Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people

Home > Articles

Home Theater Upgrade Diary Part 3: Source Components and Accessories

In the previous two installments of his Home Theater Diary, Michael Miller told you how he selected the components for his new home theater system and described purchasing the main system components: the television, amplifier, preamplifier, and speakers. Dip into his diary to learn about his choices on the source equipment that provide the picture and sound, as well as his system's key accessories.

The best big-screen TV is just a blank screen until you feed some programming to it. To that end, the source components of a home theater system are every bit as important as the main components. You want to feed the best possible picture and sound to your system, which means choosing the best possible sources. For me, that means a high-end DVD player, some sort of HDTV feed (satellite? cable? over-the-air?), and, perhaps most uniquely, a Media Center PC, to hold my entire CD collection in digital format.

The Media Center PC: NiveusMedia Denali Edition

Now we come to the truly unique part of my new home theater system—although I predict it will eventually become a standard component in the home theater setup. I'm talking about the Media Center PC—that's right, a personal computer in my living room.

First, I should answer the question of why I wanted a home theater PC. While there are many uses for such a device (including digital video recording), I wanted the PC primarily as a digital audio jukebox. With my focus on high-end audio, I wanted to store my entire CD collection digitally, and be able to play back any album with the press of a button. (You also get the ability to create playlists and "shuffle" the music, which turns any home theater system into a giant iPod!)

The key to storing digital music for home theater use is choosing the right digital audio file format. If you rip your CDs in MP3, WMA, or AAC format, you compress the music and sacrifice sound quality—substantially, in most cases, and extremely noticeable when played through a quality audio system. Instead, you want to either store the music in uncompressed WAV format files (which take up a lot of hard disk space—600MB or more per CD) or in a format that uses lossless compression. This type of compression works like a ZIP file, removing unnecessary and redundant bits of data without compromising sound quality. The result is a digital audio file that sounds identical to the original CD, but at about half the file size. (That means between 250GB–300GB per CD.)

I chose the WMA Lossless format because it's fully compatible with Windows Media Player and the Windows XP Media Center Edition interface. It took me close to two months (and about 300GB of hard disk space) to rip my thousand or so discs, but now they're all stored digitally. I've done side-by-side comparisons with the original CDs, and there is no discernable difference. It's an ideal solution.

Fortunately, the Media Center PC I purchased has more than enough hard disk space for my current needs. I looked at models from several different manufacturers, but had to rule out most models for a couple of key reasons. First, most of the low-cost Media Center PCs (such as all the HP models) simply didn't have big enough hard disks. Second, many of the PCs that ran Windows Media Center looked like desktop PCs; I wanted a unit that looked like a traditional audio component, to better fit within my equipment rack. Third, most PCs on the market, Media Center or otherwise, make a lot of noise due to their internal fans. When you put a PC in your living room, you want it to be quiet enough not to interfere with your movie viewing and music listening; in other words, you want a PC that does away with the fans and uses some other form of cooling instead.

The one Media Center PC that met all my requirements was an expensive one. The Denali Edition Media Center PC from NiveusMedia cost a whopping $4,700, but it does everything I wanted—and more. First off, it has a total of 800GB of storage via two internal 400GB hard disks. Second, it looks like an audio component—actually, it's the same size, shape, and color as my B&K power amplifier. Third, it's completely silent. The Denali Edition is housed inside a case that functions as a big heat sink. While the case gets rather warm to the touch, that's just how it dissipates the internally generated heat. There are no fans and nothing else inside (other than the DVD drive) that generates any noise whatsoever.

By the way, the external heat that this puppy generates requires some special consideration when you're placing it in a rack. In my case, I have about 4 inches of space above the unit, and the front, sides, and rear of the rack are all open, so there is plenty of airflow. You would not want to place this PC in an enclosed cabinet. (The same goes for my B&K power amp, which generates a similar amount of heat.)

The back panel of the PC looks like the back panel from any other audio/video component. It has four coaxial tuner inputs, a variety of composite and S-Video inputs, and component video and DVI video outputs. Audio outputs are a mix of line audio, digital optical, and digital coaxial. I use the component video and optical digital outputs for my system.

Now, about those four coaxial inputs. The Denali Edition comes with three, count 'em, three television tuners—two NTSC tuners and one ATSC tuner for over-the-air HDTV broadcasts. (The ATSC tuner has two separate inputs, so you can record one high-definition program while you watch another.) Television operation is via the Windows Media Center interface, which has its own free electronic program guide.

As I mentioned, my primary use for this unit is to store my massive CD collection. I've devoted a single hard disk to digital audio files, and I use the other hard disk for the operating system, programs, and other media storage. I've also attached a Seagate 400GB external drive to back up all my digital audio files; it's a low-priced insurance policy.

Operation is via the standard Media Center remote control—or, in my case, through my programmable Home Theater Master remote. To do anything beyond simple menu-based activities, I have to use the supplied Gyration wireless keyboard and air mouse. The wireless keyboard works fine and has a good range; the Gyration mouse, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is operation less than intuitive, requiring a lot of wrist twisting, but also the range of the mouse is only about 3–4 feet. Less than ideal, but then again you don't have to use the mouse all that much—primarily when you have to exit Media Center to work within standard Windows.

Windows Media Center ends up being a pretty good interface to do what I want to do. It downloaded the correct album art and information about 98% of the time; fixing album and track info is easy enough from within Media Center, while fixing the album art required exiting Media Center to use the third-party Album Art Fixer program from the standard Windows interface.

With upward of a thousand CDs loaded, Media Center can get a little sluggish at times, especially when you're searching for a particular song or artist. I also wish there was a quicker way to select albums and artists than scrolling through the complete list, which can be a tad time-consuming—especially if you're looking for a Warren Zevon album. In addition, creating playlists is horribly awkward from within Media Center; it's far easier to exit Media Center and do playlist creation from the standard Windows Media Player, which is less than ideal.

Those quibbles aside, I like Windows Media Center—for audio, anyway. I've run into some major glitches trying to watch and record HDTV programming. My over-the-air HDTV signals aren't the strongest, and the Denali Edition has a definite problem handling marginal TV signals. Whether I'm playing back live or recorded programming, I often get a rapid audio stutter and accompanying flashing video.

This video playback problem, it turns out, is caused by some sort of incompatibility with the default Nvidia video driver. The Niveus folks recommended that I download and install the WinDVD video driver instead, and this pretty much fixed the problem. There are still some problems with video freezing during weak HDTV broadcasts, but the stutter and flashing are now gone. (Unfortunately, this is the sort of computer-related problem and uber-techie fix that can scare average consumers away from using a PC in their living rooms.)

All in all, I'm very happy with the Media Center PC solution for storing all my digital music. As you can probably tell by now, music is a big part of my life, and the Media Center PC helped me successfully create a music-oriented home theater system.

Peachpit Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Peachpit and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about Peachpit products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites; develop new products and services; conduct educational research; and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email ask@peachpit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by Adobe Press. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.peachpit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020