DAMN YOU MPEG-2!

So, it turns out that the main reason that I can not find a DVD Decoder is because the algorithm for the MPEG-2 decoding is licensed. According to this Wikipedia article:

Approximately 640 patents worldwide make up the "essential" patents surrounding MPEG-2. These are held by over 20 corporations and one university. Where software patentability is upheld, the use of MPEG-2 requires the payment of licensing fees to the patent holders. The patent pool is managed and administered by MPEG Licensing Authority, a private organization. Other patents are licensed by Audio MPEG, Inc. The development of the standard itself took less time than the patent negotiations.

This essentially means that no one is allowed to create a free MPEG-2 decoder. You will find on the web that there are a lot of CODEC packs out there that say that they handle most of the DVD formats. What they neglect to tell you is that they don't handle the most important one: MPEG-2.

There is a utility that one can download from Microsoft called DECCHECK, that allows you to see what MPEG-2 are installed on a machine. It claims to be for XP, but it also appears to work on Vista. When I look on my HTPC, I see several MPEG-2 decoders on the machine already, including one for Sage. I think that the reason that these aren't working is that they are either 32-bit decoders, or they were designed for XP, because Vista changed how all of this works (of course).

What I think irritates me the most about all of this is that I've already have a very power MPEG-2 decoder built into the 780G graphics chip. All that is needed is a DirectShow decoder filter. This filter does not actually do any work, thus it doesn't need to be licensed. It just passes the stream to the 780G to do the heavy lifting. There is such a decoder filter at SourceForge. Of course, it doesn't work on my machine, probably because of the Vista 64-bit issue.

In some ways, I accidentally shot myself in the foot here because the Home and Ultimate editions of Vista already have a DVD Decoder that ships with them. I, of course, had to buy Business. I have also read that Windows 7 is going to ship with a DVD Decoder in all editions, but I was not willing to wait for that.

There are a lot of Windows Media Player add-ons out there that you can buy that support the MPEG-2 format, but they can only be used by Windows Media Player and many don't support Vista. I purchased and installed the one from Cyberlink because it had a Vista version, and I was hoping that it would be installed as a common CODEC for all media players but, sadly, it wasn't. However, I discovered that SageTV has a setup option for DVD Decoder Filter where I could change it to Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder. This almost works perfectly except that the DVD menus don't work with the remote's arrow keys and the hot spots don't light up when they are hovered over with the mouse cursor. However, hover over a hot spot with the mouse cursor, click and, presto, the menu option is selected and the movie, she plays! Whew! The good news is that Windows Media Player is also able to play DVD's now, although the upscaling is not very good.

So, I'm thinking that I can put this one in the bag, although the lack of the arrow keys working on DVD's is going to make finding Easter eggs harder. Perhaps getting PowerDVD was the right answer after all. Perhaps I shouldn't have went with 64-bit Vista. I've heard good things about Windows 7 and 64-bit CPU's are becoming common place. As consumers, we need to keep pressure on the software vendors to move their applications over to 64-bit CPUs. The conversion is not nearly as painful as the conversion from 16-bits to 32-bits. (For the sake of full disclosure, my own company's software hasn't been converted to 64-bits, and the customers are starting to get really angry.)

So, what's next for my HTPC? I'd like to be able to burn DVD's on it, so I guess that I'll tackle that next. How hard can it be? (HAH!)

On Display Drivers

Before I launched into finally trying to solve the DVD Decoder issue, I wanted to clear up an annoying message that appeared whenever I rebooted the machine. It was a message indicating the Windows Defender failed to start. This started happening around the time I installed McAfee, and I believe that McAfee disabled the Windows Defender service, but failed to disable its Notification Area icon. (Or perhaps I did it. I can't remember.) There was nothing in the Startup folder on the Start menu that started this icon's program, so I ran a program called msconfig, found the Windows Defender program and disabled it. Windows Defender is a Spyware detection program and McAfee already does that, so there's no sense in having two of these running.

After I did this, I opened the ATI Catalyst Control Center and selected, Check For Driver Updates. I had noticed earlier in the week that there looked like there were some recent updates for the graphics chip, and I was hoping that perhaps there might be a DVD Decoder hiding in there was well. Clicking on Check For Driver Updates took me to the ATI website where I had to figure out where they had hidden the display drivers for my system. First I had to tell it that I was running 64-bit Vista, then I had to tell it that I my product line was Integrated/Motherboard, and then I could select Radeon HD 3200. (The Integrated/Motherboard thing really confused me. I think that during the initial installation of software I tried to upgrade the drivers and gave up when I couldn't find Radeon HD 3200 in the Radeon product line.) Once I got to the right download page, I discovered that not only did they have updated display drivers, but they had an update to the south bridge chip set too. Plus they had a download for something called HydraVision. (Much Excitement!)

So, I downloaded and installed everything. The installation of the south bridge drivers caused a hiccup in the Gyration USB transmitter, but unplugging it and plugging it back in fixed that. Then I tried playing a DVD using SageTV and, sadly, got the same results. HyrdaVision looks like something that lets you divide the screen into multiple display regions. This is something more than just a new way to create windows, for it looks like you can have multiple desktops and can switch quickly between each of them. Interesting, but not very helpful, so I disabled it.

So, I'm back to looking for a DVD Decoder. It looks like Nvidia supplies one, so I was hoping that ATI did as well.

Remote disappointments

One more blog entry on remotes and then I'll move on.

My friend Steve took the Hauppauge remote that Judy gave me to his place and tried it out with a learning remote. He was able to report that the remote was generating a signal, so I'm assuming that it is functioning properly. He also took home the sensor that Judy gave me, but didn't have a equivalent system to try it in, so we don't know if that is working properly or not. My guess is that it is fine. It is my educated guess that the reason that I couldn't get the Hauppauge remote to function with the HTPC is that the Hauppauge software doesn't work properly with Vista or 64-bits or both. Whenever I opened the Hauppauge IR notification icon in the Windows Notification Area, I got a large mostly empty dialog box with one button. (I think that it said Close.) Anyway, I've uninstalled the Hauppauge IR program and moved on.

I went through the process of trying to program my new Air Remote to replace my TV's remote and that was pretty discouraging. There are quite a few remote codes for my TV and I tried them all, several times. I found a few that sort of worked, but of those, all of them could turn the TV off, but none of them could turn the set back on? (Huh?) I then tried to program the remote to learn the power button, but the Air Remote kept reporting that the learn mode timed out. I spent enough time on this to verify that I hadn't made any mistakes, and then I gave up. (I've never seen a universal remote that worked, and I guess I'm not terribly surprised by this one. Perhaps it will do a better job on my stereo or cable box.)

I agree with Steve on this subject: Bluetooth should be established as the common communication mechanism for all remotes, and a standard Bluetooth service should be established for remote controls. (There may be one already. I went to www.bluetooth.com, but that website is long on fluff and short on content. However, there is a promising article at www.bluetomorrow.com.

Remote Options

I'm closing in on the solution to the DVD CODEC solution, but today a solution to the remote keyboard and mouse presented itself, and I decided to solve that issue instead.

After weeks of operating the machine using a keyboard and mouse connected to it, and sitting way too close to a HDTV, I decided that I really needed wireless keyboard and mouse, was well as an infrared remote. I could have had this already, and pretty cheaply, except that I didn't really want a mouse. I wanted a trackball or touchpad built into the keyboard. I could find a few of those, but they were all very expensive. So, I saw today that my local electronics store (OK, OK, it's Fry's) had an Air Mouse and keyboard combo on sale for around $60 (after mail-in rebate). So, I stopped by after work and found that, not only did they have an Air Mouse and keyboard combination available, but they had an Air Remote and keyboard combination as well, although it wasn't marked as having a mail-in rebate.

I toyed with getting this really cute keyboard and mousepad combination that was about $130. It had a small QWERTY keyboard in a clam shell case. (Sorry, but I don't remember the name of the manufacturer.) It used Blue Tooth to communicate with the computer and it had built-in rechargeable batteries. I really liked it, but it was just not practical to do any touch typing on it, so I set it aside. Then, I had to choose between the two Air products.

So, what are these Air products? They have a sensor (perhaps a gyroscope) in them and, as you move device through the air, they sense the movement, wirelessly communicate it to the computer, and the mouse cursor moves on the screen. Judy told me about them when I was trying pick components for the HTPC. I decided against it at that time because of the expense, but sitting too close to the screen for a month has changed my mind about that.

So, after some dithering, I decided to pay extra for the Air Remote and keyboard combo, because I was tired of not having a working remote and the Air Remote also has infrared transmitter in it. Its box says that it can control many different devices. After years of having to stop and think before I pick up a remote, that sounded very attractive. When I got up to the register, surprise, the $50 mail-in rebate applied to the Air Remote keyboard combo as well.

Installing the mouse and keyboard was a cinch and, except for having to reach for the remote when I want to move the mouse, it is all pretty natural. My biggest problem now is that the text in the multi-line edit box for this blog is hard to read across the room. (I'll play some more with the font size later.)

Anyway, the Air Remote controls SageTV very well, although I haven't tried any other devices. The keyboard gets hung up some times and the typed characters don't appear on the screen, although it looks like they are being transmitted (according to the status light). Usually moving the mouse with the Air Remote fixes it.

So, now I just have to solve the DVD CODEC problem.

More CODEC follies

The guy from SageTV seemed rather incredulous that the DVD drive didn't come with a DVD codec. I believe that his words were "I've never heard of such a thing." Then he suggested that I go to the Optical Drive's manufacturer's website and see if there wasn't a download for it.

So, I went to the LG site and didn't find a codec, but I did find a knowledge base article that said:

First, make sure you have proper software installed to view a DVD movie. DVDs require DVD software in order to play DVD Movies. LG bundles PowerDVD by Cyberlink with its drives. We do not offer it for download. A full version of the software can be found at www.gocyberlink.com (Also available in stores)

I wrote LG and explained that I was having the same problem and that PowerDVD is not installed with the LG DVD-RW drive that I bought from them, only PowerProducer and CyberLink DVD Suite.

So, I went in search of a DVD codec. It is not that I dislike PowerDVD, I just don't think that I want to pay for two DVD players, when SageTV will do the job.

The first thing that I did was to install McAfee on the HTPC. You never know where some software has been.

I then searched for DVD codec in Google, but I didn't find anything that excited me. I wound up at one site called freewarecentral.net and tried to download xVid, but McAfee started complaining about detecting a potentially unwanted program named Artemis!06EBEBB5771B and Firefox said that I was opening a file from prompt.zangocash.com. I told McAfee to remove the Artemis program and Firefox to cancel the opening the file from the suspiciously named website. (As I said, you've never know where some software has been.)

Finally, I ended up at Uberdownloads.com and I downloaded and installed VLC Media Player. It is an open source player that Uwe mentioned as being versatile. I was able to play some media files that he had given me last week. But, I still can't play a DVD. SIGH.

I went ahead and purchased SageTV, but I still don't have a DVD codec. SIGH.

An Answer From SageTV about the DVD CODEC

So, I wrote SageTV about not being able to play a DVD, and here is what they wrote back:

Sage doesn't install a DVD decoder. Usually if you have a DVD drive, you typically get the software to play DVD's (like PowerDVD that includes the Cyberlink decoder).

They then told me how to get the Nvidia decoder for DVD.

Well, that's just ducky. My DVD drive came with Cyberlink software for creating DVD's but not playing them. It is true that I didn't install the Nero software that came with the drive, but when I installed it, I got the same result.

I guess I can see why SageTV assumes that the DVD drive would install the DVD CODEC, so I'm not sure who to be annoyed with at the moment. I just wish that, if they are going to have a Media Center option that has a Play a DVD suboption, that they would supply the important pieces of software necessary to make that happen.

So, I'm still meditating on how I want to fix this.

DVD Woes

Now that I have this nifty HTPC set up as a DVR, there's almost nothing on TV worth recording. So I decided to pull out a DVD and tried to watch it. First I tried using SageTV, but it gave me a strange message: "There was a DVD Error in playback. Details: sage.PlaybackException: ERROR (-8, 0x2): There is a problem playing the DVD content due to Macrovision or CSS." (An error message only a programmer could love.)

Then I tried with Windows Media Player, but it gave me a message on the opposite end of details, but not any more helpful: "Windows Media Player cannot play DVD video. You might need to adjust your Windows display settings. Open display settings in Control Panel, and then try lowering your screen resolution and color quality settings." I tried that and it didn't help.

Finally, I tried to play it with WinTV, which gamely gave it a try. The audio was great, but the video was a mess.

I talked with my friend Uwe about this. He had already given me a set of video files to try watching on a DVD and I didn't have any luck with them either, but they were in some fancy formats and we were doubtful I had the right software from the start. However, I really thought that a standard DVD would play. So Uwe suggested that I download the trial version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD and try that. I did and it was able to play the DVD. The funny thing was that, magically, so was SageTV. (However, Media Player was still complaining about the screen resolution.) SageTV working told me that the machine was missing a CODEC for DVD.

CODEC is merely a combination of the two words COmpression and DECompression, as MODEM is MOdulate and DEModulate. Where as a MODEM takes a digital signal, converts it to analog for transmission over a phone line, and then converts it back to digital, a CODEC takes an analog source, converts compresses it for transmission (or storage), and then decompresses it for playback. Originally, a CODEC was a piece of hardware like a MODEM, but these days it also can be a piece of software that is used for decompression of various audio and video formats. This functionality must be built into Windows at some level, since SageTV was able to make use of the CODEC that was installed by PowerDVD.

My guess is that SageTV did not install the CODEC either because I installed a trial version, or they want me to purchase a more expensive version with more media format support (CODECs). Either way, I'm not sure that I want to have both PowerDVD and SageTV installed, so I uninstalled PowerDVD and, as I hoped, SageTV stopped being able to play DVDs.

I will have to meditate on what is the best solution for this problem, but at least I know what the problem is. (As oppose to the remote control issue, where I'm still clueless.)

Hard Drive Maximize!

One of the things that SageTV suggested during installation was storing its video files on a hard drive partition with a 64K block size. The block size is essentially the amount of data that is transferred between the hard drive and the memory in one I/O operation. The hard drive is formatted into individual blocks of the specified size and thus the size of files on the hard drive are all multiple of the block size. (No matter what Windows Explorer says a file's size is, the space that a file actually uses on the hard drive is a multiple of its block size.)

Having a large block size is good for speed. The CPU gives an instruction to the hard drive controller to start a transfer and can then ignore it until the transfer is complete. It can be an inefficient use of disk space, since a 4K file wastes 60K on a hard drive partition with a 64K block size. Fortunately, we're talking about files in the gigabyte size range, so the loss of a kilobytes at the end of a video file is not a big deal. A large block size also requires a lot of memory to buffer the block during the transfer. It's good thing we've got 4 gigabytes of memory!

You may recall when I installed Vista, I only formatted 100 GB of the hard drive for the operating system, because Judy had warned me that Sage would recommend having a 64K block size. However, I wanted to see this requirement for myself, just to make sure that 64K was the right number before I formatted the partition. (OK, OK, I forgot to format it in advance.) When I saw the recommendation during the installation, I could have just formatted the partition at that moment, but I was so use to XP that I expected that this would require a reboot and the drive letter of the optical drive would change, so I let Sage put the video files on the system drive for the moment. What I didn't realize is that Vista would let me assign any drive that I wanted, so I could have formatted the partition during the installation. Fortunately Sage would let me change the directory after installation.

What a lot of the non-techie types don't realize is that hard drives, for a long time, have had the ability to be "partitioned". That is sliced up into individual pieces and treated as separate hard drives. This is very useful if you want a computer to be able to run two operating systems, such as Windows and Linux. There was also a time when the size of hard drives were getting bigger than Windows could use. So partitioning them was a necessity to be able to use all of the space. However, we're going to use that ability here to let Vista have a partition with what it believes to be the optimum block size for it, and we're going to create a second partition with what SageTV believes is the optimum block size for video files.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Find the Computer icon, right click and then select Manage from the pop-up menu. Or you can open the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, and then open Computer Management. (Your computer may be slightly different, as I've set my Vista desktop into Classic mode.)
   
2. In Computer Management, in the left hand pane, expand Storage if necessary and select Disk Management.
   
3. In the center bottom pane, locate the disk on which you want to create the new partition, right-click in the unallocated space rectangle that you want to create the new partition with, and select New Simple Volume... from the pop-up menu.
   
4. In the Welcome page of the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.
   
5. In the Specify Volume Size page, select the size of the new partition (which Vista is calling a Volume). The maximum is already entered in the field, and that's what I went with. Press Next.
   
6. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, you can assign a drive letter to the partition, but I'm going to just say "No" to drive letters. I selected Mount in the following empty NTFS folder radio button and pressed the Browse button. Then I created a directory named C:\Volumes\Media, selected it and pressed the OK button. Then I pressed the Next button. (You, of course, may assign a drive letter, if you wish.)
   
7. In the Format Partition page, select the Format this volume with the following settings radio button, if necessary. For Allocation unit size, select 64K from the drop down list and in Volume label, I entered Media. Make sure that the Perform a quick format check box is not checked and press the Next button.
   
8. In the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard page, press the Finish button.
   
9. Go find something interesting to do, as the formatting going to take a while. I chose the complete format to allow the OS to find bad sectors on the disk. Better to find them now rather than later. On my system, it took a little over 2 hours to format almost 500 GB. Your mileage may vary.
   
10. After the format was complete, I created a directory named C:\Volumes\Media\SageTV and then I created C:\Volumes\Media\SageTV\Videos.
    
11. Bring up SageTV and open Setup.
    
12. Open Detailed Setup.
    
13. Locate Video Recording Directories and click the Modify button next to it.
    
14. Click on Add New Directory.
    
15. Click on Specify.
    
16. Enter the name of your Media directory for SageTV on the new partition. For example C:\Volumes\Media\SageTV\Videos. Click the OK button.
    
17. Click the Select Current button.
    
18. SageTV will ask about the space rule for the directory. I took the defaults with a Disk Space Rule of Use All which requires a Disk Space Size of All Available Space. If you wish, you can also select Disk Space Rules of Use Only or Leave Free, which will allow you to put bounds on the amount of space used. For now, I'm going to let it have the entire disk. Click on Accept this Rule.
    
19. Assuming that you've watched everything already recorded, select the current Video directory, C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\Video. Click on Remove this Directory.
    
20. Click on Continue.

The great thing about having a separate partition for the Videos is that, when you fill it up, the OS will still be able to operate. It's not a lot of fun to try and free up space on a hard drive when the operating system being non-responsive.

So, at this point, you might think that I'm just about done, but there are a few things still hanging out. I still haven't gotten the remote to work and when I tried to play a DVD, none of the programs could do it. They either didn't recognize the format of the DVD, or they complained that the video resolution was too big. So, I guess I'll tackle one of those two next.

SageTV, not so wise.

So, I ended up at SageTV's door, www.sagetv.com. The first thing that I noted when reading the requirements for it was that it required the Java virtual machine to be installed. At first, I thought that explained why it didn't have a problem running on 64-bit Vista, but to be honest, I've seen very little use of Java. The program is even installed in the program file folder for 32-bit applications. On the other hand, it might be using the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) because when I installed the trail version, it looked like it installed the 32-bit JRE as part of the process, even though I had already installed the 64-bit JRE.

The User Interface was very hard to grasp at first because it has some very un-Windows characteristics. The first one that drove me nuts was the scroll bar on the list boxes. On Windows, when you click within the scroll bar, the list box will scroll one page, depending on whether you clicked above or below the slider bar. In SageTV, clicking within the scroll bar will position the slider to the indicated point in the scroll bar, and position the list box to the appropriate place. On Windows, when you click on the arrows at the end of the scroll bar, the list box will move one line. In SageTV, the arrows will instead advance the list box one page. I never did figure out how to advance one line.

Then there is the way that the user interface handles during the channel selection. There are two columns. On the left, there is a list of available channels and on the right, there are some commands like Enable and Preview this Channel. There are no right mouse click pop-up menus here. To preview a channel, you have to hover over the desired channel, carefully move the mouse to the right, being careful not to accidentally stray over another channel, and then move arrow down over the desired command. Then and only then do you click. This probably makes loads of sense if you're using a remote control, but if you're using a mouse, this is a little tedious.

The installation was pretty straight-forward, until it got to the part about setting up the tuner card, and then the whole process got very confusing. I was not surprised to be asked about which of two Hauppauge cards to set up, as there are two tuners on the card, but the screen described then as WinTV-7164, not 2250, Analog cards. Hmmm. I picked one of the tuners and was then presented a list of inputs on the tuner: Composite, Composite_2, Digital TV, S-Video, S-Video_2, and TV Tuner. Huh? It is true that a tuner handled could handle Composite, Digital TV (QAM and ATSC), and Analog TV (NTSC), but each tuner did not have two composite inputs and two s-video inputs. Furthermore, the setup acted like the card could handle only one of these inputs, not multiple ones. So, I selected Digital TV, the obvious choice, and went on. The setup asked for my ZIP code, correctly identified the different cable providers in the area, and then let me select either regular cable or digital cable. It then asked me if I had Basic Service or Extended Basic Service. Huh? Extended I guess. It then proceeded to scan for channels and, as can be expected, only found the QAM channels. Since the tuner can handle both QAM and NTSC, I went back to scan for the cable's NTSC channels (since not all of the NTSC channels have a QAM equivalent on the cable system) and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I looked in the forums and there are others who have accomplished it, but they did it by adding the same tuner as a source twice. When I tried this, it merely replaced the previous description of the tuner. It was beginning to look like I going to have to set up SageTV to record QAM channels on one tuner and NTSC channels on the other which would have prevented me from recording two QAM programs at once. If that was the case, I'm not going to be happy and will probably go back to WinTV.

I read the SageTV forums for some clues and finally found some help. The problem was that I could not perform a full scan using the same channel setup for both digital and analog TV. So, I had to trick the software into accepting the same card twice by having two different setup sources. Here are the steps:

1. Start the Source Wizard.
   
2. Select Add New Source.
   
3. Select Hauppauge WinTV-7164 Analog Capture.
   
4. Select Digial TV Tuner and then Continue.
   
5. Select Use Tuner on Capture Card to tune Cable TV.
   
6. Select Use US, Canada, or XMLTV Guide Data with this Source.
   
7. Select Cable or Satellite.
   
8. Enter your zip code.
   
9. You will be presented with a list of cable and satellite providers for the entered zip code. This is where the trick comes in. With some luck there will be an entry for your cable provided for standard cable and for digital cable. Choose the digital cable entry.
   
10. You'll be asked for Basic Service or Extended Basic Service. I have no idea the proper answer to this question, but I selected Extended Basic Service.
    
11. If you've tried this already, your database could be completely confused. In the left hand column, hover over Edit Channel Lineup and then in the right hand column, select Clear all Remapped Channels.
    
12. In the left hand column, hover over Scan for Available Channels. In the right hand column, select Scan for available channels now.
    
13. Select Start a Full Channel Scan.
    
14. Wait for the scan to complete. Select Review Channel Changes.
    
15. Select Done Reviewing Scan.
    
16. Look at the scanned channel and remove any that you don't want by selecting, which will make the green dot go away. Look at each located channel and decide if you wish to keep it. The software has a bit of a problem here because, if you say you want to preview a channel and for some reason it can't, it will display the last channel that it can. To make matters worse, it will put the name of the channel you are trying to preview at the bottom, making it appear that it was able to successfully display it.
    
17. Select Done with Channel Setup.
    
18. Select Add New Source.
    
19. Select Hauppauge WinTV-7164 Analog Capture #2.
    
20. Select Digital TV Tuner and then Continue.
    
21. Select Use Tuner on Capture Card to tune Cable TV.
    
22. Select Use US, Canada, or XMLTV Guide Data with this Source.
    
23. Select Cable or Satellite.
    
24. Select the zip code that you used the last time.
    
25. Select the same Digital Cable source as last time.
    
26. Select Use the same channels as other sources using this lineup.
    
27. Select Extented Basic Service again.
    
28. Select No - I will scan for channels later.
    
29. Select Done with Channel Setup.
    
30. Select Add New Source.
    
31. Select Hauppauge WinTV-7164 Analog Capture.
    
32. Select TV Tuner and Continue.
    
33. Select Use Tuner on Capture Card to tune Cable TV.
    
34. Select Use US, Canada, or XMLTV Guide Data with this Source.
    
35. Select Cable or Satellite.
    
36. Enter the zip code to use.
    
37. You will be presented with a list of cable and satellite providers. Find your cable provider and select the one without digital service.
    
38. Select Extended Basic Service.
    
39. If you've done this before, hover over Edit Channel Lineup and then select Clear all Remapped Channels.
    
40. Select over Scan for Available Channels and then select Scan for Available Channels now.
    
41. Select Start a Full Channel Scan.
    
42. Wait for the channel scan to complete. Select Review Channel Changes.
    
43. Select Done Reviewing Scan.
    
44. Locate any SD channels that also have QAM channels located in the previous scan and select them to remove them from the list. Look at each located channel and decide if you wish to keep it. The software has a bit of a problem here because, if you say you want to preview a channel and for some reason it can't, it will display the last channel that it can. To make matters worse, it will put the name of the channel you are trying to preview at the bottom, making it appear that it was able to display it. Also on my analog scan, it located some digital channels which it was unable to preview, so I disabled them too.
    
45. Select Done with Channel Lineup.
    
46. You should now have three WinTV-7164 in the Wizard Summary. Select Add New Source.
    
47. Select Hauppauge WinTV-7164 Analog Capture #2.
    
48. Select TV Tuner and then Continue.
    
49. Select Use Tuner on Capture Card to tune Cable TV.
    
50. Select Use US Canada, or XMLTV Guide Data with this Source.
    
51. Select Cable or Satellite.
    
52. Select the same zip code and last time.
    
53. Select the same non digital cable provider as last time.
    
54. Select Use the same channels as other sources using this lineup.
    
55. Select Extended Basic Service.
    
56. Select Done with Channel Setup.
    
57. You should now have 4 sources configured. Select Finish Source Setup.

See, that was obvious. Wasn't it?

MythTV and Beyond TV

I took a look at MythTV and Beyond TV as DVR software.

BeyondTV, based on Houston, has a really nice website, www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv, that explains what their software does including an overview, features, how it works and how to get it. On their System Requirements page, they very clearly state that it does not support 64-bit Vista. I appreciate their honestly (and I wrote them an email to tell them so) and then moved on.

MythTV, www.mythtv.org, is an open source DVR. By open source they mean that the software is not a product of an company, but a group developers working together to produce and maintain a publicly available piece of software. Their website states that MythTV "started out in 2002 as a way for Isaac Richards to produce a better TV-viewing environment than his cable company's digital cable box could provide, and through the help of the open source community quickly grew into a powerful tool for watching and recording television." My friend Judy said that MythTV was only available on Linux, but the website says that it will compile on Windows, but it has to have a Linux Virtual Machine to run. (So, Judy was right, as usual.) There are no prebuilt distributions and even the website describes the process of building it on Windows as a "lengthy and sometimes painful process", so I moved on.

Look Ma, No Wires!

So, I finally got the wireless card from my friend Judy. I installed it and, sigh, nothing happened. The machine didn't even recognize it was present. I was pretty sure that the card was seated properly, so I threw up my hands, went to my friendly-neighborhood electronics store and bought a D-Link wireless G card.

While I had the box opened installing this new card, I took a moment to change the BIOS to remove the Away-Mode and to set the machine to automatically boot during Power On.

I installed the card, plugged in the power cord, which caused the machine to automatically boot. After booting, the Find New Hardware dialog came up and I canceled it. Instead I followed D-Link's instructions and installed the D-Link software, which installed the Drivers and configured the network. It asked questions about the name of the network and the WEP security key. I entered this information and the wireless network came right up.

As I was afraid, the signal strength is not terrific, around 45%, but I think that it will do for now.

WinTV? I don't think so.

I've spent the week playing around with WinTV. There's a lot to recommend this software, being free is high on the list. The interface looks nice and it has the necessary functionality. WinPC does not have a lot of bells and whistles, but it gets the job done. I'm reminded when I worked at Texas Instruments, we had a saying, "Minimum but adequate." There's a reason why TI is not a big name in computing. They never aimed very high. (Well, except for their attempt to create one of the first PC clones. It was a valiant effort, but the subject for another blog.)

The WinTV 7 viewer has an updated interface. (The helpfiles shows the rather outdated looking version 6 user interface still.) The viewer has a lot of buttons merely labeled with icons, and what most of them do are pretty obvious, but a few are not, and when you hover over them, a tool tip is not displayed that tells you the button's function. So, you have to press a button to find out. (Steve tells me that a gear is pretty common for a configuration icon, but I had no idea what it did.) When I clicked on the ? button on the menu bar and then clicked on the buttons, WinTV tried to bring up online web page, but since my network is not working, this was not helpful.

One thing that I don't like about the viewer is that it doesn't have a fast forward button. When you press what looks like a fast forward, it merely skips ahead, potentially landing you in the program after it has returned. I've started merely fast forwarding through commercials, rather than skipping. If I see one that interests me, I'll stop and watch it. (Hey, these folks paid to create these programs, the least we can do it watch their commercials. Of course, if it's for a product that I'll never use or a commercial that I've seen before, then it's on to the show!)

I also had problems with the scheduler software. When you schedule a recording, the time is entered in 24 hour time. When the schedule is displayed, the time is in 12 hour. Personally, since the time in the TV listings is in 12 hour format, I'd prefer to enter in the scheduler in 12 hour time. There is also a pair of up-down buttons next to the time. If you press them, they will increment or decrement the hour or minutes by one, depending on which is currently selected. It would be nice, when the minutes are selected and they are decremented past the start of the hour, if the hour would decrement too. If I'm trying to schedule a program whose scheduled time is listed in 12 hour eastern time, I have to convert to 24 hour time central and then subtract one from the hour because I want the recording to begin a minute early. It's just too easy to make a mistake when you're in a hurry. I'd like to just enter the time and press the down arrow to back up the time a few minutes. (Sure, I could use a calculator to compute the start time, but it seems ridiculous when there's a 64-bit microprocessor sitting there that can do it too.)

This is not my only issue with the scheduler. I messed up the start time on one of my programs and when I noticed that it wasn't recording when I expected it to, I looked at the scheduler, noticed my mistake and corrected the program. This created a program that spanned the current time. Now my old DVR would have started recording immediately, but WinTV didn't. I'm not holding that against it, but 45 minutes later, when the recording was originally scheduled to run, WinTV cranked up and began recording. Sigh.

All of this I could live with and eventually learn to deal with, but the program has crashed a few times. A dialog can be brought up where the discovered channels are can be edited, such as changing the title. There is also a check box that you can uncheck and cause the channel not to appear in the channel list. After you uncheck this check box, if you try to change the channel information, you'll get a message box saying that an error has occurred with the application. You can click a button to ignore the error and the program will continue as if nothing happened, but the crash is still pretty unprofessional. I have also had the TV Viewer outright crash while watching a live program. This required me to get up, cross the room to use the keyboard to clear the error and get the program back.

At this point, I knew that I couldn't use WinTV. If it was the only game in town, I'd keep working with the WinTV guys to help them fix their software, but at this point I think that I'll just report the problems and move on to another piece of software.

It's Tuner Time

If you have been reading carefully, you know that there is one very important card that I have not installed yet. While I wait for my schedule to align with Judy's so that I can get the correct wireless G card from here, I'll install the Hauppauge HVR card.

1. Locate the serial number for the card and write it down. If you do not do this, there is a utility that you can run later and get the serial number directly from the card.
   
2. Really power down the machine by turning it off at the power supply. Just because you told Windows to power down, does not mean there is no power flowing to the motherboard.
   
3. Remove the case cover, hard drive cage, and support bar.
   
4. Remove the full sized bracket from the HVR card and install the low profile bracket. Also replace the full sized bracket on the Auxiliary A/V panel with the low profile one.
   
5. Remove the PCI slot covers for the PCI-Express x1 and PCI-Express x16 slots. These are the two PCI slots farthest to the left, when viewed from the back of the case.
   
6. Install the HVR card in the x1 slot. This is the far left PCI slot. Replace the screw removed from the slot cover.
   
7. Install the Auxiliary panel in the x16 slot. This is the middle left slot. Replace the screw removed from the slot cover.
   
8. Plug in the cable for the Auxiliary panel into A/V slot closest to the back of the HVR card.
   
9. Reassemble the machine.
   
10. Plug in the A/V breakout cable into the A/V input connector on the HVR card's panel (mounting bracket).
    
11. Install the ATSC antenna cable or the cable system to the TV connector on the HVR card.
    
12. Turn on power and boot.
    
13. Windows will detect the new hardware. Tell it not to install the software for it.
    
14. Do not bother with the Hauppauge installation CD. Go to www.hauppauge.com, locate the support page for the 2250 and download the latest Drivers and WinTV. The downloaded file will create a directory named C:\Hauppauge.
    
15. Using Windows Explorer, open C:\Hauppauge. Within this directory will be another directory with the current installation CD. Double click on setup.exe.
    
16. Select the language to use.
    
17. Click on Step 1: Install Drivers. The latest drivers will be installed.
    
18. Click on Step 2: Install WinTV. The WinTV installation will performed. I believe that it attempts to scan for channels during the installation. If you have the antenna or cable system already connected to the 2250, then let rip. If not, then you can setup the Tuner later.
    
19. Click on Register to register your card. If you don't have the serial number, download and run the ProdInfo utility.
    
20. Start the WinTV application. The Device Setup Wizard will start. Select whether you are connected to a ATSC antenna (Digital ATSC) or a cable network (Clear QAM Digital cable). (Note that you can not select both ATSC and Clear QAM.) If you are using cable, also select analog TV to locate the analog channels that the cable service is providing. Finally, if you want to use the A/V inputs, select Add Composite/S-Video inputs as channels. WinTV will scan for channels, first the digital ones and then the analog ones. The scanning process takes about 10 minutes.
    
21. Click on the gear button in the bottom of the WinTV display. A tabbed dialog will open. The General tab is the initial tab. On this tab is a group of radio buttons labeled TV Shape. Select the shape of your TV.
    
22. Click on the All Channels tab. A list of the scanned channels will appear. If you're luck, the information about the channels will already be in the list. If not, select one, right click and, from the pop up menu, select Watch. As soon as you identify the channel, right click again and select Details. A new window will open with details about the channel. Change the Name field to be the desired name and press OK. Repeat this for the other channels.

When I setup the HTPC, I spent a large amount of time rearranging the current components such that my current DVR would still run. I wanted to have it as backup while I experimented with the HTPC as a DVR. There's a signal splitter on the cable and I had put the digital devices (cable box and HTPC) on one half of the split and the analog devices (SD DVR and VCR) on the other. What I didn't realize was that the RF output of the cable box was merely meant to drive the cable input of a TV set. In other words, it didn't pass through all of the cable channels. (I should have realized this, but I was thinking that it was like a VCR.) So, the first time that I had WinTV scan for channels, it found only one. I scratched my head, moved the tuner card to the other half of the splitter and then things worked much better. It wasn't until then that I realized what was happening. So, my old DVR is now without a signal. I'll have to mull over what to do about that, but that is not a topic for this blog.

As part of this grand last step, I have removed the HTPC from the monitor I was using while installing software, and connected the HTPC directly to the LCD television, using an HDMI cable that I bought at, of all places, Target.

When I booted the HTPC using the LCD television as the display, there was a noticeable pause. At first I thought that the machine was searching for the monitor, but then I realized that the BIOS does not know how to display to the HDMI port, so the pause was merely the machine's normal boot. I just couldn't see it.

I have watched a few programs on the machine, and I'm very pleased with the results. However, I haven't tried the DVR software that WinTV provides. I'm not quite sure what is going to happen when the time comes to record and the HTPC is in a sleep mode. Also, the remote doesn't seem to be working and whenever I wake up the machine from sleep mode, Vista puts up a login screen, requiring that I keep a keyword connected to it.

There's still plenty to explore here, including evaluating different DVR software. So, I guess the real fun is just beginning.

Wireless woes

I would prefer to have a wired connection to the HTPC, but getting a cable from the front room where the DSL router is to the living room is going to be hard. The DSL connection comes into the house in a place that is hard to drop cables to the rest of the house. I've managed to get a wired connection from the DSL router to the room next door, but not to the rest of the house. Fortunately, my friend Judy has some wireless G equipment that she replaced with N equipment. Hey, I'll take hand me downs, so I decided to give a wireless solution a try. I don't really plan to download HD content over this connection, but schedule information would really be nice.

I started by plugging in the wireless G router into the existing network. I suppose I could have replaced the DSL router with the wireless router, but I have had a wireless router in that location before, and it had poor coverage to the rest of the house. Instead, I decided to put the wireless router in the room adjacent to the one with the DSL router. In that room, the wireless router will be closer to where the room where the HTPC will be.

The first thing that I did was find the rest button on the wireless router and set it back to its factory settings. It then wanted to run a setup program where it established a PPPoE connection to the server on the other end of the DSL line. Fortunately the two routers are from different manufactures, so they already had different IP addresses. I just plugged a network cable from the DSL router into the wireless router's uplink connection, stopped the setup program, and switched the wireless router into manual setup mode. I then selected an ISP connection without a login, told the router to get IP addresses and the DNS address from the ISP (in this case the DSL router) and to my surprise, that seemed to work. I finished off by setting up the wireless network with encryption. Wow, that was easy. Too easy.

So, then I turned my attention to the HTPC. Judy had given me a low profile wireless G PCI card, but it had full size mounting bracket. However, inside the antistatic bag was a low profile mounting bracket, so I removed the full sized one and tried to put on the low profile one. That's when I discovered that it didn't match the card. The holds in the mounting bracket didn't match the holds in the PCI card. I could slip the low profile mounting bracket over the connection for the antenna, but the holes for the LEDs didn't match the actual LEDs. I started to install the PCI card without a mounting bracket and then I noticed that the CD was from one board manufacturer and the card was for another. Hmmm. I fired off an email to Judy and hoped that she had the correct combination of parts still.

Fortunately I had a plan B as Judy had given me a wireless G USB transceiver. I tried to install the driver software off the CD and it didn't work. It probably didn't work on Vista. There was a version online that said that it was Vista ready. So I downloaded and installed it, and when the installation asked that I plug in the USB device, Windows said that it couldn't find any drivers for the device. I tried this several times (once actually reading the instructions), and I could never get the USB device to run. Then I saw this on the manufacturer's website:

"Since there is a limited market for 64-bit drivers, and creating them is expensive, has no immediate plans to release 64-bit drivers for products. This would raise the cost of the products for all other customers. If you install the 64-bit operating system, all drivers and utilities on that computer may stop working! Of course, much other software and drivers will also stop working, so you should consider whether you want to go to the expense and risk of changing to this operating system."

Well, isn't that special. I knew that this was a danger when I started, but I don't plan to back down now. I'm sure that I can find another manufacturers that are more enlightened, but I wonder if the wireless PCI card that Judy gave me is going to have the same problem. I decided a trip to my local electronics toy store was in order.

So, I made a quick trip there and found a low profile card, but I wasn't sure about the drivers, so I didn't buy it. I also looked for a wireless keyboard with touch pad or trackball. I finally found one for $150. Ha! Before I shell out $150 for a keyboard I hope not to use much, I'll buy a Blu-Ray drive instead.

Stay tuned!

Brush up your BIOS

OK, after all the warnings about how a failure to install the BIOS properly, or installing the BIOS for the wrong board revision, could permanently disable the machine, I was a bit nervous about updating the BIOS. However, using the @BIOS utility, I could see the motherboard was at revision F1 and the Gigabyte website said that the current version was F5, so I figured that I needed to make the attempt.

There are a lot of ways to update the BIOS. I'm documenting what looks like the easiest here.

1. From Start menu, navigate to Gigabyte group and right-click @BIOS. From the pop up menu, select Run as Administrator.
   
2. From the @BIOS program, select Update BIOS from GIGABYTE Server.
   
3. Select the server in the US and press OK.
   
4. In the Please select one file to update dialog, verify that the correct module name and motherboard revision is shown. Then select the BIOS to install and press OK.
   
5. There will be a message about the screen freezing for a few seconds while updating the BIOS. Cross your fingers and press OK.
   
6. Restart the system.
   
7. After logging in again, go to the Start menu and open the Gigabyte program group, open DMIView and start DMInfo. Double click on BIOS Information and make sure that the correct BIOS version got installed. If there is a problem downloading the BIOS, @BIOS will silently revert to the latest version that it can download. It may be necessary to go to the Gigabyte site, locate the desired BIOS and download it. However, if @BIOS has a problem downloading the BIOS, then you'll probably has a problem too. You may have to download the file from the Asia site, but don't worry, it will be a English BIOS.
   
8. If you downloaded the BIOS, it will be an EXE. Run that EXE and it will extract itself in the current directory. The extracted files may be placed on a USB drive and used as the boot media. A program will run, FLASHSPI, that will update the BIOS. You can also use the @BIOS program's Update BIOS from File to update the BIOS. Select MA78GUS2.F? as the file.

Sadly, this process did not repair the Away Mode System. It also set the BIOS settings back to their default, so I had to make them again. (It's a good thing that I took notes.)

For once in this entire process, the blog has caught up with the work. So, what's next? I'm hoping for you that you have a dedicated network cable to your new HTPC. However, for me, I need to install a wireless card in the machine and set up a wireless network. So, I'll be back after I finish that.

Buena Vista?

So, I was going to write, "just install Windows Vista" here, but no, the Vista installation is just as screwed up as the rest of the Vista. I don't know why that surprised me, but I thought that after the excellent and understandable XP installation, they would not need to change anything for Vista, but I was wrong. My biggest beef with the process is that it doesn't have a final Are you Ready? dialog, just like Vista doesn't ask you if you're sure you want to log off. Accidentally click the wrong button and you're out of there. My second complaint is that there is a clearly labeled Next button at the bottom right hand side of the installation pages, but what if you want to go back? Well, you use the arrow button in the upper left hand corner of the page. Who dreamed that up? Either a pair of Next and Back buttons, or a pair of arrow buttons. Not one of each! And put them next to each other! Gee whiz. It's like a SciFi movie where the descendants of an ancient race have forgotten how to use the technology of the "old ones". Oh well, enough of the rant, let's get down to business.

1. Power on the machine, insert the Vista DVD into the optical drive and close the door.
   
2. On the first page, select the Language, Time, and Currency Format.
   
3. In the next page, click Install Now.
   
4. Take out a magnifying glass, read the Product Key from the back of the DVD case and enter it into the field on the next page.
   
5. Accept the License Terms.
   
6. Choose Custom (advanced) installation.
   
7. On the Where do you want to Install Windows? page, this it where you want to be careful not to press the Enter key before you're ready. You're just one button away from installation. Choose Drive Options. This will give you further options for partitioning the hard drive.
   
8. You should see Disk 0 Unallocated Space. Again, be careful not to hit Enter. If the hard drive space shows that it has already been allocated, select Delete (Alt-D) to remove it. Then select New (Alt-W) to allocate a new partition.
   
9. Enter the size for the operating system's partition, in megabytes. I looked at the Microsoft website and they were recommending 40 GB for Vista, but I decided to leave lots of space for the installation of programs and gave it 100 GB. So, I entered 100000 MB for the partition size and selected Apply (Alt-P).
   
10. Make sure that your new 97.7 GB partition is selected and finally press Next (Alt-N). (I'll format the remaining disk space later.)
    
11. The installation will begin.
    
12. At the Choose a user name and picture page, enter a user name, password and hint. Select the picture and then hit Enter. (If you tab away from the picture, it will loose the picture selection.)
    
13. Enter the name for the computer. Select a desktop background and press Enter.
    
14. At the Help protect Windows automatically page, go ahead and select Use recommended settings, although I'll probably turn off the firewall later as there's already a firewall in the router of my network.
    
15. Set your time zone. Correct the date and time, if necessary. Setting the date is a little odd. You can select a new day of the month, but the currently selected date is still highlighted. If you hit Enter, it will take you to the next page.
    
16. Hit Alt-S to start the second phase of the installation.
    
17. While Windows checks the computer's performance, Microsoft advertisements will display on the screen.
    
18. Login. At this point, you will have no network access, but don't panic.
    
19. Insert the Gigabyte Drivers DVD and let it run.
    
20. If necessary, select Chipset Drivers. The only thing controversial about the Chipset Drivers is the Browser Configuration Utility. I'll let you make your own call here. As for me, I selected Install All.
    
21. After the installation of the chipset drivers, Vista will restart. (It did not ask me if I wanted to wait until later, it just did it.)
    
22. A small message box will probably appear indicating there is a Problem Reports and Solutions message. On my machine, it told me that my computer's Away Mode System is incompatible with the 64-bit version of Windows. The problem here may be that the drivers which Gigabyte installed are 32-bit. I did a bit of searching on the Internet and couldn't find a better set of drivers. It is not clear how important this feature is, but until you find a better driver or disable this feature in the BIOS Setup, the system Device Manager will show a device without drivers.
    
23. If your machine connects directly to the internet, select Connect to the Internet. If you have a home network, this step is unnecessary.
    
24. Click on Register Windows online. Fill out the online registration. This will require a Windows Live ID. If you don't have one, it looks like you'll need to get one.
    
25. Don't bother with the AMD/ATI Registration unless you have a separate ATI graphics card. Check Don't show me this again and click No.
    
26. The Gigabyte Install Chipset Driver program restarted after the reboot and, for some reason, the Gigabyte Install Chipset Drivers puts up a message box stating Install finish. Please reboot your computer., even though the reboot happened already. Go ahead and reboot your computer. Now that Vista has access to the internet, it has probably downloaded a bunch of high priority updates and now is a good time to install them.
    
27. Autoplay the Gigabyte CD again and select the Application Software tab. Install EasyTune 6. On my system, this did not appear to run, but was in fact behind other windows. Go find it and let it install. In sequence, install DMI Viewer, Face-Wizard, @BIOS and Update Manager.
    
28. Insert CD for optical drive's drivers. For my LG drive, I opted to install CyberLink PowerProducer, SecurDisk Viewer (although I'm still not sure what is does) and the Firmware update program. I decided to not install Nero Essential at this time. (I am not positive that the Firmware update program was such a good idea. Every time it runs, Vista asks if it can run. Given that firmware updates to the DVD drive are rare, this may not be worth the annoyance.)
    
29. Bring up the Control Panel and select System. Go to the bottom of the window and verify that Windows has been activated. If it has not, then click on the link and complete the activation.
    
30. In the system Notification Area (lower right, near the time), there will be a small red icon with the letters ATI. Right click on it and select Catalyst Control Center. When the control center opens, find the Welcome Center and select Check for Driver Updates. This will take you to the AMD/ATI website. In the left hand list box, select your operating system. Mine is Windows Vista 64-bit Edition. In the center list box, select the product family. If you have a separate Radeon graphic card, select Radeon. If you are using the graphics chip on the motherboard, select Integrated/Motherboard. Mine was the Integrated/Motherboard. In the right hand list box, select your graphic hardware. Despite the fact that my north bridge chip set is the 780 G, the graphics hardware is a Radeon HD 3200. Look at the Catalyst Control Center to find the graphics hardware that you are using. Do not guess, make sure! When you press the GO button, you'll be presented with a list of drivers to install. There may be two options, one with all the drivers and the latest Catalyst Control Center bundled into one download, and another with the display driver and the Catalyst Control Center separate. Download the one that you wish. Also look for other drivers such as the South Bridge and RAID, if you have multiple hard drives and have set them up as a RAID. I didn't find the HydraVision software all that interesting, and can't recommend spending the time to download it. I do recommend downloading all of the updates first and then installing them. They'll all want to reboot the computer and there's no need to have to navigate to the ATI website multiple times.

From here, I started personalizing Vista according to my tastes, and I'll not take the time to record those changes here. However, there is one more thing that I did, which I found nerve racking enough to want to put it in a separate post: updating the firmware on the motherboard. (Yikes!)

Finishing touches, I mean, touchs

Before I got down to the business of installing Windows, I opened up the case and made a few final changes.

First, I powered up the machine and pressed the button for the optical drive door in the front of the case. If the door hadn't opened, I would have removed the optical drive cage and installed what the Lian Li instructions called a "rubber" on to the door button of the optical drive, although I would have probably installed it on the button on the inside of the case. The rubber is a square of rubber with an adhesive sticker on one side. It is in the bag of parts that came with the case. Fortunately, the door opened, so I moved on.

Next, I applied the vanity stickers that came with the CPU and the power supply to the front of the case.

Then I opened up the case and began to locate connectors that didn't plug into anything. I covered these with black electrical tape. It is unlikely that the connector will come into contact with anything conductive, but why take chances? There are probably caps that can be bought to do this job, but the electrical tape seems good enough.

Next I looked at what my mother would call a "rats nest" of wires underneath the hard drive cage. I was so focused on getting the wires plugged into the right place, that I didn't notice the crisscrossed mess I was making with them. The biggest problem with them was with the 22-pin power supply cable, so I disconnected it from the motherboard, untangled it from the various wires that were going above and below it, reran it under everything, and plugged it back in. There is a set of four cables coming out of the front of the case: the HD Audio, 2 USB, and IEEE 1394 cables. Running the 22-pin power cable under these helped hold the power cable close to the case bottom. A large clamp with adhesive sticker case with the case. I slipped it over the 22-pin cable and stuck the clamp to the case bottom to hold the cable even more firmly in place. Finally, I placed the 8-pin power cable into the clamp as well and closed the clamp.

Then, I took a small tie-wrap that came with the case and placed it around the small wires for the power button, reset button, hard drive LED and power LED.

Finally, I removed the IDE ribbon cable, straighten it out a bit and plugged it back it. It laid too close to the AMD SB700 clip for my taste, so I turned it such that it was standing on its side, rather than laying on its back.

You may have other house keeping chores that you want to do, that will be your call. (You may also feel like, "It runs, lets move on". Again your call.) Either way, it's time on install the OS.

Press Del for Setup

When a computer is powered on, it begins executing a program called a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). This program performs the initial testing and initialization of the hardware and begins the process of loading the operating system. While the operating system is loading itself, the BIOS provides basic operations to communicate with the hardware of the computer. During the days of MS-DOS, the BIOS played a very important role providing all the device driver support to the operating system (if you can call MS-DOS an operating system), but I suspect that the BIOS gets very little use these days once the operating system is running. The BIOS may be stored in Read Only Memory (ROM) and in that case the BIOS can only be updated by replacing a memory chip. But it is also common that the BIOS is stored in an erasable read only memory called CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor). A BIOS stored in this way can be easily replaced later using software, usually while the operating system is running.

It is not uncommon for the BIOS allow the user to configure the computer in very basic ways, storing the configuration settings in CMOS (or Flash) for the BIOS to use during boot. The configuring of these setting falls to a program usually called Setup. And it can be invoked during the boot process in place of booting the operating system. Asking the BIOS to run Setup usually involves pressing a particular key on the keyboard during the power on tests. On the Gigabyte board, this key is the Delete key.

Unlike the DELL systems where you have to guess when it is appropriate to press DEL (Cute right?), the Gigabyte motherboard gives a helpful message, but be ready for it. It doesn't stay up for very long.

Normally I pay very little attention to the BIOS settings on my computers, but leafing through the documentation that Gigabyte provides, it is clear that there are some settings that are helpful for HTPC machines, so I made them. Most of these changes are not critical, but I suspect that the setting of the power button not to actually cut power unless it has been held for 4 seconds (the Soft off by power button setting) is pretty desirable. It is debatable that having the CD-ROM as the first book device is a good idea. There is something to be said for having this be a USB drive. There are a number of USB boot devices to chose from, but I wasn't sure which one is a USB Drive, probably USB-HDD.

Finally, there is the Away Mode setting. This looked like a good setting, but when I enabled it, but after I installed Vista I that said that the Away Mode support is incompatible with at 64-bit operating system. Apparently the Gigabyte Motherboard Drivers installs a driver for the Away Mode, but it is not a 64-bit driver and therefore 64-bit Vista won't use it. I set it originally, but I came back later and disabled it.

1. During the power on tests, when you see a message about press the Delete key, press it to start Setup.
   
2. Using the arrow keys, press the down arrow key until Standard CMOS Features is highlighted and press Enter.
   
3. Set the Date.
   
4. Set the Time.
   
5. Down arrow to select the Drive A field and press Enter. Use the arrow keys to select None and press Enter.
   
6. Press Escape.
   
7. Select Advanced BIOS Features and press Enter.
   
8. Select Onboard VGA output connect and press Enter. Select D-SUB/HDMI and press Enter.
   
9. Select Init Display First and press Enter. Select OnChipVGA and press Enter.
   
10. Select First Boot Device and press Enter. Select CDROM and press Enter.
    
11. Select Third Boot Device and press Enter. Select Disabled and press Enter.
    
12. Select Away Mode and press Enter. Select Disabled and press Enter.
    
13. Press Escape.
    
14. Select Integrated Peripherals.
    
15. Select Onboard Serial Port 1 and press Enter. Select Disabled and press Enter.
    
16. Select Onboard Parallel Port and press Enter. Select Disabled and press Enter.
    
17. Press Escape.
    
18. Select Power Management Setup and press Enter.
    
19. Select Soft-Off by Power button and press Enter. Select Delay 4 Sec and press Enter.
    
20. Select AC Back Function and press Enter. Select Full-On and press Enter.
    
21. Press Escape.
    
22. Press F10. To SAVE to CMOS and EXIT (Y/N)? Y message box, press Enter.
    
23. The system will save the new settings and begin to reboot.

Since there isn't an operating system installed, there's not much point in proceeding, but before we install the OS, power down the machine let's put some finishing touches inside the case.

Don't Leave Money on the Table

As soon as possible, send in any rebates for any components that you ordered. I had thought that the rebate slips might come in the package from Newegg with the ordered product but, silly boy, that would be too easy. However, Newegg did make it pretty easy. If you didn't print out the rebate information at the time of the order, you can still go back to Newegg and print it. I will warn you that the rebate information does not appear on the order and, if you created a wish list, the rebate information that appears there is the current rebate. It is best to login to Newegg, click on My Newegg, then click on Rebate Center on the right. In the rebate center, enter the item number for each item that you have ordered and then press Search. The current and recent rebates for the item will appear in the lst. Most mail-in rebates have an Offer Valid Through date, so make sure that you pick the right one.

Note that most mail-in rebates require you to send in a UPC number or some other item off the packaging, meaning that you can't return the item after you mail in the rebate, so don't dilly-dally around. Put the machine together before the rebates expire and make sure that you are happy with the components before you send in the rebates.

It's Alive, It's Alive!

It wasn't until the next evening that I got a chance to open the HTPC box up again and verify my electrical connections. Indeed, I had made two mistakes.

The first problem was that I reversed the ends of the SATA cable. I strongly doubt that was causing the problem, but the 90 degree turn in the hard drive connector was covering other sockets on the motherboard and that didn't look right. A picture in the instructions told me the correct orientation of the cables using text over an image of the cable. I guess that was an OK way to tell me that.

The second problem was that I plugged the connector for the power switch into the pins for the power LED. I suppose that could be it.

So, after correcting those problems, I flipped the power switch, the keyboard lights came on, went off, and, ... nothing else happened.

I pressed the power button on the front of the case and, and, hey the fans are turning, the speaker is beeping.

It's Alive! It's Alive! (Whew! I was afraid that this was going to be one expensive door stop.)

I made some adjustments to the Setup settings, which I will write about next, and called it a night.

(Whew!)

And then (almost) nothing happen...

So, after putting the machine together, I didn't follow my own advice. I felt comfortable enough that the machine wouldn't go up in a puff of smoke that I hooked up a monitor, keyboard and mouse, plugged in the machine and flipped the switch.

... And (almost) nothing happened ...

I say almost because the lights came on on the keyboard and then went out.

Hmmm, that seemed to indicate that there's power getting to the motherboard. Ahhh, I pressed the power button and ... nothing happened (except for the keyboard).

I tried the reset button and the same almost nothing happened.

SIGH. It was 11:30 PM and time to call it a day.

Cycle power one more time. Nothing happened. Sigh.

A Computer is Born

Before I give you my construction steps, let me give you a disclaimer. I hate disclaimers, but I feel like I must give you a reminder that I'm no expert in this area. This is my first time building something like this. I am reconstructing the instructions from memory, so I might leave something out. Plus the manufacturers may change something in a component, so these instructions might be wrong, even if I remembered everything correctly. You have the final decision in the building of your HTPC. If something doesn't seem right, stop what you are doing until you understand well enough what you are doing, and are sure that you do the right thing. The instructions that I'm about to write here are merely to document what I did, to help people who are scratching their heads about what the component instructions, such as they are, are trying to tell them. I strongly recommend reading actual the instructions for each component.

In my instructions, I am assuming that the back of the case is facing you, and when I use the term left and right, it is relative to the back of the case.

1. Set the case on a clear table, with the back facing you, top up. Remove the two thumb screws at the top of the case and set them aside. There is a short lip on the case top at the back. Use this to pull the top toward you. Then lift the case top and remove it. Set it aside with the two knobs.
   
   
2. There is a large support bar running down the middle of the case from front to back. In the left front, attached to the support bar and the case side is a cage for a hard drive. This cage is attached to the side of the case by 2 black screws and to the support bar by two silver screws. Remove these screws and set them aside.
   
   
3. Remove the hard drive cage from the case.
   
   
4. In the side of the cage, near the corners, are four small holes. From the bag of parts, install a rubber grommet into each of the corners of the hard drive cage. (There's a good picture of this in the Lian Li Case Installation Guide. See HDD installation.)
   
   
5. Insert the hard drive into the cage, with the end that contains the connectors oriented such that the connectors will point into the case. The screw holes in the drive will line up with the rubber grommets.
   
   
6. Locate four round head screws that have threads missing near the head of the screw. Insert these screws into the grommets and secure the hard drive to the cage. Set this cage aside.
   
   
7. In the right front, there is a cage for the optical drive and another hard drive. This cage is screwed to the case by a thumb screw. Remove the thumb screw and set it aside. Slide the cage to the back of the case and remove it.
   
   
8. In the bottom of the optical drive cage is a place for a second hard drive. Insert the rubber grommets into the corner holes. If you have a second hard drive, place it in the cage with the connectors pointing into the case and secure it with four of the hard drive mounting screws.
   
   
9. In the top of the optical drive cage, insert the optical drive such that its connectors are pointing into the case. Locate four round headed screws that have threads all the way along the shaft of the screw. On one side, place two of them through the cage into the optical drive, but do not tighten them completely. Repeat this process with two screws on the opposite side, again not tightening them.
   
   
10. Insert the optical drive cage back into the case and replace the thumb screw. With you fingers, push the optical drive forward until the optical drive door on the front of the case opens. Next, push the optical drive door on the case closed, pushing the optical drive back into the case. Tighten the optical drive screws on the side of the cage that is next to the support bar. Remove the optical drive cage from the case, tighten the screws on the other side of cage. Set the optical drive cage aside.
    
    
11. Remove the support bar from the case by removing the black screws from one end, and the thumb screws from the other.
    
    
12. The case fan on the middle right hand side of the case will be in the way of the power supply. Move this case fan to the front of the case by removing the screws from the outside of the case, repositioning the fan to the right front vent on the case and replacing the screws.
    
    
13. Install the power supply. This is totally undocumented in the Lian Li installation guide. Fortunately, the power supply goes in only one way. The fan faces up, and the power switch will be in the back. On my power supply, the words on the back of the power supply are upside down (causing me quite some confusion). This could have simply been a manufacturing problem with the power supply, or just an issue with putting a full sized ATX power supply, originally intended for a tower, into a micro ATX case. Using the screws that came with the power supply, attach the power supply to the case. The holes in the case and the holes in the power supply are in a trapezoid shape and the power supply can only be installed one way.
    
    
14. There are three large cables that permanently attached to the power supply. One of them has 24 pins, one has 8 pins, and one has 4 pins. The one with 8 pins will not be used with this motherboard. Route the 4-pin cable to the left hand side of the case, leaving the connector outside of the case. This cable will be beneath the motherboard after its installation. Route the 24-pin connector to the left front side of the case. This cable should not pass under the motherboard. It should pass between the motherboard and the optical drive cage and then beneath the set of 4 cables coming from the front of the case.
    
    Unfortunately, I found the pictures in the power supply's manual to be unhelpful, as their resolution is not sufficient to tell one connector from another. In the following steps, we'll need to identify the individual cables and install them in the power supply. We'll plug them into the actual devices in a later step. In the back of the power supply, you'll find two sets of sockets. In one set the pins are in a rectangular pattern and another set with the pins in a linear pattern. The ones in a rectangular pattern are for PCI-Express cards. The ones in a linear pattern are for the drives.
    
    
15. Look for a pair of cables labeled PCI-E on one of the connectors. If the cables are unlabeled, look for a cable with 6-pin male connectors on both ends in a rectangular pattern. These are the PCI-E cables. Set these cables aside, as the Hauppauge card does not need it.
    
    
16. Look for a Y-cable that has a 4-pin male connector and two linear connectors. This is the Peripheral cable. We will not be using it, and may be set aside.
    
    
17. Look for three cables with a pair of 4-pin female connectors and one linear connector. These are the FDD (Floppy Diskette Drive) cables. The manual describes these as Y cables, but the version of the power supply that I have has the female connectors in a series. (I suppose this depends on your definition of a Y cable.) Plug the linear connector of one of these cables into the power supply and set the other two aside.
    
    
18. There should be only one set of cables left. They will have a linear power supply connector on one end and three thin linear female connectors in the cable in series. These are the SATA cables. Plug the linear power supply connector of one of the cables into the back of the power supply and set the other SATA cable aside.
    
    In the next set of steps, we'll prep and install the motherboard. The Gigabyte instructions are pretty good. There's a booklet entitled Multilingual Installation Guidebook that tells part of the story. Unfortunately, this booklet glosses over how to plug-in the drives and internal connectors to the motherboard, but there aremore instructions in the booklet entitled User's Manual that gives a better description. The following steps will assume that you have read these books. I don't plan to reproduce the many diagrams in them.
    
    
19. Either set the case aside or move to another work area. Open the box containing the motherboard and remove it and the foam insulation at the bottom of the box. Set the motherboard on top of the foam insulation on your work area, with the I/O Shield toward you. (The I/O Shield protects the external sockets on the side of the motherboard.) On the right hand side of the motherboard nearest you, look for the revision number of the board. Make a note of this, at it will be needed later for updating the BIOS.
    
    
20. Locate the socket for the CPU on the motherboard and lift the small lever until it is at 90 degrees to the board.
    
    
21. Making sure that you have grounded yourself, open the box containing the CPU. The CPU is mounted on a small printed circuit board. Being sure to handle the CPU only by the sides of the printed circuit board, rotate the CPU until you have located the small triangle on the top of the CPU printed circuit board. Examine the socket on the motherboard until you find a find a small triangle on it. Align the triangle on the CPU printed circuit board until it is over the triangle on the socket and then carefully set the CPU into the socket. To quote the Gigabyte manual, "Do not force the CPU into the CPU socket. The CPU cannot fit in if oriented incorrectly. Adjust the CPU orientation if this occurs."
    
    
22. Again, making sure that you are grounded, carefully place a finger on the top of the CPU and place light pressure on it. Then carefully close the small lever on the socket and latch it into its locked position, parallel to the motherboard.
    
    
23. OPTIONAL STEP: There must be a thin layer of heat sync compound between the CPU and the heat sync. The heat sync that comes with the CPU already has this compound applied to it, but my friend Judy recommends using a better heat sync compound like Arctic Silver. If you wish to do this, remove the stock heat sync compound from the heat sink using a Q-Tip and alcohol. Make sure that you remove it completely. Next, place a tiny bit of the heat sync compound on the top of the CPU, about the size of a grain of rice.
    
    Note: I'm using the term bracket for the metal bar that runs through the heat sink and has square holes on each end. The bracket attaches to a pair of tabs on the CPU socket and are locked in place with a small clamp. The Gigabyte User's Manual describes these as the CPU cooler clip and mounting lug.
    
    
24. Carefully align the heat sync over the top of the CPU socket such that the bracket is over the tabs in the socket. I positioned the heat sink such that the clamp on the heat sink is to the right side of the socket. I'm not sure that it is important which side the clamp is on, but I was trying to get the power lines for the CPU fan to be close to the pins on the motherboard for the CPU fan.
    
    
25. Place the heat sink on the CPU. First, slip the bracket with the clamp over its tab on the CPU socket and press the bracket slightly toward the heat sink. Then slip the bracket on the opposite side of the heat sink over its tab in the socket. Finally, close the clamp to lock the heat sink in place. (I made a real mess of this process the first time and decided to try again. If you decide do the same, use a Q-tip and alcohol to remove the heat sink compound and apply fresh compound.)
    
    Next, we install the memory.
    
    
26. The memory is installed in the two yellow memory sockets. Spread the retaining clips at both ends of a memory socket. Make sure you are grounded and handle a memory module only by the printed circuit board on the ends. Never touch the contacts on the printed circuit board. Place a memory module into the socket. The memory module will fit in the socket one way, so do not force the module into the socket. Press down on the top of the memory module until the retaining clips snap into place. (I found that there was only so far that the clips would move up. Rather than forcing the memory down until the clips snap into place, just push the clips up the remaining distance and snap them into place manually.)
    
    
27. Returning to the case, there is already one power cord running through the motherboard area, the one with the 4-pin connector. Locate the cable with the sockets labeled HD Audio and AC'97. Route this cable through the motherboard area as well, being sure not to cross the 4-pin power connector. Lay the audio connectors on the left hand outside of the case. The audio cable will be a little further to the front of the power cable. (It might be better to try to route these cables under the motherboard after the motherboard is installed, but I found that a real pain.)
    
    
28. Remove the motherboard from the foam insulation and align it with the back panel connectors toward the back of the case. Carefully set the motherboard into the case, being sure not to trap any cables between the motherboard and its mounting posts in the case.
    
    
29. Snap the motherboard's I/O Shield into place in the case.
    
    
30. Check the alignment of the screw holes in the motherboard and the mounting posts in the case. There are seven screw holes and posts. (The Lian Li installation guide only shows six.) Using the rounded headed screws, the same type used to secure the optical drive, partially screw in the seven screws. When all seven have been partially screwed in, tighten all of them remaining way.
    
    Now it is time to plug in the remaining cables.
    
    
31. Plug in the 24-pin power connector to the 24-pin socket in the left front part of the motherboard.
    
    
32. Plug in the 4-pin power connector to the 4-pin socket labeled ATX_12V in the left back part of the motherboard.
    
    
33. Plug in the CPU fan into the socket labeled CPU_FAN in the back center part of the motherboard.
    
    
34. Take the power cable for the fan on the left hand side of the case, route it along the front edge of the motherboard and plug it into the socket labeled SYS_FAN on the right front side of the motherboard.
    
    
35. There is a socket on the right back portion of the motherboard labeled NB_FAN. This is for the North Bridge Fan. As far as I can tell, the North Bridge chip has only a heat sink, so this socket will not be used.
    
    
36. Locate a ribbon cable with an light green connector and plug light green into the light green socket on the front central edge of the motherboard labeled IDE. Leave the other end of this ribbon cable disconnected at this time.
    
    
37. Locate a yellow cable labeled Serial ATA on a connector and plug the straight connector into the socket labeled SATA2_0 on the right front of the motherboard.
    
    
38. In the left front of the case, locate a cable labeled Power LED on the connector. Locate the header (a set of pins coming out of the motherboard) labeled PWR_LED. Both the connector and the header have 3-pins, although there are only two wires in the connector. Insert the connector with the non-white wire toward the back of the motherboard.
    
    On the front right of the motherboard is a header labeled F_PANEL. This is the most complicated portion of the electrical wiring so proceed carefully.
    
    
39. In the left front of the case, locate a cable labeled Power SW on its connector. This connector is plugged into pins 6 and 8 of F_PANEL. These pins are on the left hand side of the header and are the second pair from the back of the case in the header. The printed circuit board is brown beneath these two pins.
    
    
40. In the left front of the case, locate a cable labeled H.D.D. LED on its connector. This connector is plugged into pins 1 and 3 of F_PANEL. These pins are on the right hand side of the header and are closest to the back of the case. The printed circuit board is blue beneath these two pins. Insert the connector with the non-white wire toward the back of the motherboard.
    
    
41. In the left front of the case, locate a cable labeled Reset SW on its connector. This connector is plugged into pins 5 and 7 of F_PANEL. The pins are on the right hand side of the header and are the second pair from the back of the case in the header. The printed circuit board is green beneath these two pins.
    
    
42. In the case's bag of small parts, locate a short pair of wires with a small electronic component on one end and a connector labeled Speaker on the other. Plug this connector into pins 14, 16, 18, and 20 of F_PANEL. These are the remaining 4 pins on the left hand side of the header, closest to the front of the case.
    
    
43. Locate the connector labeled AC'97. Its cable should be running under the motherboard and the connector should be outside the case on the left hand side. Plug this connector into the header labeled F_AUDIO on the center back of the motherboard. (Note, the pins for the connector labeled HD Audio, according to the case's Installation Guide, do not match the pins of the F_AUDIO header, but the AC'97 does, so I'm assuming that AC'97 is the right connector to use.)
    
    
44. My DVD drive did not come with a CD audio cable, so I did not connect anything to the CD_IN socket on the right back of the motherboard.
    
    
45. I did not connect anything to the header labeled SPDIF_IO on the right back of the motherboard.
    
    
46. In the center front of the case, locate the cable with the connector labeled USB. Plug this connector to the header labeled F_USB1 on the right front of the motherboard.
    
    
47. In the center front of the case, locate the cable with the connector labeled 1394. Plug this connector to the socket labeled F_1394_1 on the right center of the motherboard.
    
    
48. I did not plug anything into the LPT, COM or CI headers.
    
    Almost done!
    
    
49. Install the optical drive cage into the case. Take the ribbon cable plugged into the IDE socket and plug it into the back of the DVD drive. Take the end of the 4-pin power cable and plug it into the back of the DVD drive.
    
    
50. The fan on the right hand side of the case has two connectors, one of which has a 4 pins. Plug this connector into the middle connector of the 4-pin power cable.
    
    
51. Take the end of the SATA power cable and plug it into the hard drive. Take the right angled connector at the end of the yellow Serial ATA cable and plug it into the hard drive. Install it such that the cable points down.
    
    
52. Reinstall the support bar, replacing the thumb screws and black screws.
    
    
53. Reinstall the hard drive cage, replacing the black screws in the case and silver screws in the support bar.
    
    
54. Reinstall the case top, replacing the thumb screws.
    
    
55. This is a most important step, resist the urge to plug the machine in and turn it on. As hard as it is, I strongly suggest putting the machine aside for a few hours or overnight and come back to it later, double checking that the cables are all plugged in in the right place.

Congratulations, you're completed the most complicated part of this operation. There will further steps, but they're child's play compared to this.