Our Home Theatre PC

Theatre Room - Dedicate HTPC / Media Center

This Media Center is use as our primary media center, with 1Tb of storage for recorded TV and has our three (3) XBox 360 connected with serves as an extender to the Main Bedroom, Lounge Room and Family Room. We also have a smaller Media Centers in the Study which also acts as my day to day computer.

Hardware Specifications.

Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H Motherboard

Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD (Intel GMA X4500HD)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16Ghz CPU

4Gb Legend Intel Certified DDR2 800mhz RAM

Antec TruePower Tri 550 watt.

Silverstone LC16M Black Case with 2x Nexus Silent Case Fan

Hauppauge Nova T-500 MCE

Hauppauge Nova T-500 MCE

1x Hitachi 60Gb SATA II HDD (OS)

1x Samsung 1000Gb SATA II HDD (Recorded TV)

LG GSA-4166B DVD Drive

Microsoft Keyboard

Logitech 880 Harmony Remote

Sound via onboard SPDIF (Digital) and Analog for A-Bus Sound System.

Software Specifications.

Microsoft Vista Ultimate 32Bit

ICETV Guide Subscription

Media Player 11

ffdshow v2546

Home Theatre Equipment.

Samsung Series 7 63" Plasma via Jamell HDMI Cable

Yamaha RX-V863 AV Receiver

Onkyo DVSP300 DVD Player

Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray Player

Pioneer PDM427 6 Disc CD Player

Wharfdale Speakers (Fronts, Rear, Centre & Sub)

Opus One 8" HiFi Ceiling Speaker (Rear Side)

Microsoft Xbox 360 as Extender

Playstation 2

A-Bus : Oveture 4 Way Audio Hub

A-Bus : ABM-20 Volume Control Module Module

Other Installed Software.

Acronis TrueImage Home v11

Media Centre Externder.

Microsoft XBox 360 connected to a 32" LCD TV via Jamell HDMI Cable (Bedroom 1)

Microsoft XBox 360 connected to a 40" LCD TV via HDMI (Family Room)

Microsoft Xbox 360 connected to a 50" Plasma TV via HDMI (Lounge Room)

Our other Media Center PCs

This is my general day to day computer which also runs Vista Media Center. I use it for watching Live TV when working in the study, scheduling recorded TV via IceTVs web schedule, overflow recording should the 4 tuners on the main HTPC not be enough. I also use this PC to update our Music Collection using Media Player 11, which is accessable from all computers.

Study Vista Media Center.

Intel BLKQD35JO Mainboard with onboard DVI and 2Gb DDR2-800 RAM

Intel E6750 Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz CPU

Samsung 500Gb HDD (OS and Applications)

Digitalnow Dual Hybrid PCE-E S2

Dual BenQ 20" Wide Screen LCD Monitors.

Micrsoft Vista Ultimate

Micrsoft Media Player 11

Ice TV Guide Subscribtion

Nvidia ForceWare Vista 32bit 169.25

Windows Home Server

This is Windows Home Server which is used a File Server for our personal Data Files and also as a Media Server for Music, Photos, Videos and archived Recorded TV from the Main Media Centre. Currently the Home Server has approx 2TB of Storage with important files set to duplicate with plans to increase the total storage to 5TB.

Hardware Specifications.

Gigabyte GA-81945PL-G Motherboard

Intel 775 Pentium D P4 3.2GHz

Zalman 9500 LED CPU Cooler

2Gb Legend Intel Certified DDR2 400mhz RAM

Antec TruePower Tri 550 watt.

Antec 4U22 ATX Rackmount Case

Gigabyte 7600GT 256Mb DDR3 PCI-E Video Card

4x Samsung 1000Gb SATA II HDD

1x Samsung 400Gb SATA II HDD

1x Samsung 500Gb SATA II HDD

1x Hitachi 500Gb SATA II HDD

LG GSA-4166B DVD Drive

Microsoft Keyboard

Microsoft Windows Home Server SP2 with Power Pack 2