Difference between revisions of "User:Freymann"

Revision as of 15:54, 22 January 2009

About Me

First, a brief history:

Hello. My name is Gerald Freymann and I live in Ontario, Canada.

I first attempted a LinuxMCE installation in March 2008, using 7.10 B4. My core machine worked like crap, one media director was OK but had a bad PVR card and the second media director caused me grief with the video card and I gave up, rather frustrated, confused and extremely disappointed.

Afterwards, I set up a 3 station MythBuntu system in a day, and have been tinkering with it and learning more about MythTV since then. I'm happy to say that I was able to get my MCE Transceivers working under MythBuntu. See: [1]

I then tinkered with the X10 equipment I bought but never got to use with LinuxMCE, and quite happily, did very well integrating X10 under MythBuntu both through on-screen menus and remote buttons. See: [2]

From MythBuntu 7.10 to 8.04, I've enjoyed the system and I've learned a heck of lot more! but have been keeping tabs on LinuxMCE, as it was my system of choice in the first place, I just needed another way to play with it without pressure or time constraints.

So, in mid-May I purchased yet another system that I figured would replace the MythBuntu core, but before I did that, I wanted to load LinuxMCE 7.10 RC2 on it, just to see how things have progressed since the 7.10 B4. I was very fortunate this time around, as things just worked! I freely goofed around, not caring if the system came crashing down, and other than tinkering with network cards that caused a fresh reload, this version just seems to work.

On June 14, 2008, I put the new core in place in the basement, set the living-room to network boot, and started to use LinuxMCE! On June 17th, I took the HTPC from the master-bedroom and tried it under LMCE but decided to load MythBuntu 7.10 and do some network mapping to give it access to our media collection on the core, and it is working great now too.

I thought I would take this opportunity to document what equipment I am using, and what worked, and what didn't.

System

Prices are in CDN Funds and most don't include shipping, taxes or mail-in rebates.

Core

Hybrid/Core -- June 2008 -- WORKS!

• $279.99 -> AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ Socket AM2
• 1 x AMD Original AM2 CPU Fan (a little noisy, not too bad)
• 1 x ECS nVidia GeForce6100SM-M Motherboard
• 2GB DDR II 667 Memory 240 Pin (Kingston?)
• 1 x LG 20X IDE DVD RW + Dual Layer optical drive
• disabled on-board nVidia GeForce 6100 as I couldn't use VGA output
• Realtek ALC660 6-channel HD Audio
• Onboard 10/100 Network Card (connected to my main wired/wireless Linksys Router, which is connected to DSL modem)
• 6 x USB 2.0 Port, 1 Parallel, 1 Serial
• 1285 Deluxe Black Tower Case
• 450 Watt Power Supply
• $ 99.99 -> Hitachi 500GB Serial ATA HD, 7200/16MB/SATA-3G (Main OS and initial installation on here)
• $ 79.99 -> WD Caviar 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G (Media drive in LMCE file structure)
• $ 24.99 -> D-Link DGE-530T 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI Network Adapter (for the inside Network)
• $ 48.99 -> EVGA GeForce 7200 GS 256MB (will take up to 512MB) PCIe Video card
• $ 7.50 -> CPU Case Slot Fan (to further cool the video card)
• $102.02 -> Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 MCE BNDL MPEG2 w/REMOTE
• $ 45.00 -> TP-Link TL-SG1008D 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch (connected to internal nic in Core, rest of the internal LAN connects here)
• $ 39.99 -> Logitech Cordless Desktop LX310 (keyboard/mouse)
• $ 58.83 -> USB-UIRT
• $ 69.59 -> Gyration Motion Sensing Remote Control (GYR3101US)
• $150.00 -> APC 750VA 450 watts UPS with auto shutdown software/usb port

This is my main Core/Hybrid located in the Basement.

It is connected to a no-name 26" LCD HD TV from Wal-Mart via HDMI at 720p, with a DVI to HDMI cable. I have a Bell ExpressVU 4700 Dish Receiver with SVideo output connected to the PVR-150 input with Left/Right RCA Audio cables. I have an old cheap stereo that you have to control manually that the Core's sound output feeds on AUX input. The USB-UIRT controls the dish receiver with one IR dongle stuck to the front and the IR Blaster seems to have no problems controlling the TV. This computer has a UPS attached to it.

Networking

-> various additional network cabling

• $17.99 -> 2 x 25 FT CAT5e 5e Computer Ethernet Network Internet Cable
• $ 6.99 -> 50 FT CAT5e CAT 5e Computer Ethernet PS3 Internet Cable
• $ 6.99 -> 25 FT 8M CAT 6 Network Patch Cable
• $ 3.99 -> 10 FT CAT5e 5e Computer Ethernet Network Internet Cable

We use Bell HSE for our DSL Internet. That uses an external DSL Modem.

That DSL Modem is connected to a LinkSys WRT54G Firmware Version: v1.02.5 providing wireless access to the house. This is located in our upstairs dining room. A wired network cable runs from one of the 4 wired jacks in the router to the core in the basement.

The core in the basement connects to the upstairs router at 100MB. I added a 1000MB NIC to the core to run the internal network, so a long network cable connects to the 1000MB port and runs into my basement office, where it connects to a gigabyte 8-port unmanaged switch.

From this location (my basement office) I feed all the internal devices:

• my work PC which runs Ubuntu 8.04 and VirtualBox XP, also dual-boots Vista (which I rarely do)
• a work area in my office. Sometimes in use, sometimes not.
• the D-Link DSM 320 in my office, connected to the TV
• the master-bedroom MythBuntu 7.10 Frontend
• the upstairs spare bedroom, where the better half uses her XP notebook
• the living-room MD

I think that leaves me with one empty connection.

I had to run network cables from the dining room to the basement, behind the drywall. Fortunately, I had an electrical box behind the TV to run coax and this gave me the ability to fish more wires behind. Moving the suspended ceiling panels out of the way gave me access.

We have a suspended ceiling in some areas of the basement, in other areas the ceiling is open, and in my office the ceiling is dry-walled. Running wires to the living-room and master-bedroom was easy as everything was open. The spare bedroom was a little harder as the ceiling is drywalled underneath (my office) but I was able to use a long rod with a hook and fish the wire from between rafters from the furnace room and run that to the office.

Running a network cable from the switch in my office to my office TV wasn't too bad either. There's a small section of suspended ceiling that gives us access to the plumbing above, so removing a few panels gave me the ability to fish a wire from the switch to the wall, and from there I had to fish the wire down to the antenna outlet.

With some patience and time the house is wired!

Automation

-> various X10 equipment

• CM11A - RCA X10 ActiveHome PC Interface
• LM465 - 6 x dimmable lamp modules
• RR501 - 2-way transceriver module
• KR22A - 6 x Credit Card Controllers
• LM15A - 3 x Socket Rockets (screw-in light on/off switch)
• AM466 - 4 x 3 prong appliance modules
• WS12A - 4 x Decora Dimmer Switch (fading/on/off in-wall light switch)
• MS14A - 3 x EagleEye Motion Sensors
• HR12A - Automation PalmPad Controller
• KR10A - 2 x Key Chain Remotes (never used these)
• XPCP - 2 x X10 Signal Bridge Passive Coupler (the first one didn't work)
• SS13A - 3 x Slimline Switch Decorator White

Total money to date (Jan 09) on X10 Equipment: $314.93 CDN

In the living-room, I have a LM465 module on a table lamp and china cabinet light. I have a AM466 controller on an electric fireplace.

I created two lighting scenarios, one for watching TV which turns on the table lamp and fireplace, and one for watching Movies which will only have the fireplace and china cabinet light on. Every time I reload the router or reboot the core I have to go fiddle (set everything to ignore or leave alone) with the Lighting Scenarios as I don't want LMCE to be turning on/off lights when I start media, especially in the day! This is extremely annoying and I wish LMCE would remember the changes I made instead of rewriting over them.

In the master-bedroom, I have a WS12A wall light switch rocker switch on my side of the room. I had one on my better half's side but she hated the way the light switch works and I had to remove it. Since switching from a CRT TV to an wide screen LCD monitor in the master-bedroom, I added a AM466 3 prong appliance module and put one of the KR22A credit card controllers in the bedroom, so we can turn on/off the monitor (and speakers) without having to crawl to the end of the bed to manually turn things on/off. The light in the master bedroom can be turned on through LMCE but I can never turn it off so it's not much use actually. I will most likely remove the light switch. The HR12A PalmPad Controller is going to be used in the master-bedroom but if I pull X10 off the front entrance and master bedroom light it won't be better than the KR22A Credit Card Controller we're using now.

I have a LM15A socket rocket in the outside Front Entrance light paired with a MS14A EagleEye Motion Sensor. I can't control the outside light at all through LMCE but it works fine when using the KR22A Credit Card controllers. The motion sensor doesn't seem to be working at all in this location. Don't know why. I will most likely remove all X10 equipment from this location since it's not very effective here and the better half hates not being able to flip on/off the light manually using the regular light switch.

In the basement, I have a LM465 light module on a floor lamp. I had a LM465 on a small accent light at the bottom of the stairs but it doesn't respond all the time and I yanked it and replaced it with an old plug in timer. I have two WS12A wall light switch rocker switches controlling a ceiling light above the bar and two wall sconces on one wall.

I created one lighting scenario for the basement, which turns on the light above the bar and the wall sconces. This basically puts light to the left and right of me while watching TV. Every time I reload the router or reboot the core I have to go fiddle (set everything to ignore or leave alone) with the Lighting Scenarios as I don't want LMCE to be turning on/off lights when I start media, especially in the day! This is extremely annoying and I wish LMCE would remember the changes I made instead of rewriting over them.

In the basement Furnace Room, just for fun, I have a MS14A EagleEye Motion Sensor paired up with a LM465 light module, so when I walk into Furnace Room, a trouble light in the corner turns on and then shuts off a minute after I leave. I plan to rewire an un-used ceiling light and replace the wall switch with a WS12A, and eliminate the LM465 so the Motion Sensor turns on the ceiling light instead of the trouble light. I did it this way to prove it would work before rewiring.

I have the RR501 wireless transceiver in an outlet in the laundry room at the back of the house, main floor. It's completely out of the way and nobody notices the antenna.

I have a LM15A socket rocket in the outside Rear Entrance light paired with a MS14A EagleEye Motion Sensor. I can't control the outside light at all through LMCE but it works fine when using the KR22A Credit Card controllers. The motion sensor works fine in this location. I leave a KR22A Credit Card Controller nearby in case the better half wants to manually turn on/off the outside light, as the light switch has to be ON at all times in order for the socket rocket to work. The better half is a little annoyed at that, but the motion sensor seems to have relieved some of her anxiety.

I put a AM466 appliance module in the garage to control the outside lights there. There are two lantern type lights on the front of our garage, and whoever installed them originally attached a 3-prong plug to the end of the wire and used a mechanical timer to turn the lights on and off. I replace the mechanical timer with the X10 appliance module. This works awesome.

Before LinuxMCE I had used heyu to program a schedule into the CM11A controller, which would turn on the garage lights at dawn, and turn them off at 11pm. The schedule would also turn on the basement accent light at the bottom of the stairs 15 minutes before dawn, and turn it off at 1am.

I pulled the batteries out of the unit and left it unplugged and disconnected from the computer for about 16 hours but it didn't erase the memory. Fortunately, I still had my MythBuntu system loaded on the internal drive so I booted off the hard drive and used a heyu erase command which erased the eprom!

I programmed LMCE to turn on the outside garage lights, living-room table light and accent at the bottom of the stairs in the basement at sunset and I added a timed event to shut the garage and living room light off at 11pm, and the basement accent light off at 2am.

To help with the problem of not being able to control the outside lights, bedroom lights, and accent light at the bottom of the stairs, I had an electrician install the X10 Phase Coupler for me. It hasn't made a bit of difference. After confirming with the electrician that the double breaker does indeed connect to both phases, I have ordered another phase coupler as it would seem the one I received doesn't work. At least I can do that myself now!

The EagleEye Motion Sensors were also a bit of a pain. They are great little devices but they aren't without their issues. You have to mount them to wherever you are going to place them first, then install the batteries, and then program them. That can be a little awkward when you install them above an outside door and then have to climb a ladder or stand on a chair to insert the batteries and program them.

The other weird issue with the EagleEye sensors are... it automatically sends an ON and OFF command at dusk/dawn to the next number up from it. Meaning, if I have the EagleEye set to A1, at sunset it wants to send an ON command to A2, and at sunrise it will send an OFF command to A2. That wasn't too handy for me when I was already using A1, A2, A3 and A4 (which just happen to be the numbers that the KR22A Credit Card Controllers work with).

So I had to rejig things and make the rear outside light A1, leave A2 empty, make the AM466 in our master-bedroom A3, make the front outside entrance light A4 and leave A5 empty, switch my WS12A light in the master-bedroom from A4 to A6, make the LM465 in the furnace room A7 and leave A8 empty, and set the RR501 transceiver to A9. (Remember that the keychain and palmpad remotes work through the RR501 transceiver on one house code, in my case A).

I've also tried putting the CM11A controller on the core in the basement. From there not many thing work at all. It seems to work best upstairs in the living-room, which means I have to leave the media director on 24/7. Oh how I wish the phase coupler worked!

In development

• Telephony

Linksys Sipura 3000 - $115.74
50' Cat6 Cable - $50.55 (this total also included a 6" M/M VGA Cable for other purposes)
Jack, Duplex 1-line, $3.99

I installed this in our furnace room by the fuse panel. Since we use ADSL I had to split the phone line from the demarc point and feed one into the Sipura and the other to the rest of the house. Otherwise, I followed the instructions as set out here:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=7102.0

Things seem to be working pretty well, except I can't hear any voice messages when played back through the web admin (the only place I've tried to hear them) and I can't seem to route an incoming call to a specific voice mail box other than general voicemail. Not a big deal at the moment.

• D-LINK DSM 320 Media Lounge

I have two of these left over from before I started tinkering with HTPC's. Under LMCE 7.10B4 the uPnp server software didn't talk to the Dlink's at all.

Using LMCE 7.10RC2, the newer uPnp server works fine! When I search for network servers, I see the core uPnp and the mythtv uPnp and I can switch between them depending on the content I desire. This is very handy for occasions when one of the computers are down, as you could put the Dlink in there while you're working on equipment.

In my basement office, I have one connected to my TV. It plays pretty good, but it does studder and pause regularly, making it ok for occasional use.

• Another Via MB based MD - $155.00 CDN - (RETIRED AND NOW SOLD)

This basically replaced the DLink and I'm running MythBuntu 7.10 on the local HD which talks to the LMCE Core. Just like the master bedroom, I mounted my media drive in the core and have access to our media collection and the MythTV portion works fine. I connected one of my now un-used MCE IR dongles and grabbed the extra remote from the basement.

I did manage to load the VIA Unichrome video drivers on this box but the SVideo Output would not work at all in the windows environment, and even with the LCD monitor connected I was unable to view TV or Movies, even with UI1. I'll wait for better via video drivers and try again, but for now, mixing MythBuntu 7.10 and LMCE seems to be great.

Processor VIA C3® Nehemiah 1GHZ Chipset VIA CLE266 North Bridge VT8235M South Bridge System Memory 512MB DDR266 HDD 40 GB VGA Integrated VIA Unichrome™ AGP graphics with MPEG-2 Accelerator Expansion Slots 1 PCI Onboard IDE 2 X UltraDMA 133/100/66 Connector Onboard Floppy 1 x FDD Connector Onboard LAN VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY Onboard Audio VIA VT1616 6 channel AC'97 Codec Onboard TV Out VIA VT1622M TV out Onboard 1394 VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire

Back Panel I/O 1 PS2 mouse port 1 PS2 keyboard port 1 Parallel port 1 RJ-45 LAN port 1 Serial port 2 USB 2.0 ports 1 VGA port 1 RCA port (SPDIF or TV out) 1 S-Video port 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in; can be switched to 6 channel output

Front Panel I/O 2 USB 2.0 ports 1 1394 port 2 Audio jacks: line-out and mic-in

• MSI Wind PC Intel 945GC 1 x 200Pin Intel GMA 950 Black Barebone - $269.00 CDN Delivered

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032&Tpk=N82E16856167032

After reading about this in the forums I thought I would purchase one in the hopes of using this in the master-bedroom in place of the VIA machine. I removed the old CRT TV and replace it with a widescreen Acer LCD monitor, so we no longer have the requirement of needing RCA Video out.

My hope was to have a fully functioning LMCE Media Director in the bedroom. The MythBuntu box is working OK but it doesn't save bookmarks on movies making it a little harder for the better half to pick up where she left off. Bookmarks on recorded programs work fine though.

This unit arrived Dec 10/08. I thought I would play with it to see how far I could get with it under LMCE 7.10RC2. After trying to make sense out of this page:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/R8168

and this page:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Unrecognized_NIC

and the discussion in this forum thread:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6247.0

With some help from the forums and seth, I was able to get this machine to network boot into UI2 without overlay. I had to disable the screensaver too. While playing back video I SSH'd into the box and ran top and was surprised at how little CPU was being used.

I'd put this in the master-bedroom today except it suffers from MythTV exiting about 30-45 seconds after you go to Media > TV. It just sits on the MythTV menu. I can press Watch TV and it will show me the TV but it still exits. In order to watch MythTV I have to go to the KDE Desktop and manually call up MythFrontend. Sometimes this works well, other times it doesn't. I never did get to the bottom of this. See my thread here:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5602.msg32802#msg32802

Media Director

MEDIA DIRECTOR -- March 2008 -- WORKS!

• $169.99 -> AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ Socket AM2
• AMD Original AM2 CPU Fan
• ECS nVidia GeForce6100-SM-M Motherboard
• 1GB DDR II 667 Memory 240 Pin (Kingston)
• nVidia GeForce 6100 2D/3D Graphic Engine, up to 256MB Memory (disabled in favour on PCIe Video card)
• Realtek ALC660 6-channel HD Audio
• Onboard 10/100 Network Card (connected to Gigabit Ethernet Switch)
• 6 USB 2.0 Port, 1 Parallel, 1 Serial
• 1285 Deluxe Black Tower Case
• 450 Watt Power Supply
• $121.99 -> Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 MCE BNDL MPEG2 w/REMOTE
• $ 39.99 -> Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110 (keyboard/mouse)
• $ 54.99 -> EVGA GeForce 73000 GT 256MB (will take up to 512MB) PCIe
• $ 7.50 -> CPU Case Slot Fan (to further cool the video card)
• $ 29.99 -> Sony DRU190A 20X DVD Burner, IDE
• $ 58.83 -> USB-UIRT
• $ 69.59 -> Gyration Motion Sensing Remote Control (GYR3101US)
• X10 CM11A controller is on this box. It reaches every light from this location.
• $ 80.00 -> Powerhouse 550T UPS
• $979.46 -> Olevia 242-T11 42" LCD HD TV

This is my living-room MD.

The CPU was in the left cupboard, but when I added the LCD TV in July 08, it now sits behind the TV. There is an IDE 500GB HD in this box that was there when I was running MythBuntu. I've left it there, and I assume LMCE is using the swap space. Since I have 2x500GB in the core, I have chosen not to include the disk space in the mix for now.

It is connected to a Olevia 42" LCD TV via Component cable (red/blue/green) in from the nVidia 7300 TV out. I have a LG Surround System here for audio (Left/Right RCA sound out from MD goes to AV-1 Input). I have a Bell ExpressVU 2700 Dish Receiver connected to the PVR-150 via SVideo and Left/Right RCA sound jacks. The USB-UIRT is controlling the Dish, TV and Stereo. One IR dongle is stuck to the front of the LG Stereo, and it just blasts the IR which reaches the Dish and TV.

Comments and Experiences

Non Working core

Hybrid/Core -- March 2008 -- FAILED TERRIBLY! -- RETIRED

• Some parts have been moved to the new hybrid/core

• $ 34.91 -> Diablo X-Man Silver Gamer Case, Coolmax 400W V2.01 Power Supply
• $360.06 -> EVGA nForce 650i Ultra Socket 775 Motherboard
• EVGA GeForce 8400 GS, 512MB RAM, PCIe w/DVI-TV-OUT
• Samsung 18x DVD RW SH-S183L SATA LS OEM
• Seagate 250GB Serial ATA w/NCQ 7200/8MB/SATA-3G
• Crucial 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667 MHZ (2 pieces, for 2GB RAM)
• Intel Pentium D 925 3Ghz DT 800FSB Socket 775
• Onboard 1 Gigabyte Network port
• $102.02 -> Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 MCE BNDL MPEG2 w/REMOTE (now in core)
• $ 79.99 -> WD Caviar 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G (now in core)
• $ 29.99 -> Sony DRU190A 20X DVD Burner EIDE
• $ 39.99 -> Logitech Cordless Desktop LX310 (keyboard/mouse) (now in core)
• $ 48.99 -> Gyration GO 2.4 Air Mouse, Refurbished
• $ 30.99 -> Linksys Etherfast 10/100 5-port Switch

Strangely enough, I let this network boot into a MD and it still produces problems. MythTV wouldn't work and if you left the box alone for a few hours when you came back it would be pretty well frozen. I did try a nVidia 7300GT PCIe video card with fan in this box using UI2 medium and UI2 high. Although it did work better, it would still randomly freeze, so I can't recommend the motherboard in this machine and I am selling it to recoup some of my money.

Other Non Working items

Items that didn't work:

• $ 9.99 -> Trendware 32 Bit 10/100/1000 Copper Gigabit PCI Network Card.

Car PC

• MINI ITX Media Center PC/Car PC FULLY LOADED -- March 2008 -- Ok as a MythTV 7.10 Frontend
• $210.00
• $24.28 - 10' VGA M/M cable
• $100.00 - Monitor Wall Mount

This neat little machine was able to boot up into UI1 on 7.10RC2, and when I added the specific video drivers for the via video (which was quite easy actually), I could play back videos (with the occasional freeze, making it not so good) and TV playback had a green screen, picture off kilter, with lines through it. So basically... no good.

So I loaded MythBuntu 7.10 onto the internal drive and it is now talking to the LMCE core.

I did a NFS mount to my second "media" drive in the core, and mapped the video, audio, and pictures directories in mythtv to the LMCE core, and basically, this machine is working as it was before under MythBuntu 8.10, with some very minor exceptions.

For $210, this is actually a pretty decent little HTPC.

I've since added a wall mount for the monitor. To hide the video cable I purchased a ten foot M/M VGA cable that I can run in behind the drywall. I'll add a new pic soon. The bedroom setup has changed 3 times now and I really like the way it's looking now.

I added a MCE Remote and IR Transceiver. Originally I was using a Hitachi 21" CRT TV. The video and sound were connected to the TV via A/V RCA type jacks (red, white, yellow). I wanted to go wide screen so I replaced this with a Acer X223WBD 22in 16x10 2500:1 5MS DVI LCD Monitor for $248.59 including shipping and taxes.

This box is used in the master-bedroom.

• • Complete system with power adapter
• Via EPIA-SP 1GHZ with TV output
• 512MB DDR Memory
• 80GB Western Digital Scorpio HD
• LG DVD-ROM Slim
• 2 additional USB 2.0 ports (4 total)
• Dimensions: 12” x 10 ½” x 2”

Motherboard Specs:

• Model Name • VIA EPIA SP13000G
• VIA EPIA SP8000EG
• Processor • VIA C3™/ VIA Eden™ EBGA processor

• Chipset • VIA CN400 North Bridge

• VIA VT8237R-Series South Bridge

• System Memory • 1 DDR266/333/400 DIMM socket

• Up to 1GB memory size

• VGA • Integrated VIA UniChrome™ Pro AGP graphics with MPEG-2 decoder /MPEG-4 Accelerator

• Expansion Slots • 1 PCI

• Onboard IDE • 2 X UltraDMA 133/100 Connector

• Onboard Serial ATA • 2 SATA Connectors

• Onboard LAN • VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY
• Onboard Audio • VIA VT1617A 6channel AC'97 codec
• Onboard TV Out • VIA VT1623M TV Encoder
• Onboard 1394 • VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire
• Back Panel I/O • 1 PS2 mouse port
• 1 PS2 keyboard port
• 1 RJ-45 LAN port
• 1 Serial port
• 2 USB 2.0 ports
• 1 VGA port
• 1 PCA port (SPDIF or TV out)
• 1 S-video port
• 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in (Smart 5.1 Support)
• Onboard I/O Connectors • 3 USB connector for 6additional USB 2.0 ports
• 1 1394 connector for 1 1394 port
• 1 Serial port connector for a second com port
• 1 VIP connector
• 1 Front-panel audio connector (Mic-in and Line-out)
• 1 CD audio-in connector
• 1 FIR connector
• 1 CIR connector (Switchable for KB/MS)
• 1 LPT port connector
• 1 Wake-on-LAN connector
• 2 Fan connectors: CPU/Sys FAN
• 1 I2C connector
• 1 LVDS/TTL module connector (Optional)
• 1 +12V power connector
• ATX power connector

• BIOS • Award BIOS

• 4/8Mbit flash memory

• System Monitoring & Management • CPU voltage monitoring

• Wake-on-LAN, Keyboard Power-on, Timer Power-on
• System power management
• AC power failure recover
• Operating Temperature • 0~50°C
• Operating Humidity • 0% ~ 93% (relative humidity; non-condensing)
• Form Factor • Mini-ITX (6 layers)
• 17 cm x 17 cm

Notes

So, that's about $3,623.89 CDN not including shipping, taxes, import fees, and mail-in rebates, and I did utilize some existing equipment like stereos and tv's.

I purchase a lot of my equipment from:

-tigerdirect, See [3]

-future shop, See [4]

-ebay stores like:

X10 Warehouse, See [5]

LU Computers, See [6]

Mayco Estore, See [7]

BTE Computers. Their eBay store is now closed.