Entertainment Center PC

Introduction

Personal computers have been a source of entertainment in people's homes, since they were first introduced.  The idea of this Entertainment Center Computer is to build upon this and design a computer specifically for integration into a multimedia entertainment center.  Computers aimed at this niche are some times referred to as Home Theater PCs (HTPC).

What does a computer bring to a multimedia entertainment?  For one thing, it brings the capacity for large amounts of digital storage, which can be quickly accessed.  I'm referring to a computer's hard drives.  We are approaching the point where it is conceivable for home computers to store up to a Terabyte (1000 Gigabytes) of data.  (250 GB hard drives are readily available and, relatively speaking, not much more expensive than the smaller capacity drives, i.e., they cost less than a dollar per gigabyte of capacity.  With most new motherboards supporting four EIDE drives and two SATA drives, setting up a system with  four 250 GB hard drives would not require anything special.)  

Computers also have the computing power for changing multimedia content from one format to another.  They can take an analog data stream and capture it in a digital format; they can also can convert this digital media from one digital format to another.  

Plus, since computers can be connected to the internet, they can access more multimedia content this way (either by downloading files or "streaming" the content for playback while it is being downloaded).  Access to the internet also makes available all sorts of information that could be relevant to a user's entertainment interests, such as television schedules, movie reviews, music catalogs, etc..

Given these abilities, what are some of the specific things that people might want to use their Entertainment Center PC for?  One popular use is to record and playback of television content.  Unlike with a VCR, a computer can both record and playback this content at the same time, making possible "time shifting" of television programming.  This means, for example, that you can start watching your favorite program 20 minutes after it has started,  and you can pause it anytime, picking up right where you left off, whenever you are ready.  (This technology has been made available in stand alone Digital Video Recorders, such as those offered by TiVo.)  You also can download, store, and playback digital music and video.  This content can easily be transferred to various media for storage and portability, such as to CDs, DVDs, and flash memory (such as that used in portable MP3 players).  You can also transfer video and music from one source to another, for example, transferring music from vinyl LPs to digital CDs or transferring video from VHS tapes to video CDs or DVDs.  Since all this audio and video content stored on your computer is now digitalized, it is readily available for editing.  And finally, of course, you can play computer games.

When it comes to actually putting an Entertainment Center Computer together, here are some hardware considerations to keep in mind.  The box, or case itself, should fit  with other entertainment components on a shelf or stand.  It should have lots of fast hard drive space.  It should have a TV tuner and be capable of video capture.  It should be capable of delivering surround sound, ideally digital surround, such as Dolby Digital.  This can either be decoded by the computer for direct output to amplified speakers or passed along, by way of an optical connection, to an external decoder.  Ideally, the video card will be optimized for DVD decoding.  The processor should be powerful enough to handle easily the decoding and encoding of multimedia content on the fly, and there should be plenty of system memory for buffering these operations.  A DVD-ROM drive is a must, and either a CD burner or a CD/DVD recorder will be highly desirable, too.  If you are interested in playing any computer games through this system, a 3 D capable video card is also necessary.  Finally, this system should have wireless controls for convenient input.

Alright, let's see what we can come up with.

 

Case

Instead of a tower, we are looking for a case in a desktop orientation, small enough to fit on a shelf with your typical entertainment center components.  After looking at a number of options available from Antec, Ahanix, CoolerMaster, and Lian Li, I settled on the Silverstone SST-LC03 as offering the best compromise between compact size and flexible capacity.

The overall dimensions of this case are 16" deep x 16.7" wide x 6.3" high.  Although this means that the dimensions from front to back are 2 or 3 inches more than many HiFi components, this still should be workable.  In return, you get a lot of capacity in this case.  It will accommodate a full size ATX motherboard, a full size power supply, 2 external 5 inch drives, 2 external 3.5" drives, and 2 internal 3.5" hard drives.  It has one 60mm exhaust fan on the back, and it can accommodate another 80mm intake fan, which would be located just below the hard drives.  The main case is constructed of steel with the front bezel made of brushed aluminum.

This case is not inexpensive; it costs around $138, which doesn't include a power supply.  Silverstone makes their own 400 watt Super Silent model (SST-ST400), which costs around $49.  It specifies delivering 28 A on the 3.3v rail, 35 A on the 5v rail, and 18 A on the 12v  rail.  The capacity for the 3.3v and 5v rails combined is 240 watts, and the total output capacity is 380 watts.

If you need to find something less expensive, consider the Antec Overture, which comes with the quieter version of Antec's 380 watt True Power power supply.  This case is similar in dimensions to the Silverstone, though it is 19" deep and slightly lower in height.  It also accommodates full-size ATX boards, and it has room for roughly the same number of drives as the Silverstone.  At $107, including the power supply, it will be quite a bit less expensive to start your HTPC project with this case.

If you feel that the Antec and the Silverstone cases mentioned above are still too big for your needs, you might take a look at the Silverstone SST-LC02.  It measures 11.6" deep x 15" wide x 4" tall and comes with a 220 watt power.  Interestingly, this diminutive case still will accept a full-size ATX motherboard.  The catch is that only 2 expansion cards can be installed, using the included risers.  Although only two cards can be installed, they can be full height PCI/AGP cards, unlike what you can do with most other cases that are less than 5" tall.  This case currently runs about $140.  

Finally, you might also consider Shuttle's XPC line of barebones systems.  These small form factor cases measure 11.8" deep, 7.9" wide, and 7.3" tall.  They include a power supply, motherboard, and a special cooling system for the CPU.  They have models for both AMD and Intel processors with motherboards built around a number of different chipsets.

Processor, Motherboard, Heatsink, and Memory

For Intel based systems, the Pentium 4 2.8C GHz model continues to offer the most value at around $186 for the retail version.  This should provide plenty of computing horsepower for this system.  In fact, if you are looking to pare away a bit of cost, you could opt for the Pentium 4 2.4C, which will save you about $26.  You might as well pick up a retail model, since it comes with a three warranty.  Additionally, the heatsink that is included probably will be adequate for your needs -- especially if it is paired with the motherboard shown below.

The Aopen AX4SE MAX II is a pretty complete i865 motherboard with lots of Serial ATA connectors and the possibility of using them in RAID configurations.  It also has firewire, gigabit Ethernet, and plenty of USB ports.  For $129 it is at the high-end of what the i865 chipset motherboards are selling for, but typical for those with the extra hardware built into them.  One of the main reasons that I like the idea of using an Aopen motherboard for this system is because of the inclusion of their SilentTek BIOS and software.  This technology makes possible regulating the speed, and therefore the noise, of many of the fans in this system, which will be very helpful for a PC that will be integrated into an entertainment system and likely be located in a living room.

i865 based motherboards are dual channel memory motherboards; so, we'll need a matched pair of DIMMs.  I think that a total of 512 MB of memory will be sufficient, but if you know that you'll be doing a lot of tasks that require extensive memory, such as video editing, you might consider bumping this up to 1 GB of memory.  In any case, something like Corsair's Value Select PC3200 memory, which is capable of CL 2.5 should be fine.

For our Athlon system, I'm going to recommend moving to the recently introduced Athlon 64 line of processors.  After kicking this new line of processors off with the fastest models, AMD gradually has been introducing some lower speed and less expensive models that make these processors more attractive to the mainstream user.  The newest of these is the Athlon 64 XP 2800, which is selling for $149, now.  This new Athlon is competitive in price and performance with the previously mentioned Pentium 4 2.8C (more so than the regular Athlon XP 2800, which has difficulty keeping up with hyperthreading capable Pentium 4s, running on a 800 MHz bus).  

Aopen makes a few socket 754 motherboards for these new AMD processors.  Their AK89 MAX utilizes the Nforce3-150 chipset, and it offers a number of nice extras, such as Serial ATA, RAID, and firewire integrated onto the board.  It sells for about $114.

Since this is not a dual channel memory motherboard, a single DIMM will be sufficient.  Mushkin's Basic PC 3200 CL2.5 will be satisfactory; a single 512 MB module currently costs about $75.

 

Video and Audio

This section gets us more into what distinguishes this system for other home computers.  For a video card, I'm recommending the ATI Radeon 9600 All-in-Wonder, which includes a TV tuner, as well as video capture capabilities.  It also comes with a nice package of extras that will benefit it's use in an Entertainment Center PC, including a remote control and software for what ATI calls "TV on Demand".  TV on Demand is what allows you to record and time shift your television content.  It also includes video editing software and a remote control.  The card has decent, but not great, 3D rendering capabilities; so, it will support the occasional PC game, as well.  One benefit of giving up some 3D rendering speed is that this card doesn't produce enough heat to require a fan on the heatsink.  ATI also makes versions of their All-in-Wonder card with faster versions of their graphics processors, such as the 9600XT AIW and the 9800Pro AiW, if being able to use this system to play computer games is also important to you.

Although both of the Aopen motherboards mentioned above have 5.1 channel audio, including the capability to output digital audio, I think that a dedicated audio card will be much more satisfactory, given the intended use for this system.  The best all around audio card probably is the Audigy 2 ZS.  The regular Audigy 2 sound card should be more than adequate for most people, especially since it can be hooked up to the front panel audio and firewire ports on the Silverstone case.  However,I'd like to point out the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, which includes an external breakout box for many types of connections and a remote control.  I'm sure there are some folks that will find these features useful enough in a multimedia setting to justify the extra cost.

Drives

Hard drive storage continues to come down in price in terms of gigabytes of storage per dollar, especially with the larger drives.  While drives of 200 GB and larger are readily available, I'm suggesting Seagate's 160 GB, 7200 rpm, 8MB cache, and SATA drive for a number of reasons.  At around $106, it provides plenty of storage at a reasonable cost.  Also, Seagate drives are known for their quietness, and this models come with a five year warranty.  Although I've picked a serial ATA model, a regular EIDE drive would work as well.  Many motherboards now support running SATA drives in a RAID formation, which can provide a bit more performance.  I don't think it is necessary for this system, but starting out with one SATA drive leaves open the option of adding another and taking advantage of the motherboard's  RAID capabilities down the road.

An Entertainment PC obviously is going to need an optical drive that can read DVDs, and these days, the cost of drives that can record DVDs has gotten to the point that one of these has to be seriously considered, as well.  Although a bit more costly than other brands, Plextor is almost always the top pick when looking for the best quality in drives for recording to CDs and DVDs.  Their top of the line PX-712A, which can write DVDs at up to 12x speeds and write CDs at up to 48x speeds is not that much more expensive, at $129,  than their models with somewhat slower speed capabilities.

Of course, not everyone is interested in recording DVDs, so a less expensive CD burner that can also read DVDs is a good alternative.  Lite-On makes a 52x32x52x16x model that is plenty fast and very popular.  At $42 for the OEM model, it provides considerable savings over the Plextor DVD burner.

Although many have declared the floppy drive to be obsolete and consider it's inclusion in a computer system an anachronism, I still find them to be useful for running various DOS based utilities.  Since they are inexpensive, I go ahead and include one in this package.

Input

A wireless means of controlling this computer will be the best, and while there are quite a few wireless models available, I'd like to call attention to one in particular.  The BTC 9019URF keyboard incorporates a small joystick that can used as a mouse.  This feature and the small size of this keyboard combine to make it an ideal controller for an Entertainment PC.  The problem is, although I've seen reviews of this keyboard, such as at Tom's Hardware, I haven't been able to find it for sale anywhere.

In the meanwhile, the Lite-On SK7551 keyboard also has an integrated pointing device, which makes a good Entertainment Center PC controller.  This keyboard uses infrared for it's wireless connection.

Summary

The total cost for this system, as I have described it, is rather expensive, but it can be considered a high end version of a home entertainment computer.  I have mentioned plenty of opportunities along the way where saving could be made by using less costly components or trimming away features that are not that important to you.  The main idea of this guide is to provide a starting point to think through what makes for a good Entertainment Center PC, both in terms of the functions that it can provide and the hardware that can support these features.

Back to Sequoyah Computer's Home