[Manub]

Hi,

I just finished building my ION 330 system with XBMC and I must say I'm impressed how far XBMC came since the original Xbox. I'm also convinced now that I want to take it further and replace my CD and Blu-Ray players with a full HTPC build around XBMC on Linux.

What would you recommend for hardware to build a full HD sound/image system running XBMC Live (direct boot into XBMC, no need for desktop).

I'll be using the Asus Xonar 1.3 Deluxe card but I'm not sure about CPU, Motherboard, Ram, Videocard, ... I'm a MAC user so I have no good idea on what is needed for PC hardware without being overkill.

Everything will be connected through my Onkyo 607 amp in HDMI (Sound+Video).
Storage is no issue either, everything will be stored on my NAS, Synology DS-408 with 4x2TB disks and cabled to the HTPC with CAT6 cables.

So what would you recommend for:
CPU + silent cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
Power Supply:
Blu-Ray player, silent to be able to play CD's:
HTPC Case with Remote:
System Harddisk to install XBMC:
Soundcard: Asus Xonar 1.3

Thanks for your input.

[lloydsmart]

Hi. This sounds very similar to what I'm trying to achieve. I have a HTPC connected to my Onkyo 705 via HDMI, which is in turn connected to my 1080p plasma via HDMI. It works great, but there are currently a few limitations you should be aware of.

Firstly, I assume you chose the ASUS Xonar card for it's ability to bitstream the new HD formats. Good choice, but unfortunately it's not possible yet, at least on Linux. You will be able to use it to bitstream bog-standard AC3 and DTS, along with multichannel PCM, but don't expect to be streaming Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA any time in the immediate future as the software doesn't exist yet. Until very recently, only two pieces of software in the world could do this, and both were closed-source windows apps. The first was PowerDVD, which did it via the Auzentech X-Fi Hometheater HD card, and the second was TMT, which did it via this Xonar card. No joy for XBMC, then.

Recently, though, I've been reading about developments in FFDSHOW where users have been able to use that to bitstream the new formats over HDMI using a Xonar or one of the new ATI 5xxx cards. This, however, is only in Windows and only using directshow. Still, it opens up the possiblity of using the DSplayer branch of XBMC on Windows to achieve this effect.

As for the rest of the hardware, Ideally I'd recommend an atom-based system with an Nvidia graphics card that supports VDPAU feature set C. The ION boards are great as they don't require an extra card for VDPAU video acceleration, but they only do feature set C, so you miss out on all the DivX/XVID decoding, and hardware SD upscaling goodness. On the other hand, I'm having a really tough time finding an atom system that has two expansion slots (one for sound and one for graphics), so your options are limited here. Let me know if you find anything suitable!!!

For a system drive, have you considered an SSD? They're silent, energy efficient and fast. The only downside seems to be that they're quite small (in terms of storage capacity), but that is irrelevant if all your content is on a NAS and this is just for the system files. Seems like the perfect HTPC solution to me, but I must say that I haven't actually tried one myself yet, so there may be some pitfalls I'm not aware of.

If you really want SILENT cooling, I reckon water cooling with a passive rad is the way to go, but this is probably overkill. Again, an atom-based system, passively cooled with one or two quiet case fans is probably best.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Manub]

Thanks for the input.

That's certainly a bummer as I was aiming at putting my complete DVD/BR collection on NAS in order to benefit from the library functions in XBMC.

I guess that my current ION 330 will do it's job then for now, and I'll keep my Panasonic BD-60 for playing those DTS-HD discs.

When XBMC Live will be ready for DTS-HD/MA and Dolby-HD I'll have another look, by then the DVR functionality will also be more mature and I'll be able to add that too.

Thanks again.

[lloydsmart]

No problem. One thing I may not have made clear in my post is that it is possible to listen to the lossless tracks on your ripped blurays via XBMC, but you won't be able to bitstream your audio tracks to your receiver, which is kinda the biggest advantage to having one of these Onkyo models. Still, it will be original quality, just decoded to PCM by the HTPC first, and sent over HDMI that way. There is no loss of audio quality by doing it this way, as some people would have you believe, and what you end up hearing are exactly the same bits as if you'd bitstreamed the track to your Onkyo. The only difference is that the little "TrueHD" or "DTS-HD MA" light on the amp will not light up. Instead it will display "Multichannel PCM" or similar, as the decoding is being done in the PC and the PCM is being streamed uncompressed to your receiver, so the decoder in the receiver sits idle. Of course, this is not the same as converting to analog in the PC, so it's still a digital signal being sent over HDMI (as HDMI doesn't even do analog!), so you are still using the D/A converters in your amp as opposed to the ones in your sound card, which is good.

[Darkcloud28]

hello i have the power dvd 10 and the sound card from Auzentech X-Fi Hometheater HD , and i woes wonder if anyone will finnly do plug in to the XBMC , now the power dvd 10 can play mkv and m2ts files from riped blu-rays with original sound ( powed dvd 9 didnt )
the Auzentech X-Fi Hometheater HD can put out 24bit, 192000hz sound , when You do analog and when You set up Your speakers settings to 7.1 - the dolbyHD and DTSHd sound perfect !!
i mean i can also do digital HDMI but then im not goiwng to control the sound Volume with ipod touch or iphone remote control .
i have all of the old star trek in blu-ray and the all have DolbyHD 7.1 , the XBMC cant play it ((
i will love to se a PowerDVD 10 plug in for XBMC as a standard ))

[Manub]

Thanks,

I don't mind that, for the moment, everything is send by Multichannel PCM, so I might go down that route.

For the moment I'm playing around with the TV frontend to get my DVB-C tuner working, when that is confirmed I'll most probably get a decent tuner with CI-Slot build in the machine also to act as PVR.

Yesterday I surfed some more to get some HW information and I came up with this to build the machine.

CPU: I750 or AMD 95W 3-Core
Motherboard: ASUS Deluxe
Cooler: Noctua P9
Graphic card: Nvidia GTS-250 passive cooled
Case: Origen
Ram: 6GB
Optical: LG Blu-Ray
Disc: 64GB SSD

[poofyhairguy]

No problem. One thing I may not have made clear in my post is that it is possible to listen to the lossless tracks on your ripped blurays via XBMC, but you won't be able to bitstream your audio tracks to your receiver, which is kinda the biggest advantage to having one of these Onkyo models. Still, it will be original quality, just decoded to PCM by the HTPC first, and sent over HDMI that way. There is no loss of audio quality by doing it this way, as some people would have you believe, and what you end up hearing are exactly the same bits as if you'd bitstreamed the track to your Onkyo. The only difference is that the little "TrueHD" or "DTS-HD MA" light on the amp will not light up. Instead it will display "Multichannel PCM" or similar, as the decoding is being done in the PC and the PCM is being streamed uncompressed to your receiver, so the decoder in the receiver sits idle. Of course, this is not the same as converting to analog in the PC, so it's still a digital signal being sent over HDMI (as HDMI doesn't even do analog!), so you are still using the D/A converters in your amp as opposed to the ones in your sound card, which is good.

Wait a minute, I am confused:

I thought that even thought XBMC is capable of 7 channel PCM audio with the right hardware, it will NOT decode by default "TrueHD" or "DTS-HD MA" tracks to 7 channel PCM tracks.

Everywhere I have read on the forum talks about people manually converting "TrueHD" and "DTS-HD MA" to multi-channel FLAC to work with XBMC (a process so tedious as to be worthless).

Am I wrong? Can we playback both "TrueHD" and "DTS-HD MA" tracks on a properly configured XBMC box and get properly decoded 7 channel PCM audio?

Cause if so, my 9500GT needs to be replaced with a 220 GT real soon!

[EMK0]

has anyone tried the intel i3 cpu? will it be able to handle all bluray movies with i3's hardware video acceleration? i want to get a H55 mobo with this cpu so i can get bitstreaming and hardware acceleration with out having to install graphic cards or sound cards.

[poofyhairguy]

has anyone tried the intel i3 cpu? will it be able to handle all bluray movies with i3's hardware video acceleration? i want to get a H55 mobo with this cpu so i can get bitstreaming and hardware acceleration with out having to install graphic cards or sound cards.

On the Windows version as long as you use the DSplayer that supports DVXA then hardware video acceleration should work- probably good enough for HD.

Bitstreaming might work with the Windows version with a properly configured FFDshow.

Honestly I don't know- I always use the Linux versions (which might NEVER get HD audio bitstreaming).

[Roelio]

Everywhere I have read on the forum talks about people manually converting "TrueHD" and "DTS-HD MA" to multi-channel FLAC to work with XBMC (a process so tedious as to be worthless).

Am I wrong? Can we playback both "TrueHD" and "DTS-HD MA" tracks on a properly configured XBMC box and get properly decoded 7 channel PCM audio?

Did you already found a answer to your question? This would be to good to be true.

[poofyhairguy]

Did you already found a answer to your question? This would be to good to be true.

I found out that XBMC Live can playback PCM and Dolby True HD just fine through the HDMI once configured correctly (isn't by default), but it only passes through the core DTS track on DTS HD tracks.

The solution is using eac3to to convert these tracks to 7 channel FLAC when you rip them. I use AnyDVD HD to "see" the Blu Rays, then the following guide to turn Blu Rays to 8 channel FLAC mkvs.

The upside is I get full audio quality, for a smaller amount of space. Not the hassle I imagined it to be. Here is the guide:

http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17002

[Roelio]

OK thats clear thx. I was already using eac3to to covert the audio track to FLAC and it's working great !

I'm gonna check the "work file location" to see if I can speed the process up.