Posts from — March 2007

Too many times people overlook the importance of motherboard selection when building their HTPC. This quick 3 step guide will make sure you won’t miss anything too crucial.

1. Form Factor - You have to decide on what form factor motherboard to purchase. This is usually determined by the case you purchase. Some things to know: uATX is smaller than ATX. BTX is simply a rearranged ATX motherboard which allows for better cooling (requires a BTX case).
2. Match Your CPU Socket Type - Make sure the CPU you picked out and the motherboard have the same Socket type or they just won’t work.
3. Pereferials - This is what you pay for with better motherboards. Consider the number of PCI-e and PCI slots because they determine how many capture cards you can have in your system. Also look into: SATA RAID options for large disk arrays, S/PDIF Audio for surround sound output, and IEEE 1394 (firewire) for interfacing with HD cable boxes.

Follow these steps and you should be able to pick out a decent motherboard.

If you have any advice on picking out a good HTPC motherboard, please feel free to comment.

April’s WIRED magazine has a short article about how to avoid DRM. (Wired Magazine, April 2007. “How to Ditch DRM” Page 36)

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is corporate America’s attempt to control your digital media by placing extra code in the software and media restricting how, when and where it is played back.

The article mentions using MythTV and Ubuntu over TiVo and Windows. It highlights the free operating system and MythTV’s ability to make DRM-free MPEG-2 recordings and its DVD-ripper. On the downside it discusses the lack of complete hardware support in Linux, the steeper learning curve, and MythTV’s difficult setup.

With all the legal issues associated with DVD ripping and CSS encryption, it makes me wonder how much knowledge Christopher Null (the author) has on the topic. Additionally, MPEG-2 recording is a result of the hardware, not the software. But since MythTV makes the hardware worth so much more — I guess it deserves the press.

Other suggestions made were to use the Wolverine ESP over the IPOD, eMusic instaed of iTunes, and Gamepark Holdings’ GP2X-F100 over the PSP.

Hey, glad ya made it.

This blog is to let MonolithMC keep you up to speed with a few topics:

• the company - who we are, what we do, how we operate
• the software - MythTV, Ubuntu
• the community - MythTV, Ubuntu, Home Theatre PC (HTPC), Digital Rights

If you ever want to see something specific here - just post it in a comment - we’d be happy to address it.

To start off the blog posts, the first set is going to be “Hardware: Perfect Picks for your HTPC”.