- Welcome to the Zotac ION HTPC Blog -

The main purpose of this blog is to present some tips and tricks I gathered while collecting parts for my multimedia solution. To my relief I quickly discovered that you could build a quite powerful solution and it didn’t necessarily has to become an expensive experience.

A quick overview of my setup:

• TV: Panasonic TX 42X10Y
• Surround Reciever: Marantz SR 4003
• Speakers: Monitor Audio Bronze BR 5
• HTPC: Zotac ION - D
• Cables: Besides the two speaker cables I only needed 2xHDMI, power cables and a RJ45 cable for internet.

Although reviews on the net can be sufficient in most situations I recommend to check out your parts in live action before buying. I did that with the above parts and I was really impressed about the performance, quality and overall feeling I got when I compared to alternatives.

Here is an overall view of the setup:

My main concern was to end up with quality parts( TV and Speakers)and then feed it with a sad(analog) video/audio signal. Therefor I figured that the Surround reciever should have a digital HDMI video and audio input(from a HTPC) and HDMI as output aswell ( to feed the TV).

The Zotac ION board is perfect in this case. Its able to kick out a great 7.1 HD Audio channel from the HDMI port. Its also powerful enough to play 1080p content. So I just needed a Surround Reciever that could handle it. In my case the SR has a HDMI input with a great DAC(Digital to Analog Converter) which is able to deliver high quality 7.1 PCM HD audio to the speakers.

Besides the Zotac ION, 1TB harddrive and 2GB DDR2 -> My HTPC is powered by:

• Windows 7 pro
• Mediaportal
  
• xampp(Webserver(apache, mysql, php etc))
• Salling Clicker(Bluetooth remote so its controlable from my N96).
  

What to follow:

• Blogpost #2. A guide how to setup op the software in windows 7
• Blogpost #3. Will feature a video showing it all off in action.
  

Have fun

/So long