PC Hardware → [Discussion] Building a computer for my TV

I have wanted to eventually eliminate my cable bill if possible. I will be building a second computer to use primarily with my LCD TV. I plan to stream video from netflix and many other sites. I may use this in conjunction with the HD-DVR I currently rent, but will ultimately ditch that. I am interested in anyone's thoughts about what components, motherboards, etc that they have used, as well as pitfalls that anyone experienced related to this.

I use Windows 7 Media Center with a number of different tuner / capture devices. I have 3x SiliconDust HDHomeRun network tuners and 2x Hauppauge HD PVR units.

SiliconDust - HDHomeRun Network-based Dual Digital - HDTV Tuner Ethernet Interface

Hauppauge HD PVR High Definition Personal Video Recorder 1212 USB 2.0 Interface

The HDHomRun can do either ATSC, Clear QAM or both (one per tuner). The HD PVR can record up to 1080i with 5.1 optical audio 100% DRM restriction free via component video (AVCHD / H.264). Being able to record HD from even premium channels in Media Center is no small thing.

Hauppauge has recently released the "Colossus" HD PVR which is cheaper and uses a PCIe x1 interface rather then USB like its predecessor:

»hauppauge.com/site/produ ··· sus.html

Edit

As for motherboard and CPU, I started off using an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ so most modern dual core systems should be fine.

Mobo - ASUS P7H55-M PRO LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX - $95
CPU - Intel Core i3-550 Clarkdale 3.2GHz LGA 1156 - $114
PSU - Corsair 430w - $25
HD - WD 1.5 TB Green Drive - $60
Remote - AVS Gear GP-IR01BK Windows Vista Infrared - $22
Memory - OCZ Gold 4GB DDR3 1333 - $31

Out-of-pocket cost: $347

Already owned:
Blu-ray drive
Case
Windows Vista Home

This rig works great! Built at Christmas 2010. My wife and I primarily use it for Netflix and Hulu, although I keep meaning to start ripping our DVDs to the hard drive.

The reason I mentioned the Hauppauge HD PVR and Colossus is because you specifically said that you have a rented HD DVR. Many people buy the Hauppauge HD PVR to offload their recorded TV / HDTV collections from their rented DVR / HD DVR units. Once that is done you can access your collection off your local PC storage or NAS / Home Server throughout your house (or online depending on setup).

You can then return the rented DVR and get a less expensive HD cable box used in conjunction with the Hauppauge HD PVR and PC or cut the cord from your provider.

I used XP MCE for about 6 years and then I upgraded in August to Win7. I only had a sempron 3300 2Ghz with 768mb ram. Surprising Win7 worked just fine, but it would lag going through menus especially if you remote desktop going and were burning something.

All bought from Frys.

Intel Core i3 540 LGA1156 - $80.00
Motherboard - MSI H55M-E33 - $71.24
1 stick 4GB DDR3 1800Mhz - $110
2TB WD Green Drive - $90.00
TV Tuner - Diamond HD7750 PCIE - $60.00
TV Tuner - Diamond HD USB 650 - $30.00
I already had a case/power supply/drives/ir remote and keyboard.

I suggest getting the RF Gyration MCE remote/mouse (best remote ever created, RF so no line of sight needed): »red-planet-trading.amazo ··· GP2S.htm
And the IR Keyboard/mouse (only needed if you want to type or surf the web): »www.amazon.com/Microsoft ··· 00AOAAN8
An MCE ir receiver with ir blaster (needed to control cable box) can be had for 20 to 30

I have DMA2200 media center extender I bought new for $100 off ebay. For some reason media center extenders do not come with volume control so I built an external lcd volume control from a $40 kit off ebay, $15 project box from frys and a $8 transformer from frys.

The only complaints about these cheaper tv tuner cards is the USB would get a "low bit rate" error and you would have to unplug it and plug it in and it would also crash MCE periodically.
The PCIE card is much more stable, but it has crashed MCE about once a few weeks which all you have to do is hit the MCE button the remote to reopen MCE.
It seems budget tv tuners are going to have some issues.

This is really what I needed to see, thank you so much for the input!

I have been browsing compusa's site and was partial to this tv tuner card. (»www.compusa.com/applicat ··· tId=4547 )

I think it may be a step under the Hauppauge HD PVR.

I did not see the "Colossus" there.

I have been considering the MSI motherbords vs the Biostar... I appreciate that you all posted prices and places to purchace... I get a little lost with which (and how much) Ram to add, I guess it depends on how much I want to spend. I feel like I want to do this once, and not have to upgrade things later...

Are there anymore thoughts??

Thanks again for the input...

I would use XBMC, and with the latest version, you can install plugins and the like which you can stream Hulu and TV shows from all online sources like nbc, cbs, abc and the like...

This is the hardware I'd use for it (NOTE: The new version of AppleTV also runs XBMC, but only outputs at 720p. If you want 1080p, go for this):
»lifehacker.com/#!5391308 ··· he-cheap

And this is more about the software:
»lifehacker.com/#!5714949 ··· leration

The Hauppauge HVR-1600 tuner and the like are fine as long as you understand the limits of its capabilities. So the basic outlines are as follows:

Hybrid tuners such as this will be able to receive, NTSC signals from the cable / satellite box (analog standard definition), ATSC (digital Over The Air HD via antenna) and QAM (digital HD via the cable line not the cable set top box).

So basically you’ll be able to record off your set top box (DVR) in standard definition and over the air local channels (CBS-HD, NBC-HD, FOX-HD, ABC-HD and so on along with PBS) in HD via an antenna. QAM channels are usually closely aligned with the local over the air channels with little more.

That’s what makes the Hauppauge HD PVR 01212 unit relatively unique because it can record up to 1080i off the component output without DRM restrictions as long as it is active.

You can find the Hauppauge Colossus here:

»www.hauppauge.com/site/p ··· sus.html

Just click on the “Buy Now” link to buy directly from the Hauppauge store. This is a very new product though and just started to ship on 2-15-2011. Therefore there may be unknown bugs and oddities.

The Hauppauge HD PVR USB model has been around a good deal longer and can be found here:

»www.hauppauge.com/site/p ··· pvr.html

And here:

»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· -Product

AverMedia also has similar products but I haven’t used them and therefore have no firsthand experience with them:

AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR MTVHDDVRR PCI-Express x1 Interface

»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· -Product

AVerMedia AVerTV USB HD DVR Digital Video Capture Device MTVUHDDVR HDMI Interface

»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· -Product

Win7 MCE has seamless integration with Netflix. It works great.
There are many addons created by users »www.hack7mc.com/
I use a hulu addon and have had no problems.

For what its worth, I just received my shipment of the Hauppauge Colossus 01414 PCIe unit a few minutes ago via UPS. I took advantage of a pre-order offer off of Facebook for ~$139.99 which is ~$30 off the ~$169.99 MSRP.

I haven’t had a chance to install and test it but I would tentatively warn others about being an early adopter and the hazards therein (Sandy Bridge anyone,....). It might be better for other less adventurous users to go with the Hauppauge HD PVR USB 01212 unit.

That is not 100% true.
There are broadcast flags from your cable company that can stop you from recording or copying files off your computer. For some reason microsoft chose to follow stupid flags sent over analog connections.

I have my tuner setup through Svideo and it still prevents copying off my computer by the broadcast flag from the cable company.
Now I read you can get a filter for for both svideo/composite or component, but it is not cheap.
»www.xdimax.com/grex/grex.html
Since it is analog it can be defeated with an inline filter so it does create an easy bypass to drm.

I’ve never known the Huappauge HD PVR to be impeded by broadcast flags or DRM of any kind.

I’ve had a Hauppauge HD PVR since about the time it first shipped. Which I believe was some time in mid 2008 if I recall correctly. It has never once had problems recording a show due to flags or DRM restrictions even from premium HD channels (HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, Max-HD, Starz-HD and so on). Nor has playback of such AVCHD / H.264 recordings ever been an issue.

The Hauppauge HD PVR 1212 and Hauppauge Colossus 1414 are not TV tuners.

Exploitation of the analog hole which eventually will be closed is the major weak point with these devices that I can see. However, as has already been pointed out there are HDCP strippers such as the HD Fury (1, 2 and 3) as well as others that can allow these devices to continue to work.

I am just using video in and MCE still reads the broadcast flag.
It does not seem to have anything to do with the tuner as the broadcast flag is encoded into the non visible space just like closed captioning.
So as MCE reads the video signal it reads the CC information and any broadcast flag information.
There are 3 flags
“copy once”
“copy free”
“copy never”

The broacast flag is set by the cable companies. Not all cable companies use it and some use it on certain channels while other will block everything. You might be lucky in that your cable company does not use the broadcast flags. I found my cable company has it set to "copy never" for every channel which then MCE encrypts the video so it can only be played on my MCE computer and cannot be converted into any other video format.

MCE XP did not read the broadcast flags, but with the same tuner when I switched to Win7 MCE I found I could not copy recordings off my MCE computer.
Since it is a analog broadcast flag it can be easily filtered by blocking the flag location from the analog video signal or replacing that location with a "copy free" flag as some devices sold online do.

No I am not lucky as you suggested and the Hauppauge HD PVR doesn't currently support CC either,... nor does the Colossus.

With all due respect, perhaps you might want to research the product as it might prove more fruitful then idle speculation. This has all been covered in threads over at thegreenbutton, avsforums and others,....years ago.

We could probably get an aerospace engineer in here to tell us how the bumble bee can't possibly fly but guess what,....

I have an Athlon II 405e (45W) paired with a Gigabyte MicroATX and Nvidia Geforce 210, I'm only using 2Gig of DDR2 800. It runs MythTV and can playback 1080P content without issue.

Personally I just ordered a fairly inexpensive Dell Zino 410 HD with a 5450 video card.

Total came to $430 including tax (free shipping). Got extended warranty through square trade for $50. So basically $480 gets the system + 3 year warranty.

Did not feel like putting one together and this thing is pretty small and quiet. Can't hear it from my couch at all. Runs all my HD stuff just fine.

Only issue is lack of blu-ray, but I have PS3 for that, and only 500GB HDD. However, I just have it networked to my main desktop for added storage anyways. No point storing all your stuff on the computer used for the TV, that's what your big tower is for or networked external HDD.

Here is what it came with

AMD Athlon II X2 P340, Dual Core 2.2GHz, 1MB
4GB DDR3 SDRAM AT 1333MHz- 2X2GB Dual Channe
500GB SATA 3.5 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 MXM Discrete Graphics Card
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
8X DVD+/-RW
Dell 1501 802.11 n wireless card
Dell Media Remote

Connected through HDMI to my 40" Vizio at the moment. Only thing I had to adjust was going into Catalyst Control Center for the video card and adjust the overscan. It was set where the screen didn't take up the whole TV. Once adjust that it's perfect.

So far I'm actually really enjoying it. I usually don't buy pre-built anything, and usually not Dell's. But for the price it was very much worth it. Can even play many games on it without much trouble.

Yeah, the Dell Zino looks good:

»www.anandtech.com/show/4 ··· c-review

Although, this Shuttle SH55-J2-BK-V1 Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 (LGA1156) kit looks nice too:

Shuttle SH55-J2-BK-V1 Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 (LGA1156) 95w max. Support (Note: Please choose processors with Intel HD Graphics technology to utilize on-board graphics function.) Intel Socket H(LGA1156) Intel H55 1 x HDMI (On board video) $219.99