Sybreon Ones Nought

Seems like it does not have to cost a bomb to build a decent home theatre system these days. I just returned from the local Carrefour after shopping for sundries and noticed that they were selling a 32" LCD screen at only RM1299 (£256), which is a fairly decent price. It is not a 'branded' product but that is really a non-issue for me. The LCD display market ...

I know that most of my readers are not technically inclined. So, I will try to explain things as simple as I can. I have just built a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) prototype at home. My purpose for doing so is to get some performance numbers so that I will know what resources I'll need to design and build my final HTPC. The prototype HTPC is using a small ...

I had previously written about the D945GCLF board from Intel that comes with their new flagship Atom 230 low power processor. I had investigated its use as a potential HTPC platform as it is an integrated platform that is powerful enough to playback almost all kinds of video content. There is also little argument that it is a low power platform, which is important for a machine that ...

I have to say that I have been quite impressed so far, with the relative ease of use of Kubuntu. When I first bought this laptop of mine about a year ago, I did contemplate on whether to convert to 64-bit or otherwise. The new laptop came with a Athlon X2 processor that is capable of executing 64-bit code. There were both pros and cons to doing it ...

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, there is a high chance that I'll use the Atom based mini-ITX board from Intel as my HTPC platform. It seems that the board is actually capable of 1080HD playback as evidenced in the following video. This system uses the D945GCLF board with an Intel Atom 230 1,6GHz HT and 256MB 533MHz DDR2 memory only! It claims to use passive cooling and ...

I think that I have finalised on the main computer board that I'll be using for my HTPC. The standard PC boards are a little too power hungry for a HTPC while the VIA boards are a little under-powered. Furthermore, the VIA EPIA platform is not easily available in Malaysia. I know because I have tried getting them before, directly from the local VIA distributor. They are certainly ...

An integral part of any HTPC is definitely the video display. It wouldn't be called a HTPC otherwise. Assuming that the motherboard chosen is capable of sending video output in VGA, DVI and HDMI, there are several alternatives to choose from, when building a HTPC: Computer monitor, LCD TV, projector. The trade-off here would be size versus price. But then, something dawned on me recently. There is no real ...

I've been investigating different combinations of devices for building a Home Theatre PC (HTPC). This will be one of the first things that I build when I get home. My main considerations when building a HTPC is the WAF (Woman Acceptance Factor) factor and future proofing the machine. The WAF factor can be broken down into: Silent machine so that it doesn't make a din while it runs. Aesthetically pleasing ...