How to Build a Home Theater PC

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Building a home theater PC (HTPC) to emulate the boffo of the big-screen experience doesn’t have to be a daunting task. If you’re even mildly proficient in computer assembly, this TechBuilder Recipe will show you how to build out an HTPC in about two hours—from unpacking to installing the drivers.

Since this particular HTPC is designed to connect to your clients' already-existing home theater system, there’s no need to spec out speakers, video displays, receivers/amplifiers, or input devices like cable boxes/satellite receivers.

However, there is one small glitch to overcome if you take on this project. Connecting an HTPC to a TV is much more complicated that hooking it up to a computer monitor. While there are hundreds of combinations of pixel size and frequency choices for a computer display, there are only a scant few a television can accept. So before you hook up an HTPC to a TV, you must be certain you’ve set up the video output properly.

Ingredients

Here are the components you'll need, and the specific products I recommend:

• Case: Uneed X15e with LCD Touchscreen

• Power Supply: Seasonic S12-500

• Heat sink/fan: Thermalright XP-90C

• Motherboard: Asus P5WD2 Premium

• Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.4-GHz (660 version)

• Video Card: Nvidia GForce 7800 PCI Express Video Card

• SD Capture Card: Hauppague WinTV-600MCE Dual Tuner Capture Card

• HD Capture Card: ATI HDTV Wonder

• RAM: 4x Corsair TwinX1024-8000UL

• DVD/CDRW: Pioneer

• Hard Drives: 4x Seagate 400-GB SATA

• Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3100

• Remote Control: Logitech Harmony

• Software: Windows XP Media Center Edition

• Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro PCI Sound Card

Five Steps to Building the Home Theater PC

Step 1: Keeping the HTPC Cool and Quiet

For any computer, cooling is obviously important, but for a home theater PC, it’s critical. Proper planning a must—especially since many home PCs are often dropped into racks with limited ventilation. In addition to keeping the HTPC cool, you’ll also want to keep it quiet. The last thing your client wants to hear is the annoying whine of fans while they're trying to watch a movie.

For both of these reasons, I recommend using 120-mm fans in your case/power supply where possible. The Seasonic S12-500 deploys a 120-mm fan, and it also has an exceptionally efficient power supply. This will allow the computer to move the same amount of air (measured in cubic feet of air moved per minute) through the case, but with much lower noise output. Those larger fans are moving slower.

Additionally, since a high-speed processor can pour out heat like a small space heater, you want to make certain you’ve got an excellent heat sink/fan combination. For the HTPC, I recommend the Thermalright XP-90C. Compared with the stock Intel heat sink/fan combo, this will give you much lower processor temps and much lower noise output.

Step 2: Maxing-Out the Audio/Video

Since the desired output from this home theater PC is the highest quality audio and video, some of your decisions will be based on your clients' already-existing equipment. For instance, if your client has a large-screen TV, the inputs you have available will influence your output choices from the HTPC. However, if they have a recent model TV with DVI inputs, it’s as simple as hooking up a DVI cable and setting the proper output type: 480, 720 or 1080.

But if your client has component inputs on their TV, then this process becomes a bit more complicated. In this case, you’ll need a cable adapter to convert the output from the video card (DVI) to the three-cable component video signal accepted by your clients' TV.

For audio output, I recommend you use the motherboard’s digital output (either optical or coaxial), thus bypassing any chance of extraneous noise (such as RF) from the PC affecting the audio output. This will also allow your clients' receiver to receive and properly decode the multi-channel Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital or Digital Theater System (DTS) tracks. These are digital, multi-channel audio formats. The HTPC will send the signals digitally to the receiver, which in turn will send the right sounds to the right speakers.

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