPC connects to.

Since HTPC is still a PC at heart, you can use all the PC functions such as surfing internet, play PC games, burn CD/DVDs, etc.

A major advantage of an HTPC is being able to copy CDs and DVDs to the hard disk and use the computer as a jukebox for both audio and video. HTPC is also perfect form of compressed video (Eg: DivX, Xvid, WMV) players, playing all without a single hitch. Can your latest DivX player do that?

Disadvantages

Noise

If not built properly, an HTPC can be quite noisy. Most of the noise is produced from the fans that are required to cool the heat-producing parts of the computer. The balance between noise and operational temperature needs to be considered to avoid noise or operational problems. Fortunately, there are many products designed with quiet operation as a priority, such as low-decibel fans and heat sinks.

Setup/maintenance

Because HTPCs are far from mainstream, a lot of the commonly used software is not user-friendly as far as the average computer user is concerned. Generally, setting up HTPC software is not everybody's cup of tea; a person who is quite comfortable using computers might not face any obstacle though. As HTPCs become more commonplace, software companies will probably pay closer attention to this issue. However, once properly set up, they can be easier to use than most component home theatre setups.

Cost

Building and maintaining an HTPC is usually quite expensive. The minimum hardware requirements are attainable at an average consumer budget, but the kind of people who normally want an HTPC; usually want more top-of-the-line hardware; so, the price tends to go up more than expected.

For the hardware, the minimum requirements are: A computer-case, Motherboard, CPU, memory, Hard drive, DVD-ROM drive, and TV Tuner Adapter. However, some people would probably want some optional/upgrade components as well, like a specially designed HTPC casing/cabinet (which normally looks like a stand-alone DVD-player or VCR), a computer IR remote-control, and a flash memory-card reader.

Do you agree with this aritcle?

Building a Mid-End HTPC

An HTPC can let you enjoy your movies, at the same time lets you surf and play games sans console. Well, read on and know yourself.

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