New HTPC Setup

I've been wanting to get rid of the crappy Time Warner cable HD DVR that I've had for a while and also be able to record and burn HD shows. The cable HD DVR had several issues - it froze too much, it missed recordings, it was extremely limited in capacity, and there was no way for me to extract and save the recordings. I looked at getting a TiVo HD but I balked at the high equipment fees and the recurring monthly charge. I also looked into swapping my cable DVR out for a higher capacity one, unfortunately Time Warner didn't offer such a thing. Since the cable HD DVR rental fee and my basic cable service cost $35 per month, I also explored the possibility of cutting out cable and watching over-the-air (OTA) and online programming as well. So in the end, I decided to go with a home-theater PC (HTPC) solution.

My four year old Athlon 64, while still plenty useful, just couldn't cut it when viewing HD shows. The single core processor and limited video card couldn't handle the 720p and 1080p HD streams. So I had to get a new PC. Fortunately, we also needed a new PC for HD video editing purposes. So I looked around and eventually found a refurbished one from Dell Outlet. The system that I found, a Dell Studio Slim, featured an Intel Quad Core processor at 2.33 GHz, 6 GB DDR2 RAM, 1 TB hard drive, a Blu Ray burner, and a 256 MB ATI Radeon HD video card with HDMI, which can handle 1080p. All for $640 shipped after 15% coupon. To make it a full fledged HTPC, I also needed to purchase a TV tuner. After much research, I ended up getting a Silicondust HD Homerun ATSC/ClearQAM external network dual tuner. I installed this on my network to the cable coax connection for ClearQAM, and installed a HD antenna for OTA programming. For the PC, I ditched the Windows Vista installed on it and clean installed Windows 7 Ultimate, beta build 7068. Why beta? Well, I've been test driving Windows 7 for several months and I am convinced that this is the best OS Microsoft ever made. It is extremely stable (even in beta form), doesn't use up a lot of resources, and Windows Media Center has integrated support for ClearQAM.

The last step was pairing the HTPC to an extender in the living room. I already had a device for that, and it is the Xbox 360. So that part was easy. The best thing about the Xbox 360 is the built in Netflix streaming support, so it was an added bonus to the media center.

Now, I have a setup that can tune in to free OTA uncompressed HD channels, tune it to free ClearQAM unencrypted cable channels (example, I get Showtime HD for free), can record up to 100 hours of HD, can access online video services such as Hulu, and can stream from Netflix. Plus, it can also burn the recordings to DVD and play our music, videos, and show our pictures, and can also play Blu Ray movies. The added bonus is that it is also a full-fledged PC that we can use for HD video editing, web browsing, and other uses. We are also utilizing the Xbox 360 for things other than games. All for only $10 per month. Goodbye crappy cable company DVR!