[besson3c]

I just built myself a PC with the following specs:

Shuttle barebones PC (includes case, power, motherboard, fans): $150 - open box
Geforce 7300 GT: $55 + $10 rebate = $45
500 GB drive: $110 - OEM
2.0 Ghz Athlon: $58 - OEM
20x DVD burner: $28
1 GB RAM: $30

All of this came to around $430

If you want something smaller than a Shuttle you can get a case, power supply, motherboard for around $150 as well

While the price gap has been closed somewhat with some Macs, it sure seems like some remain significantly overpriced.

Nothing new here in the way of information, just thought it might be interesting to some to see where we're at price wise these days with media center PCs

[Railroader]

Does it run OS X very well? How well does Aperture run on it?

[besson3c]

Railroader: please stop trolling. Why would you run Aperture on a media center PC?

[CheesePuff]

The Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz is much faster then the AMD Athlon X2 3800+.

Also, is it dead silent? And how do you legally install Mac OS X?

[Uncle Skeleton]

If ever there was a system where it "just working" was relevant, it's a HTPC. I just bought a mini for this, for $429 refurb. It's a whole dollar cheaper than your system, it includes an OS, a 1 year warranty, and there's no "open box" components. And to top it off, it works right out of the box. No setup and more importantly, no maintenance to do just to keep my media center (read: TV) working as expected. I think those are significant advantages over your BYO option.

I thought about a BYO solution, or a cheap Dell or second hand windows box. What won me over were the style, size and quietness of the mini, the familiarity and ease of OS X, and the nice things that QTPlayer has been doing lately, especially pitch-corrected fast-forward (do any win players support this, btw?)

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CheesePuff 

The Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz is much faster then the AMD Athlon X2 3800+.

Also, is it dead silent? And how do you legally install Mac OS X?

I'm not putting Windows or OS X on it as the primary OS, it will be a Linux box that will run MythTV, VMWare for Windows testing, some game playing, and most importantly to house my FreeBSD test machine and function as a file/backup server. It will host an iTunes share, be a web server, Usenet downloading/DVD burning machine, and possibly a print server if we decide to bring the printer out to the living room (although we are leaning towards not doing this).

I thought about running OS X on it, but I really can't see a need. Shuttle PCs do have a reputation for being extremely silent, but I guess I'll hate to wait and see how silent it is.

What is a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo equivalent to in the AMD world?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

If ever there was a system where it "just working" was relevant, it's a HTPC. I just bought a mini for this, for $429 refurb. It's a whole dollar cheaper than your system, it includes an OS, a 1 year warranty, and there's no "open box" components. And to top it off, it works right out of the box. No setup and more importantly, no maintenance to do just to keep my media center (read: TV) working as expected. I think those are significant advantages over your BYO option.

I thought about a BYO solution, or a cheap Dell or second hand windows box. What won me over were the style, size and quietness of the mini, the familiarity and ease of OS X, and the nice things that QTPlayer has been doing lately, especially pitch-corrected fast-forward (do any win players support this, btw?)

I think a lot of people that would have been attracted to running MythTV as a DVR might be attracted to the Mini if it included a PCI slot to add a capture card, or else included a built in capture card. Given the lack of standardization on channel changing mechanisms, it would be tough to make an Apple solution user friendly, but... perhaps this is something they are already working on.

The other reason I didn't look at a Mini is because I want easy access to add/swap hard drives as my needs warrant.

[CheesePuff]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What is a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo equivalent to in the AMD world?

I have a custom built AMD PC with the X2 3800+ processor, and according to the benchmarks I have seen on the web, the Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz is similar to the AMD X2 5200+ with the 2 MB cache, not 1 MB.

[besson3c]

NewEgg wants $130 for the 5200, so if I had equipped my rig accordingly it would be around $500 or so. However, I also have a 500 gig drive, 1 gig of RAM, and the Geforce 7300 GT

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I think a lot of people that would have been attracted to running MythTV as a DVR might be attracted to the Mini if it included a PCI slot to add a capture card, or else included a built in capture card. Given the lack of standardization on channel changing mechanisms, it would be tough to make an Apple solution user friendly, but... perhaps this is something they are already working on.

I use EyeTV Hybrid. It comes with a remote, and the software is very user friendly. Have you ever used the EyeTV software?

The other reason I didn't look at a Mini is because I want easy access to add/swap hard drives as my needs warrant.

How many hard drives can the shuttle hold? It seems to me that anyone serious about an HTPC will have to get an external server (networked probably). Any case that's svelte and quiet enough to be in their living room will not be able to perform well at serving up files (or have any backup mechanism). Maybe I'm missing something.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

I use EyeTV Hybrid. It comes with a remote, and the software is very user friendly. Have you ever used the EyeTV software?

The problem isn't with the software itself, MythTV is fine, it is with the channel changing mechanisms. Cable and some satellite systems use RF, which is fine, but some satellite systems such as Disk Network and BellXpressVu use IR. The latter means that the receiving hardware needs an IR receiver, and software to translate/mimic the IR signal via reverse engineering. Otherwise, your system would not be able to change channels on your satellite box for scheduling a recording, for instance. Your computer would also have to be within range of your satellite receiver, which is the other kicker.

EyeTv is also *very* expensive compared to its competitors (e.g. Hauppauge), and you can likely do a lot more stuff with a MythTV setup. It's been a while since I looked at the EyeTV software, but here are some of my favorite features of MythTV:

- cutting out commercials (commercial flagging)

- function as a repository of all video of just about any format

- separation of client and server (you can have any TV in your house hooked up to your MythTV setup)

- scheduling of recordings over the web

- lots of plugins available

- automatic transcoding, program expiration (deletion)

How many hard drives can the shuttle hold? It seems to me that anyone serious about an HTPC will have to get an external server (networked probably). Any case that's svelte and quiet enough to be in their living room will not be able to perform well at serving up files (or have any backup mechanism). Maybe I'm missing something.

The entry level Shuttle holds 2 + 1 IDE drive (usually for CD/DVD). You can get Shuttles that will do 3. I intend to use the Shuttle as my backup/file server for the house, replacing a PC we have in the office. This saves us from having to string ethernet cable over to the office, not that I'm not a big fan of laying cable.

[CheesePuff]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

NewEgg wants $130 for the 5200, so if I had equipped my rig accordingly it would be around $500 or so. However, I also have a 500 gig drive, 1 gig of RAM, and the Geforce 7300 GT

Both Mac mini models now come with 1 GB RAM standard.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CheesePuff 

Both Mac mini models now come with 1 GB RAM standard.

Cool. The Apple Tech Specs page doesn't list whether it supports 800 Mhz DDR2 RAM:

Apple - Mac mini - Technical Specs

It also looks like the built in video is extremely wimpy - pretty much no video (the Intel GMA 950 comes with many inexpensive motherboards already, AFAIK), only 80 or 120 gig storage, probably SATA 1.5 Ghz/sec rather than 3 (my Shuttle doesn't support SATA II either, although a slightly more expensive Shuttle would have), and a slow burner.

On the other hand, it does come with Bluetooth and Airport, and of course all of Apple's software. For $600 though, it does seem like one has to pay a premium for a Mini.

This is fine, there are some instances where it makes sense to go with the Mini, I'm not trying to get all religious here. Like I said, I just thought it would be interesting to share with you how the prices seem to compare these days with a rig such as this, since the conventional wisdom seems to be that Apple's laptops are quite competitively priced these days.

[CheesePuff]

Why do you need 800 MHz RAM when the processor's system bus speed is 667 MHz?

When have you ever seen transfer rates of 3.0 Gbps, even on a desktop?

When do you actually burn a DVD at 16x? I have -- the quality of the disc is less, the chances of it being a coaster is MUCH higher, and a lot of media gets screwed up when you try to burn that fast.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CheesePuff 

Why do you need 800 MHz RAM when the processor's system bus speed is 667 MHz?

When have you ever seen transfer rates of 3.0 Gbps, even on a desktop?

When do you actually burn a DVD at 16x? I have -- the quality of the disc is less, the chances of it being a coaster is MUCH higher, and a lot of media gets screwed up when you try to burn that fast.

Have you ever seen an 802.11n network saturated? Firewire 800 saturated? HD DVD/Bluray disc filled to capacity with a movie (this I'm not sure of)?

I'm not interested in SATA 2, 802.11n, Firewire 800, or 800Mhz DDR2 RAM for this reason - I don't need this kind of speed. I would have reservations about many people saying that they do. Still, when doing a price comparison like this it is best to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, no?

While you might be totally right about what is actually practical, useful, and meaningful to people, people don't see this... They just see the higher number and think that they are getting a better value. I know that these sorts of marketing issues are another issue altogether, but perhaps Apple should offer similar specs just because and go with the flow, or else take a more active role in educating people about these specs so that the game of matching and one upping specs doesn't spiral out of control?

DVD burning on PCs is not something I have experience with, so what you said is interesting and useful... Is burning at 8x generally a good idea? I just picked up one of the cheapest DVD burners available on Newegg for something like $25 to go with my rig, they all just happen to start at 20x burning.

[CheesePuff]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

DVD burning on PCs is not something I have experience with, so what you said is interesting and useful... Is burning at 8x generally a good idea? I just picked up one of the cheapest DVD burners available on Newegg for something like $25 to go with my rig, they all just happen to start at 20x burning.

To burn at 16x (or higher), you need to buy expensive, well rated media.

And even then, all reports out there state burning at 4x will give you the best results. That's what I burn at for movies or data, and I have yet to make a coaster or had a problem/glitches when watching the movie. I tried one at 16x, the media was rated at 16x as well, and the top speed it made it throughout the whole burn was 6x according to Toast.

[besson3c]

What is the DVD burner in your Mac (where I'm assuming is where you were burning the disc) rated at?

(Don't even know without looking whether there is a version of Toast for Windows)

[Simon]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Cool. The Apple Tech Specs page doesn't list whether it supports 800 Mhz DDR2 RAM

It will. But it won't do you any good. Although the 800 MHz memory costs more, it will still run at 667 MHz. The only reason I can see to go for 800 MHz memory nevertheless is future-proofing.

[CheesePuff]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What is the DVD burner in your Mac (where I'm assuming is where you were burning the disc) rated at?

(Don't even know without looking whether there is a version of Toast for Windows)

In my Mac is the standard Pioneer made for Apple DVD±RW/CDR±RW slot-loading dual-layer drive rated at 8x maximum for DVD-R.

But the tests I conducted were on a NEC 18x drive on my PC.

[CharlesS]

Getting good media probably helps as well.

If you can find any spindles that say "Made in Japan" on them, they're probably Taiyo Yudens, which are considered to be the best CD/DVD media available.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Railroader: please stop trolling. Why would you run Aperture on a media center PC?

I was not trolling.

Aperture is the most processor intensive program I currently use, and I wanted to know how well it would run on it.

If you don't like what I have to say, I suggest you ignore my posts.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The problem isn't with the software itself, MythTV is fine, it is with the channel changing mechanisms. Cable and some satellite systems use RF, which is fine, but some satellite systems such as Disk Network and BellXpressVu use IR. The latter means that the receiving hardware needs an IR receiver, and software to translate/mimic the IR signal via reverse engineering. Otherwise, your system would not be able to change channels on your satellite box for scheduling a recording, for instance. Your computer would also have to be within range of your satellite receiver, which is the other kicker.

EyeTv is also *very* expensive compared to its competitors (e.g. Hauppauge), and you can likely do a lot more stuff with a MythTV setup. It's been a while since I looked at the EyeTV software, but here are some of my favorite features of MythTV:

- cutting out commercials (commercial flagging)

- function as a repository of all video of just about any format

- separation of client and server (you can have any TV in your house hooked up to your MythTV setup)

- scheduling of recordings over the web

- lots of plugins available

- automatic transcoding, program expiration (deletion)

I know you can separate client and server (just set the recording directory to be on a network share; I'm doing it right now), and you can play any QT media in it (and on my box QT plays pretty much everything, though I use QTPlayer just to get pitch-corrected fast forward). Plugins applies to that too; incidentally what plugins do you use? It also does automatic transcoding. I haven't ever wanted to do these, but according to EyeTV's FAQ, it also supports IR blasters, and you can schedule recordings remotely through titantv. It doesn't do automatic deletions for you, but you could easily do that with applescript, as the archive is just a bunch of bundles in a folder you choose. That leaves commercial flagging, and actually I've been amazed by how much I don't need it with the tivo-like jump forward button. I know there will be at least 4 commercials, and a quick 4-click and a couple more puts me right back in the show.

Yes, it is expensive, but if you watch out for sales it's around $100 I think. I paid $150. What did I pay for? Polish. I don't have to know linux, I don't have to set up or configure anything, I don't even have to know anything about my own system for this software to work. I just have to drag and drop the app to my hard drive and double-click it. That's why I use macs in the first place, after all, and it's even more important while trying to use a wireless gyro-mouse from my couch. I don't want to have to type in that scenario.

The entry level Shuttle holds 2 + 1 IDE drive (usually for CD/DVD). You can get Shuttles that will do 3. I intend to use the Shuttle as my backup/file server for the house, replacing a PC we have in the office. This saves us from having to string ethernet cable over to the office, not that I'm not a big fan of laying cable.

That's a definite advantage, especially if they're 3.5 inch drives, but I don't understand the point of making your HTPC a data backup. Isn't the HTPC going to be the weakest point of hard drive usage, because it will have the highest activity, constantly recording and erasing huge files?

[flopticalcube]

Did you factor in the cost of your time in purchasing, building and setting up the system? On a high end gaming rig it might be worth while, but on a sub $500 PC?

[Laminar]

If it's something you enjoy doing anyway, that wouldn't be a problem.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by flopticalcube 

Did you factor in the cost of your time in purchasing, building and setting up the system? On a high end gaming rig it might be worth while, but on a sub $500 PC?

It's both a work and entertainment PC, and as a work PC OS X is simply not an option for me. As an entertainment PC, the "my time is money" arguments are rather silly, IMHO.

[Uncle Skeleton]

What about the "my time could be spent watching the media center rather than building it" arguments?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

What about the "my time could be spent watching the media center rather than building it" arguments?

Nah... MythTV is far cooler than AppleTV, IMHO.