Introduction
What is a HTPC?
A Home Theater PC is basically a computer that provides the functionality of all the equipment that you would want in a home theater. It's your CD Player, DVD Player, TV, Photo Album, News Paper, Weather Report, E-mail and Internet Browser, Game Console, Telephone, and even more. What makes all these features nice, is that a HTPC is designed to make them all very easy to navigate by using just one remote, or an optional keyboard. Space, money, and time can be saved by using a HTPC.
Why use a HTPC?
A HTPC can give you better than average quality audio and video, more features, and better useability in one small device. Some HTPC's can provide quality that rivals video and audiophile equipment while others let you organize and sort through the music you want to hear better than any CD player. Computers can do many things to start with and a HTPC is a way to open new ways of experiencing media.
Really getting what you want, when you want
The Tivo was a huge success because it gave people the ability to more easily control when they watched TV. Tivo's popularity has dropped because the media industry pushed to control what and when people can watch TV again, and they have a lot of weight to cause problems for a company who has to make a profit. Removal of commercial skipping, ads, and national stations playing tricks with their program lineups to cause Tivo's not to record shows are just a few things hurting useability of the Tivo. A HTPC does not suffer from the same problems because it relies on software which is much easier and faster to produce, and projects like MythTV are community developed and don't need to make money.
There are also many grey areas in media, which are risky for a company to get into. For example, the MPAA is fighting hard to control HDTV so you can not record it for playback later unless a recorder can guarantee it can't be saved to another device. This idea is not bad, but the way the MPAA is trying to make it happen is very, very frightening. Two of litterally hundreds of points are the MPAA would have control to autodestruct HDTV recorders if they find out the model can be used to copy shows to another recorder and federal offenses if someone wants to pause live-tv. It's hard to believe this so you can visit Eff.org or google for the MPAA's passed and in-process bills to find out more. In the end though, this is going to greatly increase the cost to product any audio or video equipment that could be connected to a recorder and slow development and the release dates of products in this market. HTPC's software and hardware are built around what computer people want, and most want functionality so the grey areas are left up to the user, not a company to decide. MythTV and Media Portal do not go past the grey area for handling media and all are good choices to get what was decided by the government by the "Fair use Law" a long time ago while MCE is somewhat limiting.
This sounds like a good thing on the surface but it's not. The major problem is the MPAA is so much for this that they are spending millions on lobbyists to push the government to pass their bills. Part of one bill that has passed requires HDTV recorders to check and render themselves unusable if it ever does not follow what the MPAA wants. I personally want to stay as far away from this because $500 is $500, and having a recorder destroy itself on someone elses request (Since history has proved anything can be broken eventually) is not something I want to buy. The easiest to understand reason is they don't want to hurt DVD sells by showing HD movies which are better quality than DVD's if people can share a HD movie with a friend. The problem is what they want can't be done 100%, ever, but it won't stop them from causing a lot of problems.
Is a HTPC the best option for a home theater?
No. There are three reasons to not use a HTPC. If you have a $20,000+ budget then you can pay for the best audio and video hardware out there and someone to program it into a single remote. You however won't get PC functionality but that may be better if all you want a PC in a home theater for is for doing things that you don't care to have on the screen (Just use a laptop...). Second is if you're not computer fairly computer literate. If sharing folders or retrieving images from a camera took a while to figure out then a HTPC may be too complicated to setup, and to the point that you'll have rather have kept your money in the bank. Media Portal for windows is nice and easy to setup, Microsoft Media Center comes ready to use but you'll be stuck to features that Microsoft wants you to have, and a Linux HTPC is very powerful but you need to know what you're doing (Don't give a 16 year old a Porsche right?). Last, don't get a HTPC if you don't need really need one, don't have the money, or don't have the time. HTPC's are somewhat like a bike -- Make sure you'll get enough out of it to make it worth while.
If you are a videophile or an audiophile and are considering a HTPC, it is possible to get very good quality without spending very much. The short answer to "Can a HTPC be better for quality than the best AV hardware out there?" is no. A HTPC can get very close, may even be better than 30% of audio/videophile equipment and 95% of consumer grade electronics, but not all of it. Few people can tell the difference and even fewer would care.
Is a HTPC hard to make?
They can be. If you know little about computer hardware, where to find good prices, or if you are not very familiar with the software or the OS, a HTPC may take a while to setup -- But hopefully this howto will reduce the numbers of people who fit that group. You can now buy HD Tivo's that do 70% of what most people want and for many people that is the best option -- No worries about learning a new OS, dealing with viruses if using Windows, or upgrading software every few months or years. By using knoppmyth (A Linux Distrobution based around MythTV), most people can have a working HTPC in less than 3 hours. I've also seen people spend 50+ hours because a cheap motherboard has conflicts with their video card, or driver, their hardware is too new to be supported, or their HD satellite receiver they thought would be fine but never checked doesn't send audio or video over firewire to the computer. Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw, or bad choice that cascades into a HTPC becoming more of a problem than solution. Most anyone who gets a good system and follows good guides will be very happy.
Why did I make this howto? (Skip if learning about me is boring or you don't have time)
I am a very big video and audio enthusiast. I also refuse to use any OS other than Linux for Religous reason. ;) I began using Linux in 1993 and know it inside and out. After about 50 hours of researching high end audio and video I began to build my own HTPC. Computers are not designed around high quality audio and video and so getting this from one can be difficult. I quickly realized that if anyone besides me wants to do this very well without spending so much time sorting through white pages and finding facts to make conclusions, there needs to be a howto that explains things in one place, and only covers what people need to know. Since something like that didn't exist, I wrote this. Linux and Open Source is about helping others. Knowledge is something I believe should be shared freely and so I am sharing mine in hopes that it helps others.
As for my qualifications on writing this howto and if it's really of true value, (to ease concerns that they may become a lemming... yes, they're kind of cute, but still deadly), I have included summaries of hundreds of hours research, including critical things which most people overlook such as various types of timing of circuit boards for DTS audio, video card instruction sets, compiler optimizations for audio and video codecs, designing, building, testing, and redesigning HTPC's. I also wrote the original HDTV code for MythTV and I do contracting for a few companies in the HD market. There's also a book called Linux Toys I by Wiley Publishing that I helped tech edit for the MythTV chapter (Released 11/05, great book I might add. :).
Disclaimer
You're going to have to use this howto at your own risk. Everything presented could be entirely false and may only cause damage. If anything is misrepresented it was purely by accident or by my lack of any technical knowledge whatsoever including turning on a PC. I am not responsible for any damage caused as a result of this howto. For example, If after following my advice, you sit back in your easy chair to watch HDTV, and you slide backwards slightly, bumping the table behind you, which knocks a radio into the pool right outside your home theater, killing the people in the pool, causing a massive short, which blacks out the entire city, but not after causing the power plant supplying your area with power, which just happens to be on a well known fault line, to explode, causing a massive earthquake, which sends California into the ocean.... IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!! (This disclaimer was taken and modified from xcdroast, who got it from someone else, so credits go to that unknown person)"
What Now?
Grab your shovel and get ready to be buried. Your going to learn how to make your own HTPC.
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