The reason you would want a resonably fast CPU would be for video
cleanup/postprocessing, especially if the output is to a HDTV. Most
midrange video cards would be fine but the processor needs to be fast
enough to handle divx and xvid, and to handle at least a little
postprocessing. I have semprons running HTPC's in the other 2 rooms and
they work fine for standard TV output (without any postprocessing). On a
HDTV you almost have to clean up the video a little because you can
see every little flaw.
My HTPC (which I redid recently) is based on a dual opteron board with
one 2 gig cpu. I have 3 TV capture cards including an ATI theater550, an
WinTV PVR250 and a AverMedia A180. It has 1 gig of memory and just 1
HDD. Most of the captured video goes to NAS devices on the network. The
opteron works better in a sense than the 3.2 gig P4 it replaced, because
it can drop into lower power usage whenever the box is idle. However,
the P4 could handle a lot more video postprocessing which did give a
little better quality.
lopaka
Winterlight wrote:
I am thinking about building a Media Center box.... one thing I am not
clear on. MC is mostly a playback device,... correct? I know you can rip
CDs, and encode video, on the fly for TV broadcast recording...that sort
of thing. But it is primarily intended to be used to play back
media...correct?
If you are connecting them to a TV, then there is no monitor
display....correct? The TV is the display?
They are not intended to be used as a game center, or anything like that
are they? I keep reading articles on how to build them, and they always
seem to use pretty fast components, .... fast CPUs, video cards, 2GB of
RAM, none of which is needed for a playback machine. Plus high end fast
stuff is going to run hot and creating fan noise.
I am planning on using a Semperon 64 3400, 1.5 GB of RAM, a basic large
72K GW drive, and a ATI AIW 9600 PRO none of which put out a lot of heat
or noise....
Do I have the concept right here.... they are mostly playback
devices....right?
