Posts Tagged: htpc

0PSU LogoThe perfect HTPC power supply 2020?

Published by & filed under Misc Hardware. Last updated .

I recently got a new GPU for my HTPC which required a replace­ment power sup­ply as the old one was­n’t suit­able for power­ing a GPU with an 8 pin PCIe power cable. The HTPC is in use for an aver­age of around 6 hours per day and with elec­tri­city at 15p/kWh any reduc­tion in power at the wall works out at 33p a year per Watt. This isn’t a big sav­ing, but if con­sump­tion is reduced by sev­er­al watts the sav­ing can add up.
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0True home cinema for a grand

Posted by & filed under Media PC Hardware.

I’ve long had a “home cinema” setup with a fairly budget HTPC, a 50″ plasma TV, and a 4.1 sur­round sys­tem, but when I moved house a year ago I found I no longer had a place in the main fam­ily room to fit the 50″ TV, so had to revert back to the old Sam­sung 32″ 720p CRT that I bought in around 2006. The room has a large bay win­dow with a little recess per­fect for fit­ting a screen, so a plan was born for true home cinema
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0Alarm Clock LogoKeeping your HTPC clock in sync

Posted by & filed under Misc Media Software.

I’ve had a long-stand­ing issue with my HTPC where it loses a minute or two every day.  If I leave it switched on for weeks on end, with only standby util­ised, I find that it starts miss­ing the start or end of TV pro­grammes due to hav­ing the wrong time.  I’ve tried modi­fy­ing the win­dows time ser­vice set­tings to make it update reg­u­larly, but this has­n’t worked.  Thanks to an art­icle on Life­Hack­er I recently stumbled upon I’ve now had an accur­ate clock for a couple of weeks.… Read Full Article

0VLC logoPlaying BluRays with VLC

Posted by & filed under News.

There have been a couple of inter­est­ing art­icles on Anandtech in the last couple of days. First was a review of a cheap CEC device by Pulse-Eight which hope­fully sig­nals the arrival of more choice for HTPC remote con­trols. Of great­er interest is the news of a “hack” for VLC which enables the play-back of com­mer­cial (encryp­ted) BluRays. Nightly builds of VLC since 1.2 include sup­port for BluRay play­back. All you need for it to fully func­tion is an AACS keys data­base, a quick google should provide one.

0DVB LogicPlanning a new networked home media setup

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware, Misc Media Software, Storage. Last updated .

In the com­ing months I will be buy­ing a new prop­erty, and to go with my new home, I’ve been read­ing up lots on how I might integ­rate a new home media setup.  In recent months sev­er­al excit­ing new options have become avail­able, which finally makes the sort of setup I have always desired a real pos­sib­il­ity.… Read Full Article

0Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case LogoComparison of HTPC GPU’s

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware, News. Last updated .

Anandtech has an excel­lent art­icle com­par­ing 4 bot­tom end GPU’s for HTPC’s.  The art­icle is extens­ive and does a good job of explain­ing issues of fram­er­ate tim­ing, cadence detec­tion, tele­cin­ing and pull­down as well as com­par­ing the 4 GPU’s.  As we don’t believe in rein­vent­ing the wheel — we recom­mend any­one build­ing a HTPC setup read the art­icle before set­ting out.

2Windows Media Center eHome LogoFull 7MC codec setup

Published by & filed under Codecs, Misc Media Software, Windows Media Center. Last updated .

I’ve pre­vi­ously pos­ted sev­er­al times about codec issues on 7mc, but I’ve now got a solu­tion that is com­pre­hens­ive, fairly simple and works con­sist­ently.  With a few free codecs and util­it­ies you can have full decod­ing sup­port, DXVA, sub­titles and fant­ast­ic flex­ib­il­ity work­ing in 64bit (or 32bit) Media Cen­ter.  The fol­low­ing instruc­tions are spe­cif­ic to the x64 edi­tion, but should work just as well on the 32bit edition.
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