Community Newsletter: Q&A: Integrating my computer as part of the entertainment center

Been doing it for years. Now better than ever

In reply to: Integrating my computer as part of the entertainment center by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

Phil,

I've been doing this for some time now, ever since my college years 5 or 6 years ago when i bought my first HDTV with component inputs. Back then i had a computer in my apartment bedroom, and the TV went on the living room right outside, so i just had a cable running under the door out from my room. These days i built a custom dedicated HTPC for the living room 61" DLP. It is connected to the rest of the network in my house, since some of the media is stored elsewhere. The cost to build my system was about $1,100, and the build took place about 5 months ago. These are the condensed specs:

Hardware:
CPU -- AMD Quad Core Phenom 9550
RAM -- 4 GB Patriot PC2 8500 (DDR2 1066 MHz)
VID -- GeForce 9600GT (512MB)
HDD -- 1 TB (2 x 512MB SATA 3.0 Gb/s in RAID-0)
Dual HDTV QAM/ATSC tuners

Software:
Windows Vista Home Premium X64
Windows Media Center (comes with vista)
Several video games (mostly same-screen multiplayer)
TriDef Drivers and software

That's the jist of the system. It's all packaged in an unassuming black box that camouflages into the entertainment center table. I have the tuners hooked up to an $80 HDTV antenna that resides in the attic.

The computer serves primarily as an HDTV tivo machine connected via HDMI to a 61" DLP. I don't pay for cable or satellite, and instead the machine receives free HDTV broadcasts from CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC, WB, and PBS. The included Windows Media Center software is set to record the shows my wife and I watch (CSI, Numbers, NCIS, etc), so we can watch them on our schedule. We can also stream shows directly from the networks' webpages. For intance, CBS provides their shows free for streaming with amazing, near-HD quality. I don't care much about sports other than college football, so i don't mind not having ESPN, although i can watch ESPN360.com (it's not hd, though). I must say microsoft did a really good job on their Media Center software for once. It's polished, works great with the remote control, and it even integrates well with free third party comercial skip software. It's really nice to be watching a show and have it automatically skip through comercials into the next segment. The shows just move into a new level of continuity, bringing your TV watching experience to an entirely new level.

Besides TV, we obviously also use the machine as a DVD player. We could have added a Blu-Ray drive (currently $100-$150), but decided the media is just too expensive at this point, and standard DVDs look great as it is, probably due to fancy video processing techniques employed by the machine. You can also store DVDs on your hard drive using software such as "DVD decrypter", and then just play the root file in the VIDEO_TS folder using media center or windows media player. This could be a gray area as far as legality, however, since technically the software defeats the dvd encryption. That being said, as long as you own the dvd, you should be allowed to watch your media however you like. There's something to be said about not having to keep a library of dvd cases in your living room and being able to call up movies on demand, without having to get up and change the disk everytime. The downside to this is that you should be ready to have lots of storage available. Every standard DVD holds 8GB of data, but you can satisfy this by purchasing additional external storage drives as the need arises. Still a 1 TB external drive will take up a lot less space than 125 dvd cases.

In addition to TV and DVD, the machine also serves as a videogame console. I have an Xbox360 controller for windows and a logitech rumblepad2 controller. The current videocard is appropriate (60fps+) for most titles at 1080p with high quality settings, but struggles with some newer games like Crysis. Bioshock plays silky smooth all maxed out, though. In the end, if you're not planning to play video games, you don't need a video card like this, as much RAM, or as fast a processor, and could save a few hundred dollars in the build. If you do want this capability, however, I'd reccomend a GeForce 9800GTX or a Radeon HD 4850 (both ~$200), instead of the 9600GT.

Last but not least, i included the Tridef Software in my list. My Samsung DLP had a mysterious "3D synch" port on the side when i bought it. After some investigation i found out this was meant to connect to an infrared emitter to synch with shutter glasses and see 3D content. I bought the glasses, emitter, and software for $200, and it works ok for the most part. You do have to pay for specific game drivers at $5 a piece, they don't have DX10 drivers available, only DX9, and the drivers are not optimized at all. As a result, there is a substantial framerate drop with games and software on 3D mode, but some games like Madden are still very much playable, and google earth is kinda cool on 3d with the topographic terrain option on. There's also the hope that Nvidia or ATI will include native 3D checkerboarding in future drivers and earn my patronage. The TriDef software package also includes video and photo players that transform regular 2D media into 3D with some level of success. Imax-style 3D is somethig that's not absolutely necessary, but it's just an example of something else you can do if you have a computer driving your entertainment as opposed to a cable box.

Having a computer driving your entertainment can also have some drawbacks, however. I've had the occasional BSOD, and then there's been hardware that doesn't play nice with the system, and a bug or two that may surface here and there. There's also an increased level of complexity involved in building or selecting the appropriate system and hooking/setting everything up. You should definitely have some experience and skills when it comes to computers before atempting this. And then there's also the problem in the videogame front regarding myopic developers that refuse to include same-screen multiplayer capabilities in most games, resulting in a pretty anemic library of appropriate video games for this application. This is more of a problem with PCs than consoles, since historically, PC gamers are thought of as playing in isolated closets with a keyboard and mouse. Developers wouldn't dream that some users are actually playing in the living room, from a couch, with a controller, and have wives and friends that would like to join in on the action on the same screen and in the same room.

In spite of the drawbacks, I find using a computer as the brains of my TV to be overall a very rewarding experience. Commercial-free free HDTV, DVD player, 7.1 HD sound, 1080p & DX10 video game console, Imax-type 3D, possible Blu-ray player at my whim, and limitless upgradability can all be encased in a sigle, small, unobtrusive black box. Best of all, the interface is intuitive, user friendly and powerful. The wife approval factor on this one is very high.