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My Entertainment Computer System (HTPC)
IntroductionYou may be asking "Why would I ever need this??". Well let me tell you. In today's digital world of MP3 and "Internet Everywhere", having your computer hooked up to your television is a wonderful thing. Imagine never again thumbing through your collection of CDs. Imagine hopping onto the web to check out the biography of that new actor or actress you've just discovered while watching TV. Imagine your non-computer relatives (like your grandmother) coming to your house and showing them "what this internet thing can do". Imagine not being away from your family when you are checking your e-mail. Imagine creating a slideshow of all your digital pictures and showing your family around the TV relaxing on the couch. All these can be realized easily by having your computer hooked up to your entertainment center. The term for this seems to be "Home Theater PC" or HTPC for short. Typically the entertainment center is in a central or common area of the house. Having your computer here makes sense. I'll break down some ways that I've accomplished having my computer downstairs and in the entertainment room. What are you doing??? It's UGLY!I'll admit that the thought of having tons of cables, and a big, ugly, and loud computer system right next to the TV isn't the most appealing idea. I had to do a little convincing and make some sacrifices as well. What I had to do was to find a computer system that looked good. One that looked liked it belonged with my stereo. To that end, I purchased a rack-mount case and transferred all the components into this unit. It's not the prettiest thing in my wife's eyes, but I think it looks pretty sharp. Here's one I found on the web that would complement a stereo system.
I Can't Hear the TV!I made sure that the fans in this unit were super quiet since I didn't want to hear it while I was watching TV. There is a little noise, but my fish tank makes more noise than the computer. If you are going to tackle this project, you will want to make sure you find a quiet power supply. Here's one I found while searching the net. I can't vouch for how it works, just showing you there are some available.Also, many rack mount computer cases come with loads of fans. Racks are typically packed tight with lots of hot computers stuffed into a place with very little air ventilation. Hopefully, your stereo system isn't. You will find that you can probably turn off (unplug) a fan or two. Just make sure you come back after you do that and test your system for overheating. If it runs for a few days and keeps relatively cool, then you are probably safe. (The extra heat may take some life out of your components. Be forewarned). This particular case has a huge and noisy 4" fan right in the front to force air out of the back. I have unplugged this fan for my sanity - I could hear it through the whole house! I Don't Need Another Remote!Sorry folks, but I don't have a magic solution here. What I've done is found an Infrared wireless remote that I can bring back to the couch and use. It has a built in mouse "stick" which took a lot of getting used to but works great. I've seen other "wireless" keyboards based on radio, but I would steer clear of those. They are typically meant for use on a desk where the receiver is only 3 feet away. Most don't have the range necessary to take the keyboard back to the couch. Here is the keyboard I purchased.
Some of the new video cards for computers are coming with remote controls so you can move the mouse and click with the remote. These would be great for surfing the web or clicking through your music without a huge obtrusive keyboard. Just make sure you have a keyboard plugged in somewhere so when you need to type (and you will need to type) you can. If you'd like a way to hook up multiple keyboards to your system at the same time, check out this USB device from Cables-n-more. It will let you plug in an additional PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse using your USB port. It's good when you have a keyboard at the helm for typing stuff, but want to have a secondary wireless keyboard for the couch or another room. I Can't Read It!The TV isn't the best display device for a computer by a long shot. The computer's high-resolution doesn't lend itself very well for working on the TV. In fact, most computer-to-TV converters are so blurry and "flickery", they are totally useless. Those devices are typically meant for giving presentations, where you have very few words, very large fonts, and lots of pictures. Some flat-panel TVs have a computer monitor interface, but I haven't made the switch to these televisions yet.What I've found is a combination that seems to work very well for me. I have an ATI All-in-Wonder Pro 128 video card for my computer. This device is normally for watching television on your computer, but has excellent video-out capabilities as well. I use the svideo connector and connect it directly to my television. My computer resolution is set to 800x600, which makes the text slightly difficult to read. But it is 5000x better than the "professional" "high resolution" $400 TV conversion device that I purchased. There is a very slight flicker when using the TV, but the text is very readable. The video card line has been replaced with the Radeon, which I'm sure is only better than the card I'm using. Which brings me to added bonus number one: Turn your computer into a PVRHave you been thinking about buying a Tivo? The new ATI Radeon 9800 All-in-Wonder Pro functions as a personal video recorder. That's right, folks! You can setup your computer to record all your favorite shows. These video files can be shared between all the computers you own, and can even be burned onto a CD or DVD. This comes in handy when you want to catch up on your favorite TV show on your laptop during lunch. Wait, that probably makes me pretty geeky. Nevermind about that. I've never done that. Why would you ever want to do that. ;)Never Listen to Another CDIt's probably been 3 years or more since I've actually listened to a CD. I don't even have a CD player hooked up to my stereo anymore (apart from my DVD player). ALL of my music has been converted into MP3 and resides on my entertainment system computer. The program I've used for the conversion is Musicmatch Jukebox. This software does a great job of converting the music and it is suprisingly easy. It does all the hard work for you including getting the name of the album, artist and all of the songs automatically. You just have to stick in the CD, click record, and you are done. My wife even loves to rip the latest music CDs she buys into MP3s. It's easy. Do it.For music playback, I've written a small program that creates a "Jukebox" from my music files. It takes the Genre, Artist, and Album information, and creates a static website. It is this website that I use on the TV. Doing it this way has multiple benefits. For one, your uncle Joe who thinks he knows about computers isn't on your couch deleting your music files "accidentally". All he sees is a web page. People know what to do when they see a web page. They click. The web makes a perfect interface for your music. It's very simple to navigate. Another reason I chose a web page is that I can control the font size in a web page very easily. If the text was even the slightest bit difficult to read on the TV before, it is certainly not now. I have bumped up the font size in Internet Explorer on this machine, and the text is very easy to read. Another benefit to Internet Explorer is the "full-screen" capabilities. Press [F11] on your keyboard right now if you are using Internet Explorer and you'll see what I mean. It takes away the "computer" from the TV and makes the interface just the music. (Press F11 again to bring your browser out of full-screen). The last benefit to having the website is that any computer on my home network can connect to the webserver and listen to music. I listen at my desk when I'm working. My wife listens in the kitchen on her wireless laptop. My entire music collection is available from anywhere in the house. Here are some sample pages from the Jukebox website:
It Sounds Bad!Let's face it, your computer really was never meant for high-quality audio. In fact, the computer components will typically generate a nice "hummmmm" on your stereo system. This has something to do with a difference of ground between the grounded power supply in your computer and the typically ungrounded components of your stereo. (I'm not an electrical engineer, I just know a hum when I hear it.)For years, I've lived with the hum. It's really not too bad, if you find an audio card that does a good job of not transmitting it. (I've recently changed the way I do this, but I'll explain the old way first.) The sound card I chose is a Creative Sound Blaster model. It has a headphone jack for connecting your speakers. Instead of connecting speakers, I found an 1/8" to RCA converter cable. Here's what the cable looks like:
You can find this cable at Radio Shack or your local electronics store. This is the same cable, by the way, that you need to record your old vinal records and audio cassettes into MP3 files. And yes, Musicmatch will do that too. You should really check it out! Anyways, this cable plugs from the Audio Out or Line Out of your computer's sound card into the input on your stereo. It's really that simple. It's just another source for your amplifier. Getting FancyEverything so far has been relatively simple to do. The components are all there for a fantastic Entertainment System computing experience. If you have been following along and stopped now, you'd have a pretty great system. Well, I couldn't stop. I needed more. I needed the jukebox thoughout my whole house. In every room on every stereo. I hope you've found this article useful! Send me feedback at websitefeedback@geoff-n-kris.com. Updates to this articleAudioI have discovered two products from Xitel that are a must-have for audiophiles.
It is a USB audio device that plugs into your USB port and outputs crisp clean sound to your analog device or digital output to your digital device! You read it right - it can plug right into your optical digital input or your coaxial digital input. This completely eliminates all noise! There are two different versions of this product. One version is strictly analog (which doesn't eliminate the hum). The other does analog and digital (which does). Check it out! Update on the HumTurns out all this suffering with the hum was completely unneccesary. I got extremely frustrated today and decided to look around for ways to solve it. I found a simple product at Radio Shack which completely eliminated it. It's called a "ground-loop isolator" and is part number 270-054 at the Shack. Now I can rock out at high volume with no hum! (Now replaced with an optical cable, check out the computer case below).
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