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Home Theater Equipment ListMy home theater has evolved pretty rapidly over that last two years since first getting hooked. First I started with surround sound and DVD, then HDTV, and a home theater computer (HTPC). A little earlier this year I completely upgraded my audio components as well. I'll try to get some pictures up soon, but in the meantime here's my current equipment list:
The real heart of the system is the HTPC, which is used for DVD playback,
MP3/CD music playback, HDTV viewing and recording, and scaling of NTSC satellite
video. HTPC Hardware
This system was built with reliability and quality in mind. Issues such as stability, heat, and noise control were considered rather than just raw CPU performance. The Radeon offers the best picture quality for DVD and 2D video, which to me was far more important than gaming performance (I have an XBox for that). I've gotten used to the PVR capabilities of my UltimateTV, so when it came to HDTV I knew that I would be happy with having to watch everything live. The HiDTV is one of a handful of HDTV tuner cards which provide an convenient way of recording OTA HDTV without the expense or hassles of D-VHS. The extra disk space if for HDTV recordings, which consume approximately 9GB per hour. In the case of DVD, slower is actually better. The Toshiba 2x drive is very reliable, virtually silent, and has a very quick spin-up time which means no annoying pause/stutter when resuming paused playback.
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 | Windows ME |
| TheaterTek DVD Player |
| WinAmp |
| Girder |
| AccessDTV client software |
| dScaler |
| PowerStrip 3.0 |
| CallerID Sentry |
| DVD Profiler |
Unfortunately I'm stuck with Windows ME for the time being. Not all of my
hardware is fully supported under Windows XP, but that should change in the
not-too-distant future. TheaterTek DVD was written by a HTPC enthusiast with
HTPC users in mind, and in addition to offering arguably the best picture and
sound quality it also is easy to use and has a very polished, professional look
to it. WinAmp is a good general purpose music player, and when matched with the AlbumList
plug-in offers all the functionality I need. The Smoke
plug-in also provides some nice full-screen visuals to accompany the music.
Powerstrip is used to provide the custom resolutions needed to display HDTV
resolutions.
One important goal for me was usability. I wanted my Home Theater to be as
easy to use as possible. The combination of the IRMan receiver and Girder
automation software allow me to automate pretty much every aspect of the HTPC so
that it can be controlled from my remote control. The Airboard is rarely used at
all. I plan to put up a separate page about IRMan/Girder usage soon.
Most PC's are actually quite noisy due to all the fans and drives in
them. You might not normally notice it when surfing the web, but it can be quite
a distraction when watching a movie with quiet spots in it. I've put quite a bit
of effort making my HTPC as quiet as possible.
| The 2 case fans are Silencer low-noise fans from PC Power & Cooling. |
| The CPU has a Zalman Copper Cooler with a very low noise fan. |
| I replaced the Radeon's stock heatsink/fan with a Zalman Copper VGA Heatsink |
| I replaced the northbridge chipset heatsink with a Zalman Northbridge Cooler |
| Both hard drives are enclosed in Silent Drive enclosures. |
| I use rounded IDE/Floppy cables, which are less restrictive to air-flow in the case. |
The end result is a computer that is virtually silent and still runs cool enough to be stable. The only way it can be heard is if the rest of the room is in complete silence. As soon as the A/C or refrigerator kicks on, the HTPC can no longer be heard, and when watching TV or movies the HTPC poses no distraction at all.
This page was last updated on
09/22/02.