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 so that it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb in the living room.
Future proofing the machine would mean:
- HDTV capable display (1920×1080)
- Digital outputs either with DVI or HDMI
- Capable of BlueRay playback
As usual, the problem is: fast, silent, cheap (pick any two).
To have a high WAF factor, requires using a low power machine so that it can be passively cooled in a small case. For this, the logical combination would involve a ultra-low power VIA processor with Unichrome graphics. However, its ability to playback high-def content is suspect because of the lower processing capabilities. Another alternative is to use an Intel/AMD processor coupled with an ATI/NVidia graphics chipset, which should provide enough power to playback any future video content, but would also dissipate quite a lot of heat in the process.
Furthermore, I am limited by the actual parts that can be purchased off-the-shelf. I would not want to import anything if I don’t absolutely have to. So far, the best option that I’ve come up with is this:
The different motherboards that support the graphics chipsets cost about RM 320 and come with all the necessary video outputs (DVI + HDMI). The ATI chip has UVD (AVIVO HD) technology while the Geforce chip has PureVideo HD technology. Both of which allow the processor to offload the HDTV decoding pipeline to the graphics processor. However, there is one catch. At present, none of these technologies are supported in Linux.
Seeing that I’ll be building a MythTV based HTPC, Linux acceleration is important. Of the two vendors, ATI is more likely to have acceleration support in Linux than NVidia. AMD has done a lot in recent months to provide cross-platform parity for its drivers and has caught up to NVidia in terms of driver quality. But on top of this, AMD has released documentation for the ATI graphics processors, which makes it possible for third party drivers to support it better.
The CPU was chosen as it is a low-power desktop processor. With a maximum TDP of 45W, it is the second coolest desktop AMD processor and almost cool enough to be a laptop processor. So, it may actually be possible to cool it passively with a suitably large heat sink. An alternative to being aesthetically pleasing would just be to hide it out of sight, except for the IR receiver.
Sybreon Ones Nought 
How about getting a Sony BRAVIA with a corresponding home theatre system with all the BluRay stuff and all? 25k should be enough I think.
And it should max on WAF.
Where’s the fun in that?! Why buy when you can build? 🙂
You can, not me.
Ooo.. If you pay me the 25k, I can build you a custom system! :p