I’ve just bought and installed a couple of new components into my Mediastation (htpc), a mini-itx motherboard with a dual core Atom 330 CPU and NVIDIA ION graphics which I removed the fan from, a 30GB OCZ Vertex SSD drive and two Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans to keep everything cool and inaudible.  Unfortunately I made a small bummer and ordered a motherboard with only a PCI slot (and not PCI-e x1 which I need for the Auzentech audio card) so I’m left with subpar audio until I can buy a new one, although this doesn’t relly matter until I can finish building a new pair of speakers.

The new configuration is completely inaudible as long as the storage harddrive (Samsung F1 1TB) is sleeping and only slightly when I’m really listening for it in a totally quiet room at night. It uses somewhere between 25 and 35W under full load and can play 1080p Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies without any kind of stuttering. I’m really pleased with the platform performance, playback quality, form factor and power consumption.

I have a few ideas for packaging so hopefully I can start building the chassis soon. Until then it resides in a really oversized Silverstone HTPC chassis  where it almost looks lost.

By using hardware acceleration a big workload is off-loaded from the CPU to the GPU on the graphic card when playing compressed video content. Apart from freeing up resources for background tasks this also makes it possible to have a low clocked power efficient CPU and still get perfectly smooth and well-decoded (even better decode than pure software in some instances) x264 video. In some instances it’s even necessary to use hardware decode since 1080p video requires a heavy amount of processing to even play without dropped frames and only the faster multi-core processors can do that at the moment.

Most current graphic cards have some form of hardware acceleration but the best implementation is usually found on the second or third line of cards from the two manufacturers and not on the most powerful gaming cards. Apart from drawing significantly less power than their bigger brothers (10w instead of 100w+) they are also much cheaper and produce less heat and noise (with passive versions available).

To get the x264 hardware acceleration going the first step is to set up Windows Vista and Windows 7 to understand Matroska .mkv (or .avi) container files. This is usually done by installing Haali Media Splitter which adds OS-wide support for a couple of containers.

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My long-time project of creating a computer based high-end surround pre-amp/processor and audio- and video source has now officially started. It’ll be a mix of newly purchased components and pieces from my current HTPC for the electronic bits and then a custom designed and manufactured chassis made from aluminium and brass.

The Mediastation is built to provide the highest possible audio and video quality while using as little energy as possible. I’m using an AMD Be-2350 CPU, an Auzentech soundcard (the X-Fi 7.1 Forte) feeding an amplifier with an analog signal, an Asus HD4350 Silent HDMI graphics card for hardware 1080p decoding and processing, a 5.25″ Blu-Ray drive and a couple of hard drives together with an mATX motherboard and an ATX power supply. These components need to be housed in a good looking, solid small case that is noiseless from a normal viewing and listening distance (2m). The end result is a system that can rival the very best stand-alone high-end audio pre-amps, processors and audio- and video sources using less power than many digital-broadcast set-top boxes.

When using hardware acceleration on the current generation of graphics cards there’s no need for a powerful CPU, even an Atom can just about manage to play Blu-Ray titles using decent graphic circuitry. Both AMD and NVIDIA score about even (and very good) in Silicon Optix HD HQV tests but the ATI Avivo UVD2 seems to display more detail at the cost of a slightly cooler-colored image. My choice of the Asus HD 4350 card comes from the fact that it’s passive, inexpensive, draws less power than the NVIDIA competitors and has a HDMI output. I’m certain that the image quality is spectacular and the CPU off-loading is equal with either manufacturer.

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The advent and breakthrough of digital music formats have changed the way music is played and consumed. By working with the new formats instead of palying them through a system devised for analogue sources significant strides can be taken to optimize the audio signal.

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