Hdtv Pci Card

The idea for a portable HDTV system occurred to us last summer while checking out the new generation of compact home theater projectors at CEDIA Expo. Would it be possible to create a fully self-contained HDTV system that could be easily transported by one person? We're not talking about a mobile system built into a car or something handheld. We mean a fully capable system that includes a display, 5.1 channel audio and DVR capabilities.

Why, exactly, would anyone want to do this? The answer lies in an American phenomenon: the Super Bowl party. The annual athletic ritual that crowns the National Football League championship team has become more than just another game.

Since the Super Bowl will be broadcast in high definition, it's natural to want to watch the game that way. Not everyone has HDTV yet, however. And not everyone with HDTV may want to host a Super Bowl party. So why not take the HDTV to the party?

The Ingredients

Using a PC with a high-definition capture card not only allows us to receive over-the-air ATSC signals, but also acts as a DVR—just the thing for looking back on all those nifty Super Bowl commercials (sometimes more interesting than the game itself). So we built a Windows Media Center PC into a small system based around an Intel micro ATX motherboard and a Falcon Northwest FragBox 2 case. We also went with a 3.0-GHz Pentium 4, instead of a 3.4-GHz CPU. The 3.0-GHz P4 works well for our needs, shipping with a lower-profile cooling solution that generates less heat, a must for a small-profile system. The rest of the system included the following components:

Component Brand / Model Price CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (LGA775) $190 (check prices) Motherboard: Intel D925XEBC2 $185 (check prices Memory: 1GB (2 x 512MB modules) Kingston ValueRAM DDR2/533 $218 (check prices) Case: Falcon Northwest Fragbox 2 Case $299 Power supply: Silverstone 520W Fragbox P/S $129 Graphics card: ATI Radeon X700 Pro $202 (check prices) Analog TV Tuner: eVGA NVTV PCI TV Tuner $140 (check prices) HD Tuner card: ATI HDTV Wonder $185 (check prices) Hard drive: Hitachi 7K250 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive $215 (check prices) Optical drive: Pioneer DVD-108 Double Layer DVD Burner $95 (check prices) Other storage: Mitsumi FA404M with USB 6-in-1 memory card reader $23 (check prices) Keyboard / Mouse: Logitech diNovo Media Desktop $170 (check prices) Remote control: Microsoft branded Windows Media Center Remote $38 Speakers (subwoofer): Creative Gigaworks S700 $311 (check prices) Speakers (satellites): 4 x Paradigm Cinema 90 $338 Speaker (center): Paradigm Cinema Center Channel $99 Dolby digital decoder: Creative Labs $113 (check prices) Projector: Sharp XV-Z2000 720P DLP Front Projector $3350 (check prices) Screen: Da-Lite Insta-Theater 90-inch HDTV $438 (check prices) Operating system: Windows Media Center Edition 2005 (OEM) $129 (check prices) Transport: 36-inch Wheeled Duffle Bag $32 Total: $6,899

Our rough pricing came in at a little over $6,800, but our price searching wasn't exhaustive by any means. At first blush, that seems like a lot of money—and it is. But that nearly seven grand buys a terrestrial HDTV tuner with DVR capability, a fully functional Windows Media Center Edition 2005 PC, a 5.1 speaker system with a powerful amplifier and Dolby Digital decoder, and a 720P front projector with a 90-inch screen (measured diagonally). The screen folds up into a portable aluminum pod, and all the other gear can be stuffed into a 36-inch rolling duffel bag.

Let's take a closer look at the components we chose for our transportable high-definition theater.

The Motherboard

The Intel D925XEBC2 is simply the MicroATX version of the D925XECV2 motherboard. It's similar to the Intel D925XCV we reviewed last year, but the board has been updated to the newer 925XE chipset. This includes a beefy voltage-regulation section that can accept even the fastest Pentium 4 processor available.

At $190 (street), the retail version of this board is fairly pricey, but you get the full D925XE retail kit with it, including a 3.5-inch front-panel bay with audio, USB and FireWire connectors, plus a software CD and rounded cables. It supports the latest 1,066-MHz front-side bus and will accept the upcoming 600 series processors from Intel. It also supports Intel HD Audio and—most important for our purposes—offers a pair of digital audio-output connectors (one optical, one coax).

One temporary downside is that this board has only two PCI slots. The other two slots are PCI Express, one x16 slot for a graphics card and one x1 slot for expansion. But two PCI slots will be sufficient for our needs. Performance is on a par with other members of the Intel D925 family, which means it's about as speedy as you can get with a Pentium 4.

Product Name: Intel D925XEBC2 Company: Intel http://www.intel.com Price: $190 Pros: Intel 925XE chipset; Intel HD Audio and Matrix RAID support; robust voltage-regulation section Cons: Only two PCI slots; expensive Summary: This is about the best micro ATX board on the market now for any processor, but you do need to ensure the case has proper cooling and power if you're going to drop in a high-clock-rate Pentium 4 Rating: 9/10 (ET Approved)

Case and Power Supply

We wanted a compact, relatively rugged case suitable for transporting our Windows Media Center high-definition PC. Initially we settled on the Antec Aria, an attractive micro ATX case. After building the system, however, we discovered that the Aria wasn't a good candidate for frequent moves. Occasionally, one of the side panels would pop off, exposing the innards of the PC at potentially inconvenient times.

Then we learned that Falcon Northwest (http://www.falcon-nw.com) has decided to make its FragBox 2 chassis (http://www.falcon-nw.com/fragbox_case.asp) available to people who want to build their own PCs. The FragBox 2 is designed as a transportable, full-function personal computer.

This particular chassis was designed by Falcon Northwest, but built by Silverstone (http://www.silverstonetek.com), an up-and-coming case manufacturer that has some spiffy home-theater PC designs. One nifty case feature is a Silverstone-labeled, 520W power supply with special shortened cables suitable for the cramped quarters of a small case. But it's fully ATX 2.0-compliant, including a 24-pin main power connector, serial ATA power connectors, and a plug to deliver power to high-performance PCI Express graphics cards.

If you buy this case, heed the warnings in the installation poster about installing the plastic caps over the motherboard mounting standoffs. The standoffs are not removable, and some are there for future pico BTX motherboards. If you don't place the caps over the standoffs in a micro ATX motherboard, there will be a ground fault. At $428, the case and power supply are not cheap; but for our purposes, they were perfect.

Product Name: Falcon Northwest FragBox 2 Case Company: Falcon Northwest; http://www.falcon-nw.com Price: $428 w/520W power supply ($299 w/o power supply) Pros: Rugged; easy to work inside; beefy power supply; easy to transport. Cons: Really expensive; plastic standoff caps must be manually installed. Summary: This is a superb, rugged case for building your own small PC. The robust power supply lets you build a high-performance system using fast CPUs and graphics cards. But the cost will make you wince. Rating: 8/10 (ET Approved)

Other PC Components

The other components include the Radeon X700 Pro, the eVGA NVTV analog tuner card, and the ATI HDTV Wonder terrestrial ATSC tuner card. All of these components are certified to work with Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and have drivers specifically for that operating system.

We used the Hitachi 7K250 250GB serial ATA hard drive, and the Pioneer DVR-108 optical drive with the black faceplate. We also used the Mitsumi FA404M floppy drive with built-in USB 6-in-1 memory card reader. Unfortunately, we've heard the Mitsumi will soon stop manufacturing this combo. But for now, they're still readily available, so get them while you can. Otherwise, there are a number of memory-card readers designed to fit in a floppy disk drive bay.

We also used the Logitech diNovo Media keyboard and mouse combo. Coupled with the Microsoft-branded Windows Media Center remote, you have a flexible choice of input with your portable HDTV system.

Audio

The on-board Intel HD Audio served mainly as a pipe to ship the digital audio stream to an outboard decoder box. We used a Creative Labs DDTS-100 Dolby Digital decoder. It's a compact box that takes care of decoding the Dolby Digital audio stream and delivering it to the 5.1 speaker system.

The speakers are a variant of the ExtremeTech Ultimate PC Speaker System. For our Super Bowl party, a 7.1 system was overkill and too difficult to transport. So we chose the Creative Labs Gigaworks S700 subwoofer, coupled with four Paradigm Cinema 90 satellites and the Paradigm Cinema Center Channel.

The Display System

We wanted a true HDTV system for our Super Bowl party. Of course, a 50-inch plasma HDTV or even a 30-inch LCD HDTV are both too big for one person to carry. But a projector with a portable screen was a very real option.

We contacted Sharp, which makes some superb high-definition DLP projectors. The new Sharp XV-Z2000 is one of Sharp's least expensive units, but it seems to offer excellent image quality. We didn't have time to perform all our lab tests on the XV-Z2000, so we're not going to give it a rating here. But HDTV images piped from our Media Center PC were crisp and well-rendered. DVD material also looked very good.

This particular projector is rated at 1,200 lumens, which is pretty bright, but you'd still want to draw the curtains during daytime viewing. Ambient room light seems to be no problem, however.

Of course, a projector needs a surface to display its images. You could always use a white wall, but what if none is available? The answer is a portable projection screen. One of the niftiest portable screens we've seen is the Da-Lite Insta-Theater series. The Insta-Theater rolls into an aluminum pod with a carrying handle, and comes in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats. We obtained a 16:9 Insta-Theater with a 90-inch screen, which worked well with the Sharp projector. Again, this isn't a review of the screen, since we weren't able to test its capabilities in the lab. But it's easy to use and set up, and it has enough gain to be suitable for use in well-lit areas.

HDTV In Motion

Our goal wasn't just to have an HDTV home theater. We wanted a portable HDTV theater. At a local luggage store, we found a duffel bag with three wheels at one end and a retractable handle at the other. The 36- by 16- by 16-inch bag cost us a mere $32 (on sale). The PC, all the speakers (including the subwoofer), accessories, projector, and input devices fit into this one duffel bag. It's a good thing that it has wheels, too, as the whole package weighs around 65 pounds.

The projector is packed into a padded backpack originally designed to carry small PCs, so the fragile unit is well protected. Accessories such as the keyboard, mouse, and remote controls also fit into this bag. A smaller padded bag holds all the cables—and there are a lot of cables.

Once you get to your destination, you need to set it up. You should give yourself at least 45 minutes to an hour, more if you want to spend a little time tweaking the projector image. You'll also need to make sure you align the antenna with the correct DTV station in order to get good reception from the right station. (Check out the CEA's antennaweb.org Web site (http://www.antennaweb.org) for more on which direction to aim the antenna). The indoor antenna included with the HDTV Wonder is good up to about 15 miles if you have a clear line of sight to the broadcast towers. If the HDTV Wonder's antenna doesn't cut it, consider the Winegard Sharpshooter. This is a fairly compact indoor antenna that can be transported relatively easily, but it takes up more space than the HDTV Wonder's antenna.

It's Time for Pop-Tops and Popcorn

Could we have made it even more portable? The key would have been to use a more compact speaker system. For football, a good set of stereo speakers, like the Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 210D or the Logitech Z-2300, might have done the job for smaller family-room environments. Or, if the person hosting the party already has a decent sound system, you can just run optical or analog speaker cables to their system directly, obviating the need for a speaker system at all. Our solution covers all the bases, but you may not need to worry about the whole nine yards.

Once you've set up the system, kick back and enjoy the bright 720P image on the 90-inch screen. Whoever wins the game, you'll have a good time basking in the glory of supplying the large-screen experience.

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.

Get Skiing &Snowboarding Packages. - Sponsored Link
Ad - View Package Specials &Book Now!