HTPC Build: The TiVo Premier Elite Challenge

Sep 12, 2011 by

TiVo finally spilled the beans on their forthcoming Premiere Elite DVR this week. As far as consumer DVRs go it will pretty much be the king of the field with its four tuners and two terabytes of storage capacity. But with all that comes a pretty hefty price tag. Once you factor in lifetime service you’re looking at $1000! If you already have another TiVo then you probably qualify for the multi-service discount which drops $100 off the lifetime service. Frequent listener to the Entertainment 2.0 podcast, Brennok, wondered what we could put together with the same budget. To try to be as fair as possible we stuck with the $900 price tag as our basis, but we’ll discuss some other options later that could make things a little more interesting.

Ceton InfiniTV 4 Digital Cable Quad-tuner Card Ceton InfiniTV 4 - $299

In order to compete with the TiVo elite we need four CableCARD tuners. Currently the only option for four tuners is the Ceton InfiniTV 4. It’s also a fantastic device.
Intel Pentium G620 Dual Core 2.6 GHz Intel HD Graphics Retail 2.6 2 LGA 1156 Processor - BX80623G620 Intel Pentium G620 Dual Core 2.6 GHz Intel HD Graphics -  $74.99

A great home theater PC needs a great processor and Intel’s Sandy Bridge line of processors are the best available for use in the living room. In wanting to keep the total system price under $900 we went with the cheaper option in the Sandy Bridge line: the Pentium. If you’re willing to go just over the $900 mark (still well under the $1000 retail price of the Elite) then we would recommend the Core i3-2100. It handles video conversion a lot better with Intel’s Quick Sync technology.
ASRock H67M-ITX Socket 1155/ Intel H67/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&V&GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard ASRock H67M-ITX Motherboard - $86.99

You’ll need something to plug that processor into, and this mini-itx motherboard will fit in even the smallest HTPC cases. It also supports Intel’s HD 2000 and 3000 graphics on-board with a built-in HDMI port. You’ll also have two USB 3.0 ports and two SATA 6Gb/s headers for hooking up incredibly fast solid state disk hard drives.
Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD20EARX Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB SATA III – $84.99

Speaking of hard drives, you’ll need a big one to hold all of your recorded TV and any other media you’d like to have access to. This two terabyte hard drive should hold around 300 hours of high definition television, and because it’s SATA III its speed will be more than adequate.  Also, because this drive is a Caviar Green it will consume less power and be very quiet.
OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD22VTXE60G OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) – $94.99

The TiVo Premiere Elite says that it can hold 2 TB of recordings, so we decided to use a secondary drive for the operating system. If we’re going this route anyway we might as well go with a Solid State Drive because they offer absolutely incredible performance. Windows Media Center will be lightning quick, and boot and resume times will by very short. If you’re looking to save costs though, this is one area that you could cut. Just be warned that once you experience the performance of an SSD you’ll never want to use a spindle drive again!
G.Skill Ripjaws - Memory - 4 GB : 2 x 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 - 1333 MHz / PC3-10666 G.Skill Ripjaws 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Memory – $34.99

Memory is cheap right now, and G.Skill makes great RAM. Go with at least 4GB. If you want to use multiple Windows Media Center Extenders you may want to add more memory.
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (Full) System Builder DVD 1 Pack Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit – $99.99

You can’t build a home theater PC without an operating system, and Windows 7 Home Premium makes the perfect OS with Windows Media Center included.
Rosewill Windows 7 Certified Media Center Infrared Remote Control RRC-127 Rosewill Windows 7 Certified Media Center Infrared Remote Control – $24.99

The TiVo obviously includes a remote control, and no home theater PC would be complete without one either.
Thermaltake Power Supply Mini Case Mini ITX 200 VL52021N2U Thermaltake Mini ITX 200 Case – $64.99

Of course you’ll also need a stylish case to put all of the components into. We’ve used this case and really like all it’s features. It has room for two internal hard drives, includes a power supply, has an external 5.25″ bay for if you decide to put an optical drive in the computer, and still is small and stylish.

Doing the math, you’ll find these components can be had for about $866. Obviously when it comes to piecing together your own computer you’re going to have your own preferences. Maybe you’ll pick a different case, or maybe you already have one. Another potential option would be to make some changes, such as dropping the SSD drive, which would free up enough money to pick up an Xbox 360. You can use the Xbox as a Media Center Extender, and then you’ll have access to those four tuners and two terabytes of media from two locations in your house for less than the $1000 retail price of the TiVo Premiere Elite!

Xbox 360 4GB Console Xbox 360 4GB Console - $199

The Xbox 360 can be used as a Windows Media Center Extender. With an Extender you’ll be able to watch live and recorded television from a second television. You’ll also have access to all of the music, photos, videos, and movies that are stored on your new home theater PC.

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  • http://www.twitter.com/brennokbob Brennok

    You did forget a couple of parts which would be necessary to setup the HTPC. You would of course need an optical drive to install Windows 7 along with a keyboard and moust, and you would also need a HDMI to connect the HTPC to the TV. Now this only adds another $50.

    As far as multiroom, you could also opt for 2 Premieres with lifetime which can find as low as $450 which would bring you to $900. You could then pick up two 2TB drives for the $69×2 and then for just over $1000 you have a two room 4 TB setup. The extra cost of a second CableCARD is wiped out by the cost of Xbox Live for Netflix access.

  • Anonymous

    Well, you don’t need an optical drive to install Windows. You can install via USB. HDMI cables are like $3 so they weren’t worth including. A keyboard and mouse are really only required for initial setup, and you probably already have a set that you could use for that setup.

    As far as the 2 Premieres idea, I was going off of street prices, and the street price of a Premier from TiVo with lifetime is $600. So even if you get the $100 discount on the second you’re still looking at $1100 without including your extra hard drives. Let’s also not forget that the multiroom experience with TiVo is….less than optimal….when compared to Media Center, especially if you have copy protected content.

  • http://www.twitter.com/brennokbob Brennok

    I was including those things only because the TiVo out of the box is ready to go without needing to borrow parts from another TiVo. It comes with everything. To install windows via USB, you would need the USB drive and a way to get WIn 7 on the USB.

    The street price is what I quoted. JR.com just had the Premieres new for $50 and you can get lifetime for $399 after coupon code PLSR, which has been around for years, for the first box. Amazon routinely sells the Premiere for less than the $100 and has also had them for as low as $30 and recently also for $50. Of course with the Elite we have to use the retail MSRP since until places like Amazon carry it we won’t know what sale price you can buy it.

    The multiroom experience isn’t as bad as you think. It takes less than 10 minutes to transfer a full HD program on the Premiere and can be watched while it is transferring. Or you can do like I do and queue up several recordings while you are watching something else.  Yeah copy protection is a limitation currently the same way it will be on embedded boxes, but streaming is on the way and it works really nicely. It should be here with the launch of the Elite, and they even reference it on their data sheet for the Elite.

  • Anonymous

    There’s more than enough money left over to buy both an HDMI cable, and a better-than-stock cooler, to answer a fair concern Andrew van Til made on Twitter. Talk about keyboards and such are a stretch. And not to mention, this is a quick, 5 minutes of searching on Newegg build. Imagine what sort of build you could come up with with more time spent shopping around. An HTPC was NEVER about saving money to begin with, and was more about the features, but nowadays, even that’s possible.

  • http://www.twitter.com/brennokbob Brennok

    Right. I said it would only cost an extra $50 for everything bringing them to the same price point.  I don’t think it is a stretch at least the way I do comparisons. I can buy a TiVo off the shelf and not need to borrow other components to hook it up which is exactly how I approach the HTPC. If I am building one to compete it is going to have everything as if it is my only computer in the house. This is just how I look at things. This is why previously when HTPCs didn’t have the option of 2 CableCARD tuners and TiVo didn’t offer 4 tuners I didn’t think you could do a fair comparison on price. 

    If I wanted to make it a stretch, I would throw the whole comparison out based on the fact we are comparing MSRP prices on the TiVo against the sale prices for the HTPC. Obviously that is stupid because no one buys at MSRP unless there is no other option. 

    In the end it is all going to boil down to usage and what you want from your DVR. I don’t think anyone is going to really shop the two by comparison of price alone especially since as you point out it really isn’t about saving money and more about getting the experience you want.. 

  • Anonymous

    Josh, I agree with you, as a former Tivo owner, that the HTPC gives one more flexibility.  That is why I am now researching parts for my first build of a HTPC so I can get way from TW’s not ready for prime time piece of crap faux version of a whole house DVR. 

    With that said, please help me understand why is a HDMI port not necessary for this build in your story?  I always thought that one would need a mobo with a HDMI port to get the best video signal to one’s TV…Thanks for the get story!

  • Anonymous

    This motherboard does have HDMI. Amazon’s description just isn’t very good for that board. Here is a link to the product page at ASRock’s website http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=H67M-ITX

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RIM3IFEXEEINSM7GM476GXBEP4 Robert Henry

    Great
    review Josh!
    I did the exact same thing when faced with the renewal of my TiVo HD’s almost 3
    years ago. When I looked at the cost of 3 lifetime subscriptions, a multiroom experience
    that was definitely sub-par and single purpose hardware that was going be
    placed all over the house, decided to build my first HTPC. As someone else
    pointed out, it was NOT about a cheaper solution. For me it was about choice
    and not being held hostage over TiVo’s pricing…AND the UI in W7MC is hands down
    better than anything else out there.

     

    My
    set up has changed a little, but essentially I have a WHS (9Tb of storage) in
    the basement with a Ceton tuner card, 3 Xbox extenders and HTPC (Silverstone
    case, ATI digital tuner with 3 Ceton Network tuners) in my media room. The last
    Ceton tuner is bridged to my desktop in my office.