My bits of kit

[defrag]

After a very long, hard, expensive struggle I've finally got a nice stable system that covers everything I need (for now!!!) Here's a list of the kit that sits in my lounge (and gets through the WAF!!)

HTPC:
Hardware:
Silverstone LC18 case
ASUS A8N Deluxe
AMD 64 X2 4800
Thermaltake Golden Orb cooler
2x1GB Corsair TwinX XMS Pro
250GB SATA HD
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS
Hauppauge PVR150
Hitec X-Plosion DTS Soundcard
SeaSonic S12 PSU
MCE Keyboard
MCE Remote (Remote replaced by Logitech Harmony 885)
MCE USB UIRT
Logitech Wireless Rumblepad
Netgear 108mps Wireless Card

Software:
XP Pro SP2
XLobby (1 Installation - 2 skins)
Nvidia PureVideo, FFDShow, Haali Media Splitter (for Matroska/H.264)
Winamp
Zoom Player Pro
AnyDVD (for non region 2 and advert stripping)
Girder 4 (for MCE remote usb/uirt)

TV:
Hitachi 32" LCD (32LD7200)

Speakers:
Jamo A355PDD Home Theatre 5.1

A/V Receiver:
Morantz SR4200

SAT:
SKY+

Media Rack:
Apollo Mezzo Soprano (Sells for about £300 - got it of Ebay for £70, genuine bargain)

Getting all this working in harmony was a bit fiddly and I had to make some comprimises. But.. in short, here's how it all fits together.

The HTPC connects to the LCD via DVI at a resolution of 1360x768 and to the touchscreen via VGA (1024x768) from the same graphics card. I'm running 2 desktops via the latest NVidia's drivers. I run 1 copy of Xlobby but with 2 skins set to different resolutions. I have a small application that will shut down xlobby, change the entries in the xlobby.xml file and restart. This way I can toggle between the two screens.

All sound from the HTPC is sent via SPDIF to the A/V receiver thanks to the wonderful X-Plosion DDL/DTS sound card. I used to run with soundstorm on a Abit NF7 motherboard and didn't want to upgrade until I could get something similar.

TV Capture is all done on the SKY+ box (no point in having it unless your gonna use it!), and anything I need to archive I have to capture via the PVR card using the svideo connector out of the SKY+ box. I use the standard Hauppauge software for this and then use AutoGK to compress to avi.

I have a 1.4TB media server in the house that runs 24/7 that stores all online video/music/pictures (as well as handling work stuff) all media is streamed wirelessly and I hardly ever get video stuttering. (Wireless driven by a chunky Draytek router).

Here's some piccies!! (excuse the wires!!!)

Touchscreen running with milkdrop on the LCD

Close up of the media rack

Close up of touchscreen

XLobby on the LCD (and me in reflection !!)