15 replies to this topic

[biggav]

My laptop is Fubard... kids stood on the screen and i have a crocodile clip and 2p coin applying pressure on the corner of it to stop it freezing....

Mhy wife has been looking at getting me a new laptop but i think i may be better off getting a PC connected up to my 50" plasma screen and a wireless keyboard... that way we can download/stream movies and music through our dolby 7.1 system... it's also right next to the home hub so could be wired up to superfast tinterweb.... so far, i've been looking at one of these....

keyboard

so i guess all i need is a Bare PC without keyboard or screen which has a good amount of memory, 7.1 sound card decent graphics?? etc... I'm a plumber and don't really know what i need..... less than £300 would be a bonus.

[tino]

You could use this http://www.ciao.co.u...ter_PC__6541808 it works with more than just windows media center, although that will probably be the easiest to set up.

For a HTPC is it going to be hidden or on display? If its on display then does it have to look nice? There are a few good prebuilt ones but they tend to be in the £500+ range, you can make your own easily for under £300 if your careful with the components you put in, the only problem is the OS which if its windows can set you back at least £100 for a legit copy...

I would be looking at the lower prices AMD processors an AM2 Dual Core 4000+ should suffice, with http://www.silentpcr...e778-page1.html that motherboard as it has a HDMI output built into it. Also the audio offered on that isn't to bad a soloution although you can get alot better. Im sure someone who knows more about intel would recommend something similar. Also look at about 2gb of Ram at least. 

Are you going to be recording to the hard drive? If so a film can be condensed down to 700mb ish for it to remain of reasonable quality, HD movies take about 5gbat least although they do look superb. Also do you want a tuner built into the back of it so you can watch standard digital tv?

There are lots of ways you can go with it. by the way I have a Logitech Wireless mouse and keyboard cost me £30 and that works pretty well at a decent range. MX501 I think it was...

[Ethel]

That's a dinky gizmo

There's no reason why you can't just use the laptop running it's display on the external screen to decide where you want to go with multimedia.

Most digtal tv adapters for pc's will come with a TV style remote and, of course, there is one specific to Windows Media Centre. Research your choice of TV adapter well as there not all brilliant at supporting media centre type software

There are also alternatives to WMC like GBTV worth looking at.

One drawback with computer 'software based' setups is having to wait for them to boot up so if you do get a new pc choose one that has a good standby mode you'll also want decent hard disk capacity - preferably on more than one drive.

[biggav]

I have sky HD with 80GB hard drive, Pioneer VSX-1016V HDMI AV receiverthis one and a Samsung DVD-HD950 dvd player which upscales all compatible DVD's to 1080 lines... or somat.....

Basically, i don't need a digital tuner on it, or the ability to record Tv as i have that already with sky... nor does it need to play Dvd's and the like as i already have a player i am happy with... all i really need is the ability to read emails and surf the net on my TV screen... i quite often go on yamour.com and watch the latest films though the quality isn't always good.... i do use youtubeX to record from youtube though... especially music video's and i think me and the mrs would like to make a video jukebox type thing to go with it.... and i'd like it to plug through the pioneer box by either component or hdmi so i can have the sound through my mordaunt shorts.

PS...

is it possible to have a remote screen from the laptop and do away with the laptop screen??? that would basically mean that i have the PC on my lap minus screen which appears on the TV.... and saves me buying a keyboard.

[Ethel]

Yes you can use your laptop without using its screen, you'll just need a cable to hook it up to your big telly depending on what connectors they both have, quite likely they'll both have RGB D subs but you could probably get an adapter if they don't match up.

All you have to do is open your display prefs by right clicking on your desktop and select the other display as default (set screen resolution etc.). Ctrl+F5 usually toggles the displays on a laptop too.

The main reason for using a Media centre PC would be to tie all your Audio visual goodies in to one. Windows media player or similar should be all you need to create a video jukebox but it wouldn't take you long to fill up your average laptop hard disk.

[biggav]

Yes you can use your laptop without using its screen, you'll just need a cable to hook it up to your big telly depending on what connectors they both have, quite likely they'll both have RGB D subs but you could probably get an adapter if they don't match up.

All you have to do is open your display prefs by right clicking on your desktop and select the other display as default (set screen resolution etc.). Ctrl+F5 usually toggles the displays on a laptop too.

The main reason for using a Media centre PC would be to tie all your Audio visual goodies in to one. Windows media player or similar should be all you need to create a video jukebox but it wouldn't take you long to fill up your average laptop hard disk.

what if i get a pc world hard disc thing?

[Ethel]

Yes you could get a usb hard drive. One option would be to upgrade the drive in the laptop and put its old disc into a usb housing. But if you think you may replace the laptop with a desktop PC you may want one that uses a drive you could use in that.

[Ethel]

Yes you could get a usb hard drive - assuming the Laptop isn't ancient and has USB2. One option would be to upgrade the drive in the laptop and put its old disc into a usb housing. But if you think you may replace the laptop with a desktop PC you may want one that uses a drive you could use in that.

[biggav]

now i'm really confuzzled

[Silicon Skum]

now i'm really confuzzled

If you need any help - just ask. I do this sort of stuff alot.

Right, YES you can use the laptop with out the screen (can be totally removed by diconnecting a couple of cables and removal of a few screws from the hinge) leaving a keyboard like platform with the laptop internals. Only problem with the idea is the LONG cable you will need to hook the display up - assuming you dont want to use it 2ft from the screen, and use it where you sit. Extra long VGA cable is going to be expensive, and thick! So not very managable for coiling away when done.

One option that can work - you can make your own VGA cable up (D-sub connectors available from Maplins / RS.) using CAT 5 network cable (plenty of "How to" instruction on the net). It's a little cheaper, but the main thing is the cable is more flexible and thinner.

You could also just use a wireless keyboard + Mouse combo and simply shove the laptop base unit under the TV, but it still is going to be fairly limited in what it can do.

The internal hard disk of the laptop is 2.5 inch, and more expensive than the desktop version wich is 3.5inch. Laptop drives also tend to have much smaller sizes than a desktop drive for the same price. You can fit a 3.5" drive into an external drive caddy, and this will plug into the USB ports on the back of the laptop. As long as the laptop supports USB 2.0, the drive will plenty fast. It will also work on USB 1 ports, however it will be slow as hell (USB2 = 480Mbits / s, USB1 = 12Mbits / s)

Depending on the HD and TV-out capabilities of the laptop, you could also use a standard S-video cable on the TV out socket (S-video / composit) on the back of the laptop. Some (but not all) TV out devices are capable of "HD" TV out - though it's not really true HD, it's a poor 720P equivalent (a tweaked 800x 600 or 1024 x 768 image). Quality is OK, not as good as VGA or HDMI as S-Video looks terrible at anything over 800 x 600 resolution. The VGA would be a better option to use here.



If you want to do this properly, and fairly cheap, just get a few parts together and build a system of your own. I built a simple HTPC for about £210 for the parts, and a little bit of time spent on making it all fit inside a standard video recorder case. Looks the part, just like any other device you expect to see under a TV, and not some huge clunky PC case with a different front panel, sold for use as an "HTPC" case.

My system is a bog standard (but decent make) micro-ATX size mother board (redued size, ment for cheaper upgrades of standard computers, so not as many expansion slots, and missing a few of the extras found on full size expensive boards, e.g dual network ports, etc.), a dual core AMD x2 processor, cheap but decent enough G-force 7300 graphics card, 2 Gig of RAM, a 300Gb hard disk, and a DVD burner drive. Only extra add in card is a Digital terrestrial TV tuner card (Freeview).
This setup allows me to record from the TV tuner card to either the hard disk or directly to the DVD drive, and also allows me to watch standard DVDs, and streaming TV / radio channels / movies etc. from the internet. Does the job nicely, and even plays a half decent game too.


It's dead easy to build a half decent system without spending a fortune on it, and the case can be almost anything you want - you don't have to use a proper case. You can use old VCRs, old amplifier case from a hifi stacker system, plastic box, make your own box out of wood, etc. - baisically anything large enough to hold the computer and provide enough airflow to cool it. Let's face it, it's prolly just ging to be tucked away behind the TV for most of the time anyway.

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[t@z]

my mac plugs into my tv on the back and mac has a built in media centre with a remote

so cool perfect colours on the screen bit to rich sometimes but sound is good eveyones happy. and its simple...

anyway that doesn't really help you at all. my uncle has a box about the size of a decent amp i guess wired up into his ££££££ system and it has a touch screen on the front of it so it can run and do this on it without it being on the screen/tv.

i'll try find out what it is later for you

Edited by t@z, 03 December 2007 - 02:11 PM.

[Silicon Skum]

my mac plugs into my tv on the back and mac has a built in media centre with a remote

so cool perfect colours on the screen bit to rich sometimes but sound is good eveyones happy. and its simple...

anyway that doesn't really help you at all. my uncle has a box about the size of a decent amp i guess wired up into his ££££££ system and it has a touch screen on the front of it so it can run and do this on it without it being on the screen/tv.

Thing is, the Mac isn't the best choice for a media centre because not all codecs / programs are supported under OS X - unless it's the newer one with the Intel chips, in which case an install of XP media centre or Linux will sort that out. Still seems the pricey way to go, when a cheaper bog standard PC will do the same. You pay for the Apple name.

The touch screen thing can be done on the cheap too, as long as you don't mind building it yourself. All that is required is a small touch screen LCD panel like those used for car computers (not that expensive anymore) and the right bit of software for control of the programs.
If you dont mind not having any graphics and using a simple text display, then you can build a small LCD display for about £20, that simply plugs into the printer port of the PC, and will work for most programs more or less right away (winamp has loads of support for these features).



Having had a think about this idea of reusing the laptop, you could simply strip the laptop and make a few simple modifications, The hard drive inside the laptop is a 2.5" drive, but it is a standard IDE device (just with smaller connector), and you can buy adapter cables so you could use up to TWO 3.5" desktop hard drives (one master, the other a slave) OR one hard drive and one standard DVD burner or Blue ray Drive, from the internal IDE connector of the laptop. would be faster than the laptop's original hard drive too. A pair of 500Gb drives would see you alright for some time to come! This would also leave the USB port(s) free for other uses.

You would need a seperate power supply for the desktop hard drives, as these require 12V and 5v power feeds, but you may be able to power the laptop motherboard from the 12V feed also (as long as the laptop uses a PSU that is 15V or under, it'll work just fine. might work with higher voltages too - possibly.). So all you would need is a cheap computer PSU - about £12 - to power everything. You *could* do the same thing with laptop hard drives, and power them directly from the laptop, but they are MUCH more expensive for larger sizes.

All you would need to do is to rehouse the latptop guts into a suitable sized case (dead video recorder anyone?...) with enough room for the two internal drives to sit along side. The laptop would be able to cope with video / music etc, and the VGA connector would give a decent display on the TV. A wireless keyboard or a windows Media Center compatable remote control would finish it off nicely. Nice and cheap too!

You can usually set the laptop to "external display only" in the BIOS, so the output will always be to the TV, and changing screen size or resolutions will not suddenly try to display on the now non existant LCD panel (I've seen that happen).


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Edited by Silicon Skum, 03 December 2007 - 04:45 PM.

[t@z]

Thing is, the Mac isn't the best choice for a media centre because not all codecs / programs are supported under OS X - unless it's the newer one with the Intel chips, in which case an install of XP media centre or Linux will sort that out. Still seems the pricey way to go, when a cheaper bog standard PC will do the same. You pay for the Apple name.

i disagree mainly becuase i convert most of my movies/videos into div-x and teh media player doesn't run through quicktime its seperate and plays them nicely. i was anti apple until i got one....and if i need a windows application i just either run windows parallel or boot it up into xp for eve to run other apps.

and best bit about it is hardly any viruses or none that i have been exposed to as apose to my xp experience. yeah its expensive but its dam smexy

[biggav]

got an s-video lead today and i'm now typing on a 50" screen.... the output from the laptop is high def i think but the fonts are so small that its hard to see on the screen.... the computer shop also do an s-video to scart lead which is very good quality and about 6m in length.... though i'm already thinking that the whole thing will be better if i get a wireless keyboard and let sit in my recliner a bit further from the Tv... i feel like i have arc eye atm.... at lest i can now get all the info from my business folders accross to myh other laptop or PC and then get the screen off this one for good!!!!!

The other benefit of a wireless keyboard will be having the sound through the dolby 7.1 and leaving the laptop permanently connected to the mains. ...

all i need now is some time and money for the parts..... i have an 80Gb ipod... can i use that memory??

[Silicon Skum]

got an s-video lead today and i'm now typing on a 50" screen.... the output from the laptop is high def i think but the fonts are so small that its hard to see on the screen....

all i need now is some time and money for the parts..... i have an 80Gb ipod... can i use that memory??

First off, see my comments about the S-video for reason the fonts are a bit hard to see - the VGA (monitor) connector is the better option to use. You can also get (or make yourself) a VGA to RGB cable, this will have a much better quality output - but the resolutions you can use will depend on your TV's capabilities (should at least support what you can do with s-video though). S-video was never intended for high resolutions

As for the Ipod - It's not ideal but you can use it to store data :

http://docs.info.app...ml?artnum=61131

But it won't work as a standard hard drive (ie plug in and use like a USB drive). I got a cheap 2.5" hard drive caddy which uses standard laptop drives (costs about £20 without the drive) and can be powered directly from the USB, so no extra power supplies. If you get one of these, and upgrade the internal hard drive on the laptop (recomend a 7200 RPM drive - you WILL notice the difference!) then you can reuse the old drive as extra storage.

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