Shuttle XPC & Small cases

[ottoreck]

I'm thinking of using a Shuttle XPC for my PVR. I have a PVR-250 card and i understand that the Shuttle has built in video out for TV. I've also seen on the boards that the quality of the Shuttle XPC might not be good.

1. Is there a version of the Shuttle that has good on board video? I noticed they have versions that are based on the following: NVIDIA nForce3 150, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400, Nvidia nForce2, VIA KM266 and VIA KM400. Would any of those be acceptable?

2. If not, what AGP video card would people recommend i add to the Shuttle for video to TV output?

3. Does anyone know of a good non-tower computer case that would look like basically a Stereo Component that would house a standard motherboard and also house drives and PVR cards? Need something small or slick or the wife won't let me do it .

[rkn555]

do what i did. (thats if your handy with a dremel and such)
i took an old Toshiba DVD player.
and retrofitted it into a pc. using a mini-itx motherboard from via the
EPIA mini-itx M-series.
its a 1ghz cpu with hardware mpeg decoder put in 512mb pc2700 40 gig HD
and used a toshiba notebook dvd-rom drive and an external power supply( similar to a laptop charger.

[Mike Young]

The shuttle is a great system, I bought one intending to use for a Client, but Liked it so much it became my gaming system.
All the built in video is very average, nowhere close to what you would get with a nice ATI 9000 PRO, (my favorite card for the money)
The main thing about the shuttle is the onboard SOUND since by the time you get a PVR card in you wont have room for another card.
They still sell some of the really old ones out there, I would stick with te Nforce chipsets for the AMD, mine is a Pentium though.

There are some really nice looking cases available the Antec make some cases like you describe plus there are some really high dollar ones.
head on over to www.htpcnews.com and check them out!

[stanger89]

1) Integrated video always scares me, although the nForce2 integrated stuff is probably the best.

2) I run VGA so I have little experience with TV out, but the newer DX9 class cards seem to be well thought of, Radeon 9600 or Geforce FX 5700 are reasonably priced.

3) If you want something that will blend with your other components, try these:
http://www.ahanix.com/ctg_htc.html
The 3, 4, and 5 take full ATX motherboards, the 5 needs a smaller PS though.

There's also this one:
http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_deta...p?ProdID=15728
A little less hifi looking but also cheaper. I saw some reference on this board that Frey had this case housing a 5 tuner system at CES.

[Colin]

Oh, and on the Shuttle XPC I got, the onboard optical audio is only 2-channel stereo, even though the onboard sound is 7.1. Wish I knew that before I bought it.. Thankfully my DVD player is much better than anything the PC could output, so surround sound isn't that important. I could use the phono out, but that's messy..

[falchulk]

I have the sn41g2 with a 2800 athlon. It has the nforce 2 chipset with the geforce4 on board. It's great. It has 2 vga connectors and 1 svideo, spdif with 5.1, and 4 usb. You can have someone watching a recorded show, be recording something else with only 6% cpu usage using the nvdvd codec. With intervideo its slightly lower but the picture is not as good. I can play halo, armed and dangerous, Generals etc.
while recording and burning a DVD at the same time! Not to mention the second monitor out can be used for surfing the web, MS office, wife looking up recipes while you watch live TV, divx, or a DVD. I also have a Via M10000, it does not even compare. In my opnion, I could not have a better HTPC with the shuttle.

BTW, the svideo out is great. My ati 8500dvi on another athlon 2800 does not even come close to the quality. I run it on a 55 inch tv with bob deinterlace. I would like to switch over to a vga to hdtv converter but the PC is always in use!
I have to schedule downtime like I am at work.

[falchulk]

Originally posted by Colin
Oh, and on the Shuttle XPC I got, the onboard optical audio is only 2-channel stereo, even though the onboard sound is 7.1. Wish I knew that before I bought it.. Thankfully my DVD player is much better than anything the PC could output, so surround sound isn't that important. I could use the phono out, but that's messy..

Is that right? 2 channel only? I did not know that. I dont use the spdif anyway. I have the 500 watt Klipisch 5.1 PC speakers. The sound rivals my 3 year old Theater system in my living room.

[quaffapint]

Price it out and you'll find you can save over $100 by building from scratch - you'll also get more ability, such as 8x AGP and 3 full-size PCI slots, etc...

Not knocking the Shuttle, but the best bang for the buck would be to build from scratch...

-Quaff

[falchulk]

quaffapint, with shuttle you are building from scratch. Shuttle is just he Motherboard and case. Its barebones. You must buy the processor, harddrive, dvd, memorey yourself. I paid $270 for mine but they ran a specil 2 weeks later where you could get it for $220. By comparison, I paid $170 for the Epia m10000 barebones and around that for the MB and case for a athlon 2800 in a mid tower a few months before.

[quaffapint]

Originally posted by falchulk
quaffapint, with shuttle you are building from scratch. Shuttle is just he Motherboard and case. Its barebones. You must buy the processor, harddrive, dvd, memorey yourself. I paid $270 for mine but they ran a specil 2 weeks later where you could get it for $220. By comparison, I paid $170 for the Epia m10000 barebones and around that for the MB and case for a athlon 2800 in a mid tower a few months before.

I understand that - by "from scratch" I mean - buy the case and MB separately...It will be cheaper.

Here's an example, which fits my needs, but may not fit yours...

Shuttle:
Shuttle XPC ST61G4 $360 (comes w/ ATI card "builtin")

From Scratch:
Athenatech Micro ATX Case w/200W Power Supply A100BB.200$50

ASUS KM400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A A7V8X-MX MiniATX $59

MSI GeForce FX 5200 AGP 8x $58

CHAINTECH 6 Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "AV-515M" W/ SPDIF Optical Out $21

Scratch Total : $188
Shuttle Total : $360

For us with a tight budget - that's a big difference. Again, I'm not knocking Shuttle - it's just more expensive - to each his/her own

-Quaff

[quaffapint]

Quick followup...

I also looked at the cheapest Shuttle I could find...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...pa=0&section=2

Which pretty much gives you only the motherboard and case and is limited to a single 4x AGP and single PCI slot costs $175.

Whereas, a basic MicroATX case and MB (which gives you more) costs $109.

Even if you use the onboard sound from the Shuttle box, you can still get a $21 sound card that comes w/ the optical out SPDIF connector.

Again, it's best bang for the buck and IMHO building from scratch is the way to go.

-Quaff

[falchulk]

You make an excellent point quaffapint. I just want to say that I have been building and supporting PC's for over 10 years now (from a tech to a Network Analyst) and the shuttle system is one of the best I have ever used. It does everything I ask it to. Even the overscan is done in small increments so that you lose as little of the picture as possible. To me it's worth the extra $100.

[Sailn]

I have an sn41g2 w/xp2500+, 512 pc2700, 80 + 120gb hd, dvd+r/w, pvr-250. System works well. The fan is a big noisy, but I am quite picky. The spdif opticl out send 6.1 to my receiver although I thought is was only 5.1. Perhaps the recent nvidia driver update changed it. The onboard VGA is ok, nothing great, but for 2d is drives my tv (via TV out) and projector well enough. I would put a better graphics card in but the machine is running a bit hot and there isn't room to put a fan cooled graphics card in the case without some major surgery.

The unit will end up in a bedroom and act as a dvd-play, sage client.

BTW, I do like the idea of moding a dvd player.

[falchulk]

salin, do you have the heat pipe seated well? Grease appled properly? Even playing games, mine barely reaches the 49C I have set for the fan to kick up in RPMs. It is a loud when it reaches that threashold but it rarely happens. I have a 250gig and a 200 gig HD, the pvr250 and a DVD writer in there. The heat pipr does an fantastic job. Even the HD's stay at a constant 40c only rising to 42c on occasion.

[Mike Young]

People....youre forgeting the most important thing about getting a shuttle.....
its just cool to have a pc that looks like a toaster! :>

[Jim S.]

If you go shuttle, you're paying to have the tiny case sitting next to your PC. If you go with another case, you save money at the cost of floor space.

On the other hand, you can do what I did-- took my old tower PC and just shoved that on top of the stack of stereo equipment I've got

Not pretty, but I saved a few hundred bucks.

[Sailn]

falchulk, I thought I had enough thermal paste on the die. Next time I take it apart, I'll check it. My feeling on the theram paste has always been less is more.

Also, I think the sound is really coming from the power supply fan and not the heat pipe fan.

[TinnedFish]

I've got the sk43g (VIA KM400). I don't have it tweaked as much as I'd like, but this is a very young board as far as drivers go. I'm dissapointed, I should have gone for the ATI or the Nforce, but I was trying to save cash. The latest bios and drivers finally enabled the TV-out to composite(using an adapter), and the hardware support for MPEG streams. Maybe in a few more months I'll change my opinion, but for now if you want the integrated TV out, grab something else.

There is a lot of info about using shuttle's as PVR's over here, including silencing and cooling:
http://www.sudhian.com

Make sure you hear one before you buy. They're not loud, but they're not quiet. (no computer is). Just depends on the WAF tolerance level. I had to swap out fans...

TinnedFish (bruce)

[lawd5]

I have a SN41G2, and I like it.

I swapped out the heat pipe fan, and replaced the PSU fan with something a little quieter. Most of the noise comes from the PSU. The noise still bothers me.

It's slightly louder than my gamecube.

[Colin]

lawd5: Where did you get the replacement PSU fan? I tried looking but I could never find silent fans in the dimensions of the slim PSU.