Build Your Own Media Center PC

We live in a rather confusing world. Not so long ago, anyone buying a desktop or a laptop would have just a few things to consider such as monitor screen size, CPU and HDD. There was just one fixed OS Windows and there was only so much you could do with a PC. Since then, PCs have become more powerful and today is a popular medium of entertainment for most people. Microsoft deciding to take advantage of the growing trend, released the Windows Media Center edition which took the whole concept of TV/PC convergence to a new level. Now not only did the PC act as your TV control center, it enabled you to enjoy movies in their proper aspects without bothering for region checks and also gave excellent audio playback. This new OS led to the emergence of what is now popularly called the HTPC market.

However like all other things in life, technology has not been stagnant. Since the time the Windows Media Center Edition has emerged, HD has found its way into the mainstream. HD is High Definition and is the term used to describe the next generation of video. HD takes video to the next quality as it is four times the size of SD which is the term used to refer to current generation video. HD is the result of higher resolution giving higher quality video.

Therefore it should come across as no surprise that Microsoft has decided to capitalize on this market. As we have already mentioned in our recent Windows Vista review , there have been a tremendous amount of changes that have taken place in the way Windows handles digital media. Windows Vista not only has support for next-generation HD technologies like Blu-Ray and HD DVD, it also has a re-designed media center interface that improves on its predecessors by leaps and bounds. It takes advantage of Vista’s new Aero interface and is far more intuitive.

Keeping all this in mind we decided to build a new HTPC on a budget of Rs 65,000 that would satisfy not just the Windows Vista Premium tag, but would also serve as a powerful media-center. Please note we have taken a different approach for building the HTPC. The unit we are building here is designed to be standalone and will not serve as a regular PC. It is strictly meant for multimedia entertainment therefore we are choosing to leave out a monitor from this feature. This is a PC meant to be hooked up to your HDTV.

CPU: AMD 3800+ X2 (Rs. 6,300)
Initially when we set out on our hunt, the first processors that naturally came to mind were Intel’s Core2Duo series. Not only are the C2D series quite fast for day-to-day work, these also make for great gaming processors. However there is a downside to the C2D platform after a while. Accessories such as motherboards for the C2D are not really affordable. Good quality motherboards for the C2D cost a lot of greenbacks, putting it out of the scope of our feature.

Hence we decided to go back to the AMD platform for our roundup. AMD may have fallen a step or two as compared to Intel, but it is no slouch. The X2 range of processors are quite powerful in their own right and make for great multimedia performers. The Intel onslaught has also led to the price of the processors and motherboards falling to value levels.

The X2 we have chosen brings the power of dual-core to the desktop and is clocked at 2GHz. It sports 512K of L2 cache per core and forms the perfect engine for all our HD decoding needs.

Motherboard: Asus M2NPV-VM (Rs. 5,100)
Our choice of motherboard was a no-brainer. This sterling effort from Asus has been the basis of our earlier HTPC effort and is still competitive even today. In case you are wondering what we are talking about, let us refresh your memory. The M2NPV-VM not only supports all current generation AMD X2 and FX series processors, it also comes with an on-board GeForce 6150 graphics unit that offers component HD output in both 720p and 1080i. To achieve these levels of output, Asus bundles a HDTV-out module that does the job admirably.

The GeForce 6150 is also rated as a Vista Premium ready chipset, which is really just the icing on the cake. It can take full advantage of Windows Vista’s Aero interface. For a more detailed specification chart on its features check out this link. The M2NPV-VM still remains the best budget motherboard to build an HTPC.

Memory: Transcend 1 GB DDR2 667 (Rs. 5,000)
We would recommend getting 2 GB of RAM for multi-tasking on a Windows Vista Home Premium. However for a HTPC that is overkill. One does not require that much RAM for decoding a video stream as that is more of a CPU intensive task. 1 GB more than suffices and with good quality RAM, Windows Vista runs smoothly.

We have chosen Transcend here as it is a well known and respected brand and offers great performance. We chose to put 2 sticks here as the motherboard is dual-channel capable. Dual-channel is used to double the memory speeds, bandwidth and performance at no extra cost hence it makes sense to utilize this free performance boost.
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Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 6150 GPU - n/a
We have already mentioned about the Nvidia GeForce 6150 GPU as being one of the reasons for choosing the motherboard. Just to refresh your memory not only does the 6150, have full support for High-Def video (H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 HD-Video Playback formats), it has an HD bracket that makes it possible to output 1080i content. The 6150 GPU is also Windows Vista Premium ready, and is available for free on our choice of motherboard.

Sound: Creative X-FI Platinum (Rs. 15,500)
In our quest for the perfect AV experience, a lot of us go gaga over picture quality and often pay no attention to sound quality. We think this is wrong, as good audio is as big a part of the movie watching experience.For good sound we didn’t need to look too far.The answer lay in the Creative X-Fi which is one of the best PC accessories money can buy right now.

In the PC audio market, Creative has been 500-pound Gorilla for a long time. Their products have defined and shaped the PC Audio industry for both gaming and quality of audio output. Their latest range of X-FI ( extreme fidelity ) products have now reached the incredible level where despite being at their far lower price points, they can arguably take on the very high-end production sound cards like the Delta 66 and still hold their own. The X-FI are in fact THX certified, up to 7.1 channels and are capable of Dolby as well as DTS decoding thereby providing absolute best quality audio from your DVDs.

Hard Disks: Seagate ST3320620AS 2x 320GB (Rs.4,650x2 = Rs.9,300)
The cost of HDD storage today has become a joke. Prices have come down so hard and fast, that we are willing to bet that by the time our article goes online, the next generation of storage will be upon us and will be half as cheap as the previous generation.

Jokes apart, one can never have enough space. The Seagate drive we have used has 2 advantages over offerings from other manufacturers. The first advantage is that it uses perpendicular recording technology for its storage purposes. Perpendicular record storage is a next-gen method of storage under which the data is stored horizontally as compared to the longitudinal method of storage that is the current norm. This is advantageous in several ways. It not only allows, HDDs to have higher capacities in the same size that they are currently, it also gives a fair performance boost. It is this performance boost which is our second advantage. The Seagate we have used here is in fact as fast some of Western Digital’s Raptor Performance drives series which cost 3 times as much.
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DVD Drive: Asus DRW-1608P3S 16X DVD Writer (Rs. 2,450)
A DVD-writer is an important part of an HTPC and therefore care has to be taken while selecting your optical drive. In our case we choose Asus as this drive is an OEM product of Pioneer’s 111L drive and offers great compatibility with all kinds of DVD media. It can also be easily converted to a region free drive which will allow you to view any kind of DVD movie without any issue. As a writer, it has virtually no equals and will allow for seamless DVD authoring with a wide variety of media without quality issues.

TV Tuner: Compro VideoMate TV Gold Plus II (Rs 3,500)
Which HTPC is complete without a TV tuner? The answer in case you are still wondering is none. Though there are dozens of makes of TV tuners around, none of them quite have the feature set and performance of the Compro range of products.

The VideoMate TV Gold Plus II we have chosen here is a very comprehensive solution with a wide array of recording and playback functions. It not only tunes regular TV, it has support for FM too and plugins into the windows Media center overlay natively thereby making it a must have for our roundup. It even comes with an IR remote thereby eliminating the need for a dedicated HTPC remote.

Control: Microsoft Wireless Optical Keyboard and Mouse Combo (Rs. 1,500)
Though there are several media-center keyboard/mouse/remote combos, these are fairly expensive. Our choice of TV tuner, allows you to scroll through channels without any issues hence we have simply chosen to go with this wireless set which will give you that remote freedom you so desire

Cabinet: VIP ATX Cabinet with Integrated 400W PSU (Rs. 1,650)
There is not much to say here. VIP is a well known maker of ATX cabinets available in decent colors and well designed power supplies that are known for their reliability. It is an ideal product for building our HTPC on.

Windows Vista Home Premium (Rs. 15,500)

This is Microsoft’s latest OS and comes loaded with a new version of Media Center.
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Specification Table