A couple of months ago, my xv6700 PDA phone crashed for the final time. Not that I’m complaining because it gave me a great excuse to buy a new phone. I went with Samsung’s i760, and it’s been a significant improvement. The simple feature of having number buttons on the front of the phone is a something I’ve missed since I bought the xv6700 more than 2 years ago. To dial a phone number on the xv6700, I would have to use the touch screen which my fingers were too big for, or use the slideout QWERTY keyboard which was a pain. As the picture shows below, the i760 has number buttons on the front of the phone so now entering phone numbers is as easy as entering numbers on a regular phone. 

The xv6700 was one of the first PDA phones Verizon offered with Wi-Fi capabilities. I refused to pay the $50/month for a data package so Wi-Fi was important. The xv6700 wasn’t too bad of a phone as it was able to do all the PDA phone functions I could ask for. Where the i760 excels is in reliability. I had the i760 for 2 months now and it has crashed on me once. The xv6700 with Windows Mobile 5 would crash weekly.  Windows Mobile 6 on the i760 seems to be more stable, at least so far. 

The i760 seems to be faster and more responsive than the xv6700. The i760 also has a significantly louder speaker, is thinner, and has built-in Microsoft Voice command features. It’s pretty cool speaking out “What are my appointments” and hearing a response. I didn’t have to teach the phone my voice which is a big time saver. 

In the end, the i760 may delay my future Android phone purchase. Arguably, the i760 is one of the best phones out there today.

It’s been almost three years since I built my first HTPC. Seems so long ago, but back then, dual-core processors were just coming out. Here are the components I bought for my second HTPC:

1. Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz Dual-Core Processor
2. GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P Intel P35 Intel Motherboard
3. XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB Video Card
4. Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB (x2 for RAID-0)
5. Western Digital 500GB 7200 RPM 8MB
6. Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) SDRAM DDR2 800
7. SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus 650W Power Supply
8. LITE-ON Black 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Blu-ray DVD-ROM

I kept my case, DVD writer, and HDTV capture card from my original HTPC, and used them for my second HTPC. The two 250GB drives are for my RAID-O configuration with Window’s XP, while the 500GB drive is used to play around with Ubuntu and LinuxMCE. My last power supply was louder than I would have liked which is why I went with SeaSonic’s power supply. After two month of testing the system, SeaSonic’s power supply is as quiet as all the reviewers say. Last, but not least, is the addition of a Blu-ray drive. So far, the Blu-ray movies I tried with it work, but I am worried about the BS BD+ encryption starting to show up on some movies.

Performance wise, this HTPC screams. I run games such as BioShock and Call of Duty 4 at maximum settings and get no glitches or noticeable frame drops. DVD upscaling with ffdshow is around 40% CPU usage using only one processor. Also, my family and I have found ourselves using the HTPC more with the additional online video content. NBC and ABC have started streaming their shows online, and ABC’s quality is impressive as it looks near HD. Even Netflix started streaming select movies online with high quality video and basically no wait to start. Netflix will also send out Blu-ray movies at no additional charge, which is where the Blu-ray ROM has come in handy.

So far, so good. Hopefully this HTPC will last us another three years.

My first HTPC started out as a plain old office PC. I was still in the TV on the box days so I didn’t have a home theater. Hence, the “HT” from HTPC had to be dropped. However, I did build the PC with the intensions of connecting it to a HDTV one day. I also built my HTPC-to-be with the intension of placing it in my home theater room so I made sure the case was worthy of displaying. I settled on Cooler Master’s TAC-T01-E1C “Wave Master” which is pictured to the right. HTPC style cases were tempting, but slightly out of my price range. The Wave Master was cheaper, and didn’t look like a standard PC case with its hidden blue LEDs and its curvy shape.

After I picked my case, I started looking for video cards. I didn’t know if my HDTV would have DVI inputs so I made sure I picked a video card with a component output. I picked ATI’s Radeon X800 Pro, which was a pretty fast card three years ago. In fact, it’s still pretty fast today as it plays Half Life 2, F.E.A.R. and Command and Conquer 3 at high graphic levels.

Half Life 2 was also why I went with AMD’s Athlon 64 3500+ processor. All the tests back then showed Half Life 2 performed the best with AMD processors and ATI cards. Can you tell I’m a diehard Half Life fan?

It’s been three years so I don’t remember why I picked Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard, but it does have built-in 5.1 surround sound. Too bad I never got to put them to good use.

I decided to buy a HDTV capture card so I wouldn’t have to look for a HDTV with a built-in tuner. I picked Macro Image Technology’s MyHD MDP-130 capture card because it had built-in hardware encoding. Therefore, I wouldn’t have to slow down my processor speed whenever I was recording a TV show. This is important if you’re recording a HD show and upscaling a DVD at the same time.

I knew DVD viewing would be a primary function of my HTPC so I looked for a quiet DVD-ROM drive. Sony’s 16x DDU1613 did the trick as I have never noticed any sound coming from the DVD drive. To burn DVDs, I bought Sony’s DVD+/-RW 16x DRU710A dual burner.

To speed things up, I went with a RAID 0 configuration. RAID 0 will almost double your hard drives read/write speeds, but the chance of hard drive failure is increased two-fold. I didn’t see this as a problem since I back up my data all the time. To get the RAID 0 configuration, I purchased two of Maxtor’s 200GB SATA hard drives.

For keyboard and mouse, I used Logitech’s Cordless Elite Duo. It’s Bluetooth so I knew I could easily get the 15 feet range I would need.

In summary, here are the computer parts for my first HTPC:

• Cooler Master’s TAC-T01-E1C Wave Master case
• ATI’s Radeon X800 Pro video card
• Macro Image Technology’s MyHD MDP-130 capture card
• AMD’s Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
• Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard
• Sony’s 16x DDU1613 DVD-ROM
• Sony’s DVD+/-RW 16x DRU710A dual burner
• Maxtor’s 200GB SATA hard drive (x2)
• Logitech’s Corless Elite Duo
• Window’s XP
• APEVIA Chameleon ATX-AS550W power supply
• 512MB DDR400 RAM (x2)

A picture of my HTPC with the HDTV I eventually purchased is shown in my Home Theater Room Connections post.

With the new HDTV, I could finally call my family room a home theater room. The Toshiba 52HM84 I bought has 1 HDMI input, 2 component inputs, and 3 composite/S-Video inputs. I use the HDMI port for my 8300HD cable box. I’ve been real impressed with the 20 hours of HD storage and the ability to record two shows at once. It’s also nice having one box that does it all instead of having a TiVo and a cable box. The 8300HD’s user interface wasn’t as nice as the TiVos, but the $7/month for the box is a lot better than the $600 plus $15/month it costs for a TiVo Series 3. Sorry TiVo, your user interface is just not worth the cash. I went ahead and cancelled my TiVo subscription. 

One of the TV’s component inputs was used for my HTPC while the other component input was used for the PS2’s 480p output. Honestly though, I don’t think I turned on the PS2 once on this TV. The HTPC allowed me to play games like Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R. in HD, and I was quickly spoiled by the unbelievable graphics. I just couldn’t go back to low res gaming. The same goes for the GameCube, which I haven’t turned on either. 

I have to say I’m lacking on the audio side of things. The Toshiba 52HM84 has stereo output which I used to connect to my Philips stereo. I’m still using the Philips stereo as mentioned in my previous posts, but now only in a 2.1 configuration. The speakers I have are probably 20 years old and are hand me downs from my parents. My next home theater upgrade will have to be a receiver with surround sound speakers.

As you can see from the connection diagram at HomeTheaterNetwork.com, I firmly believe that the home theater room should be the center of any home network. The staple of any home theater is the HDTV, and in early 2006, HDTV prices finally dropped enough where I thought it was worth purchasing one. Picking a HDTV technology wasn’t easy, but I was able to narrow it down. Plasma wasn’t an option because I planned on connecting my HTPC to the HDTV, and I didn’t want any burn-in issues. SXRD had the best picture quality in my opinion, but its high price caused me to scratch it off the list. I trusted DLP technology more than D-ILA or HD-ILA so that left LCD and DLP. It was the screen door effect vs. rainbows. I decided to go with DLP since I didn’t need a flat screen, and I always thought the picture quality of DLPs matched Plasmas. Also, the price was a few hundred dollars cheaper, which is always a convincing argument. 

New 1080p DLPs were just coming out, which meant all the 720p models were on sale. I spent a large amount of time at the AVSforum.com reading everyone’s inputs on different brands, and I also went to many stores looking at different models. I decided to go with a Mitsubishi 720p model, but I couldn’t find the discontinued TV anywhere. My next choice was the Toshiba 46HM84. The reason I picked the HM84 series is because it had the HD2+ chipset. The HD2+ doesn’t use wobulation to double its pixels, and I thought it gave a sharper picture than the HD3 chipsets. 

I was planning on getting the 46” version of the TV, but Onecall gave me a great price, and it wound up being $100 more for the 52” version. Naturally, I went with the 52” size, and I wasn’t disappointed. The picture quality was stunning. I think I spent the whole first week just watching DiscoveryHD. What a world of difference from the 12” TV-on-the-box.

More information:

• What to look for in a HDTV
• DLP chipsets
• HDTVs

Half Life 2 just came out and my 4 year old Gateway computer wasn’t going to cut it. I’m a huge Half Life fan so I decided to build a HTPC for it … even though I was still in the TV-on-a-box days. Technically speaking, I guess the new HTPC was more of a regular PC since it was in my office, but I made sure I could use it as an HTPC in the future when I upgraded my home theater.

Here are some of the components of my first HTPC:

1. AMD 64 3500+ Athlon processor
2. Asus A8V Delux motherboard
3. Cooler Master Wave Master TAC-T01-E1C Silver Mini Tower
4. ATI Radeon X800 Pro with 256MB of RAM
5. 200 GB hard drives (x2)
6. 512 MB Ram (x2)
7. MyHD MDP-130 capture card
8. Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

It’s been a couple years so I don’t remember all the details on why I purchased certain components. I know price was certainly an issue, and I also remember reading lots of reviews. Most of the reviews said that an AMD Athlon processor with an ATI video card worked best with Half Life, so I was sold.

Aesthetics is important in a home theater room so I couldn’t just use a regular computer case. I absolutely loved the horizontal HTPC cases with touch screen LCDs on the front. However, they were way too expensive so I went with the Cooler Master case. It’s a tower-based case so it may not look right in everyone’s home theater, but I knew I would have enough floor space. I also liked the way the front of the case looked with the blue LED glow.

Building the HTPC went without a hitch. I had the hard drives setup in a RAID 0 configuration to help speed things up, and I had no problems installing the motherboard and processor. I was a little worried about installing Windows XP onto RAID 0 drives since I never done it before, but the install went without a hitch too.

I picked the MyHD MDP-130 capture card over other HD capture cards because it had built-in hardware encoding capabilities. Some of the other HD capture cards use the processor to compress video, which would be a problem if I was recording something and upscaling a DVD at the same time.

In the end, the HTPC without a home theater played great. I was able to see the resolution, details, and textures without any frame jitter.

I’ll go through connecting my HTPC to my HDTV in another post in another day.

More information:

• Reasons for a HTPC
• HTPC cases
• MyHD MDP-130

We’ve all been there, right? …the TV-on-the-box days. The old hand-me-down Panasonic I had before finally broke. It would randomly crunch the whole picture into one horizontal line. All I would have to do was tap the side of the TV, and the picture would come back to full screen. Until one day, I “tapped” a little too hard. I was in the middle of a football game when the TV decided to conveniently crunch down my picture. I “tapped” it on the side, but this time I heard some glass break. This oh-shit moment led to the death of the 24” Panasonic CRT. 

The TV dying happened a few months before the big move into my first house. Other expenses like lawn equipment and washing machines were higher on the priority list, which made me stuck with putting my high school 12” TV on a box. Not exactly the ideal home theater, but it had to do back then. I did hook up my Philips FW-P78 mini HIFI stereo so at least I got Dolby Pro Logic stereo sound. 

The connection setup was pretty similar to my previous apartment. I had an audio/video switch box which select composite/stereo inputs from a PS2, GameCube, or TiVo. All the inputs were composite since the TV didn’t have any better inputs. I don’t think better video signals would of mattered anyway on a 12” screen. 

More Information:

• PS2 info
• GameCube
• Video inputs

I did setup a wireless router near the TV-on-the-box so I could have a direct Ethernet connection for the TiVo. I also ran Ethernet cables from the router, through the walls, up into the attic, and down to both guest bedrooms which my Wife and I were using as offices. This allowed a direct Ethernet connection to my Wife’s laptop and my PC. 

The previous D-Link 614+ router I had died during a power surge. I was pretty happy with the D-Link router so I decided to buy the updated version of it. The DI-624+ used the 802.11g protocol and said it could go up to 108 Mbps. However, I found the wireless network to be unstable at the 108Mbps setting so I went back to plain Wireless-G mode. 

More Information:

• How to make Ethernet cables
• routers