The concept of a home theater personal computer, also known as an HTPC, is growing in popularity thanks to TiVo and Microsoft Media Center editions of the Windows operating system. Building your own HTPC system gives you freedom and flexibility, allowing you to select your own software and hardware.
Not everyone is willing to spend the time to research, purchase components, build, and configure their own HTPC, which is why the pre-built solutions such as TiVo are so popular. If you're willing to spend some time with this process, you'll soon have an amazing HTPC, without the costs, subscription fees, and restrictions of pre-built solutions. Why pay a premium for inferior hardware and software? Build your own with custom components and free software.This guide will walk through a hardware setup, and Ubuntu and MythTV installation. It will also focus on the configuration of LIRC, modprobe, and other components important for running an HTPC.
[edit] Steps
Know your own requirements. Do you want to use this HTPC as a stereo as well? Will it store your MP3 collection and act as a server? What other users can you dedicate to it?
Research and purchase hardware. While almost any modern PC will work, specific component technologies will help your HTPC handle smooth recording and playback of video.
TV Tuner cards. Hauppauge and ATI have made their names a standard for TV tuners and other multimedia cards. The Hauppauge PVR-150 (a single TV tuner card) is more widely supported in third-party software than any other card. Multiple PVR-150 cards may be installed in one PC and recognized with any TV recording application without any customization. The same is true for the dual TV tuner card from Hauppauge, know as the PVR-500.
Memory. Almost any DDR memory is suitable for up to two TV tuners. For three or more TV tuners, DDR-400 or higher bandwidth memory with a CAS latency of 2 is recommended, and for DDR2, a CAS of 4 is recommended. Avoid DDR3 modules until the latency numbers are improved. Recording multiple streams of video while playing another requires decently low latency memory.
Case. You may buy a case specifically designed for HTPC systems, or use a standard ATX case. There is a lot of flexibility here depending upon where you plan to keep the system, and how much cooling you'll need. If you're opting to keep this in a central location such as a living room or den, you might want to focus on keeping the system quiet and dust-free. This is always a balancing act when higher performance components are utilized. Pick a case with more airflow and ventilation than you need for your components so that you'll be able to lower the fan speeds once its built.
Assemble the system.
Configure the BIOS. Since this system will be powered on all of the time, one of our priorities is to minimize the time it's sitting idle while fully powered on. Not only does this conserve energy, but it also prolongs the life of your hardware. Inside of your system's BIOS configuration utility, you will want to set a timeout for a system standby mode. Some PCs will have additional controls for powering down components after so much idle time, while others will need to rely upon the operating system's settings to do this. Also, avoid using a suspend mode, as many operating systems have difficulty recovering from it.
Download and install a free distribution of Linux. Ubuntu is one of the easiest and most popular distributions for MythTV since it already includes many of the individual components you'd need with other distributions. Feel free to choose a distribution that suits your need and expertise, but this guide will focus on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn):
Download a LiveCD ISO image from a mirror site listed on ubuntu.org. An ISO image is an image of a optical disc that is ready to be burned onto a CD or DVD.
Burn the ISO to a spare CD using CD burning software such as Nero.
Boot your new HTPC to the installer CD.
Select the "Start or install Ubuntu" option or let this screen time out to select it automatically.
Double click on the "Install" icon once Ubuntu Live CD has loaded the desktop.
Not everyone is willing to spend the time to research, purchase components, build, and configure their own HTPC, which is why the pre-built solutions such as TiVo are so popular. If you're willing to spend some time with this process, you'll soon have an amazing HTPC, without the costs, subscription fees, and restrictions of pre-built solutions. Why pay a premium for inferior hardware and software? Build your own with custom components and free software.This guide will walk through a hardware setup, and Ubuntu and MythTV installation. It will also focus on the configuration of LIRC, modprobe, and other components important for running an HTPC.
[edit] Steps
Know your own requirements. Do you want to use this HTPC as a stereo as well? Will it store your MP3 collection and act as a server? What other users can you dedicate to it?
Research and purchase hardware. While almost any modern PC will work, specific component technologies will help your HTPC handle smooth recording and playback of video.
TV Tuner cards. Hauppauge and ATI have made their names a standard for TV tuners and other multimedia cards. The Hauppauge PVR-150 (a single TV tuner card) is more widely supported in third-party software than any other card. Multiple PVR-150 cards may be installed in one PC and recognized with any TV recording application without any customization. The same is true for the dual TV tuner card from Hauppauge, know as the PVR-500.
Memory. Almost any DDR memory is suitable for up to two TV tuners. For three or more TV tuners, DDR-400 or higher bandwidth memory with a CAS latency of 2 is recommended, and for DDR2, a CAS of 4 is recommended. Avoid DDR3 modules until the latency numbers are improved. Recording multiple streams of video while playing another requires decently low latency memory.
Case. You may buy a case specifically designed for HTPC systems, or use a standard ATX case. There is a lot of flexibility here depending upon where you plan to keep the system, and how much cooling you'll need. If you're opting to keep this in a central location such as a living room or den, you might want to focus on keeping the system quiet and dust-free. This is always a balancing act when higher performance components are utilized. Pick a case with more airflow and ventilation than you need for your components so that you'll be able to lower the fan speeds once its built.
Assemble the system.
Configure the BIOS. Since this system will be powered on all of the time, one of our priorities is to minimize the time it's sitting idle while fully powered on. Not only does this conserve energy, but it also prolongs the life of your hardware. Inside of your system's BIOS configuration utility, you will want to set a timeout for a system standby mode. Some PCs will have additional controls for powering down components after so much idle time, while others will need to rely upon the operating system's settings to do this. Also, avoid using a suspend mode, as many operating systems have difficulty recovering from it.
Download and install a free distribution of Linux. Ubuntu is one of the easiest and most popular distributions for MythTV since it already includes many of the individual components you'd need with other distributions. Feel free to choose a distribution that suits your need and expertise, but this guide will focus on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn):
Download a LiveCD ISO image from a mirror site listed on ubuntu.org. An ISO image is an image of a optical disc that is ready to be burned onto a CD or DVD.
Burn the ISO to a spare CD using CD burning software such as Nero.
Boot your new HTPC to the installer CD.
Select the "Start or install Ubuntu" option or let this screen time out to select it automatically.
Double click on the "Install" icon once Ubuntu Live CD has loaded the desktop.
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