HTPC Silence
I’ve finally silenced my HTPC. It’s been through a few changes over the years, the spec as it stands now is:
Silverstone SST-LC17 Case
Seasonic S12-430
Intel Pentium D E2180 2x 2Ghz
Thermaltake AXP-140 Passive Heatsink
2GB DDR2 RAM
Asus P5B Mobo
Passive Geforce 9400GT GFX
Lite-On Blu-Ray Drive
Avermedia A16D Hybrid Tuner
Hauppage Mytv.t Tuner
160GB Seagate IDE HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate
If it wern’t for the HDD it would be completely silent, it’s made a massive difference – this system is in my lounge and it’s the only device which makes any noise at all. I’m undecided about the HDD solution – SSD would be ideal, but expensive as it’s the TV recording HD, so would require a good 128Gb at least really. I am probably going to try using a spare old 80GB SATA disk see if i can get away with it, if so i may be able to pick up a 64Gb SSD and problem will be solved. This also means i can head toward a smaller case in the future – the current one is 4U!
I may as well mention the blu ray, since i’m here. A bit disappointed to be honest, i had expected by now, that playback would be fully integrated into Windows Media Centre, however, it is not. The system wouldn’t even begin to play at first – just like the old Windows XP MPEG2/DVD problem. So i installed the enclosed Power DVD 8 BD and tried again – it just minimised Media Centre and launched PowerDVD – with a message saying it won’t run under 1024×768, FFS – my monitor is set at 720p of course it is, and how many other people will have done this!?! I was forced to raise it to 1080i whereby the text on the desktop looks awful, films look good though as does Media Centre. So now it runs, but not full screen, remote functions are basic at best.
So disappointed, i wanted the experience to be seamless, i’m strongly considering moving the drive to my PC and just ripping every film i get. It’s no wonder people pirate films, its a right pain to do it properly. On that subject, i was ripping my CDs – all originals. And i have a ‘Copy Controlled’ CD in my collection. Can’t rip it. Bloody annoying, i can pirate the album no problem, within minutes, but can i rip the CD? No. People who have paid full price for films and music are coming off worse. If it wasn’t such a pain then i wouldn’t mind – CSS on DVDs was never this problematic, sure you had MPEG2 licencing issues, but that was a different game.
Anyway, i’ve ranted long enough.
PS don’t pirate, support artists and film makes, buy CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays (but use eBay and Amazon market place, don’t get ripped off!)