Building a mini-ITX computer system is a popular topic these days and for good reason. The form factor is very small, a wide selection of platforms is available and the component pricing is fairly decent. This build guide will quickly go through the steps of building a mini-ITX build from out of the box to completion.
The goal of this article was to show how to build a mini-ITX HTPC system capable of playing Blu-Rays for under $600 in hardware. The end result is a system that can easily play Blu-Ray and other high-definition content with no stutters at all. The mini-ITX form factor is very sleek and the fact that you can cram a system like this into a chassis this small is awesome. Once I got past the size of the form factor, the highlight of the build has to be the power consumption numbers. The highest power consumption that I saw on this mini-ITX system was just 36 Watts at the wall during gaming. It looks like that 60W power supply brick that comes with the Travla C287 mini-ITX chassis will be able to offer plenty of power for the time being.
Would just like to point out, YouTube HD and Hulu HD are not a definitive yes on the ION. The videos tested may have worked out well, but there are several that still come out choppy due to the lack of processing power. By the way, I do believe one HTPC player favorite for hardware-assisted playback is Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. It has its own filters for H.264 and VC-1 and the latest version even supports H.264 using the Intel G45 chipset.
Other than that, nice article.
File Server/Media Encoder/PVR PC
Antec P182 / Corsair 550VX / Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R / Core 2 Duo E7200 @ 2.53 / Wintec AMPX 2x2GB DDR2 800 / Sapphire 100233L Radeon HD 3450 / WD Caviar SE16 750GB x3 / WD Caviar GP 750GB / Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7190A x2 / XP Pro SP2
hnzw_rui wrote:By the way, I do believe one HTPC player favorite for hardware-assisted playback is Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. It has its own filters for H.264 and VC-1 and the latest version even supports H.264 using the Intel G45 chipset.
Other than that, nice article.
Check out the page on Matroska (MKV) Video Playback as I added MPC-HC testing results... You and everyone else that e-mailed me are right... It's the best player for this platform.
Wow, talk about clueless in the article (as in 0%) when it comes to video playback of .mkv and CPU usage.
First you should have included info about the codec used, bitrate of video (very important), resolution, encoding parameter (e.g. ref frames and cabac) and which decoder was used. Just mentioning the player used and assuming default/bundled decoder being utilised and source of the video is information-less.
DxVA is a standard not a 'technology'. It is very easy to get DxVA working for H.264 and VC-1 with the right decoder when using MCP7A.
I know that K-Lite Codec Pack has a MKV codec in it, which one I'm not sure. It also comes bundled with MP Classic. Maybe the combo there would fix the issues?
i would have liked to have seen the MKV playback tested with the DivX MKV preview. IMHO it is a much more elegant solution than loading other codecs or players in Windows 7, plus it allows playback of MKVs directly in Media Center. Any chance you could test that out and report on its performance?
3rugger wrote:i would have liked to have seen the MKV playback tested with the DivX MKV preview. IMHO it is a much more elegant solution than loading other codecs or players in Windows 7, plus it allows playback of MKVs directly in Media Center. Any chance you could test that out and report on its performance?
Got a link to download it and any suggestions on how to set it up and run it? If i get some free time this weekend I'll take a look.
Skippman wrote:Dang, now you guys have me thinking about building another carputer. Where the heck am I supposed to fit that in my Jeep?
Oh snap Skip you carputer too. I had one in my 98 cutlass before I gave that car away four years ago. I'm in the process of putting that in my 06 Reno. I was an active member at mp3car.com. They still might have my front end somwhere that I made for Roadrunner.
I used to Moderate on MP3CAR.COM back in the day, like 2001-2002. I used a PC Chips Book PC and an Alpine IVA-C800 head unit to make my first carputer. Got out before things like DC/DC power supplies became affordable. Had a sweet 7" Xenarc touch screen 800x480 LCD I was going to use on my next build but I ended up selling it for what I had in it ($500 at the time).
I didn't install the full divx bundle, just that program. I try to stay away from installing unnecessary codecs on my media center. If you have installed any codec packs, you may need to remove them from Windows 7 to get the best performance. The only other codec I installed was the AC3 filter to handle audio from the MKVs. If you find you aren't getting any sound you can get get that here: http://ac3filter.net/
With those installed I have yet to run across a file I couldn't play in media center. Also, the video playback was far smoother than with any other codec I had previously tried. Good luck!
Any chance you had some time to try the divx preview to see its performance? I'm weighing my optins for a homebuild vs the Lenovo Ideacenter for a WIN7 HTPC and the Nano performance is the one thing that has me iffy on building an ION based system.
3rugger wrote:Any chance you had some time to try the divx preview to see its performance? I'm weighing my optins for a homebuild vs the Lenovo Ideacenter for a WIN7 HTPC and the Nano performance is the one thing that has me iffy on building an ION based system.
Sorry, I've not had time as I've been traveling... In San Francisco this week for IDF and next week I'll be in San Jose.... No sleep for the wicked!
Sounds like my old job, there were points where I forgot how comfortable my own bed was. Good luck in Cali, eat an In-N-Out Burger for me. We don't have them in Texas .
.