# HTPC

A home-theater PC (HTPC) is a system specifically designed to host/stream media, such as anime TV shows and movies.

There are plenty of reasons you may want to consider using a HTPC over a smart TV or other premade TV box, such as bad subtitle rendering, poor software support, or limited filtering and upscaling options.

There are two main things to consider when building an anime HTPC: the GPU and the CPU. The information below will help you decide on what to choose for your setup and budget.

Generally, a dedicated graphics card (dGPU) will almost always be better than the integrated option (iGPU). However, you may want to consider whether your home-theater setup will necessitate one if you're on a tighter budget:

Once you've decided on a type of GPU for your HTPC, you can decide on what CPU you will need.

For most budget-friendly setups, we recommend picking up and repurposing a used/refurbished small form factor office machine, such as a Dell OptiPlex, Lenovo ThinkCentre, or HP ProDesk. These can be commonly found on sites like eBay at good prices.

Below are some examples of good candidates for HTPC setups to help you determine a good system:

This is an example of a good option to choose for your HTPC. As shown, this machine includes a capable CPU, plenty of RAM preinstalled, and an SSD. It is only missing a dedicated graphics card.

You should also keep your eyes peeled for machines that have a dGPU preinstalled:

If it includes a dGPU, you might not need to find one for your HTPC. Check to see beforehand if it can handle the various codecs/video you plan to run on it.

Once you have picked a machine, you can move onto picking a GPU. We recommend choosing relatively recent, low-powered graphics cards as this will allow you to handle most modern shows without issue. Some examples of popular budget cards are:

• AMD Radeon RX 550
• NVIDIA GT 1030 (GDDR5) Preferred for 4K/HDR
• NVIDIA Quadro P600 Mini DP to HDMI adapter required

The most important factor to consider when choosing a GPU is the video decoder hardware and its supported resolutions.

Lower quality GPUs will often use lower quality fans or lock them to run at high speeds. This can result in unwanted noise, which may impact your listening experience.

• For AMD, look up the card on TechPowerUp and search for the Unified Video Decoder version. Check this number here to see if it supports your codecs
• For NVIDIA, see their Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix -> NVDEC

Small form factor machines will require a low-profile GPU and bracket. Make sure to double-check the height of the card prior to installation, as passively-cooled cards tend to use larger heatsinks that may not fit in your case.

If you are choosing to use an iGPU for your HTPC, you can also look for MFF or micro desktops. These machines will have a smaller footprint and are very quiet. Due to their size, however, they will not have room for a dGPU if you plan to upgrade later on.

Intel is generally the choice of CPU in this category, as there is a much broader selection of processors with integrated graphics. Additionally, you can take advantage of Intel Quick Sync Video for hardware decoding media.

We recommend choosing 7th Generation Intel processors or newer to support playing the latest video codecs. See the full list of codecs supported by various Intel generations.

Avoid systems running 6th Generation Intel processors or older. These CPUs are known to not include proper support for HEVC content and encounter issues hardware decoding, and software decoding will have a performance impact on subtitles.

This is an example of a good option to choose for your HTPC. As shown, this machine includes a capable CPU, decent amount of RAM preinstalled, and an SSD. This is an ideal candidate if size is a concern.

For most HTPC users, Windows is the recommended operating system. Optionally, you may choose to install debloat scripts to increase performance:

• AtlasOS
• ReviOS

Linux is another common option for HTPCs. If you chose to go down this route, most of the setup remains the same, however file paths will be different.

mpv is the most recommended media player for HTPC setups.

Depending on your hardware, the example mpv configs may not suit your hardware. Below is an example configuration catered specficially towards HTPC setups:

# General
ontop=yes
profile=high-quality
blend-subtitles=video
hwdec=auto-safe
gpu-api=vulkan
target-colorspace-hint=yes

# Deband
deband=no
deband-iterations=2
deband-threshold=64
deband-range=20
deband-grain=64

## Language Priority

# Sub
# Add enm before eng for honorifics
slang=eng,en
alang=jpn,ja

# Dub
# Uncomment this section to prefer English dub with subtitles for English dub
#slang=zxx,eng,en
#alang=eng,en
#subs-with-matching-audio=no

[SDR]
profile-cond=p["video-params/primaries"] and p["video-params/primaries"] ~= "bt.2020"
vo=gpu

[HDR]
profile-cond=p["video-params/primaries"] == "bt.2020"
vo=gpu-next
target-contrast=inf ##inf is for OLED, for LCD get the contrast value from rtings or similar
target-trc=pq
target-prim=dci-p3
target-peak=700    ## If you have an HDR display, adjust this to the 10% peak

## Above makes use of vo=gpu-next for HDR Content, and vo=gpu for SDR. This is a requirement for blend-subtitles=video
## blend-subtitles=video is used to avoid performance issues with rendering 1080p subtitles at 2160p.

Most modern TVs are capable of changing refresh rate to match the frame rate of the content, which removes judder.

However this is not default behaviour in Windows, and as such we recommend change-refresh, a script that automatically accomplishes this.

For HTPC setups, we recommend using Kodi.

Kodi is a home-theater software which neatly displays your library and allows for easy navigation with a remote, while utilising mpv as the player for playing content.

Kodi offers many ways to import your content, with the easiest being the PlexKodiConnect addon, a plugin that allows you to access your existing Plex library through Kodi.

Alternatively, you can use network shares like SMB or local drives such as an internal/external HDD.

After installing Kodi, go to %appdata%\Kodi\userdata, make a file called playercorefactory.xml and paste the following into it, replacing Path\To\mpv.exe with the location of your mpv.exe:

<playercorefactory>
  <players>
    <player name="mpv" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="true" video="true">
      <filename>Path\To\mpv.exe</filename>
      <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
      <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
      <warpcursor>topright</warpcursor>
      <playcountminimumtime>1200</playcountminimumtime>
    </player>
  </players>
  <rules action="prepend">
    <rule filetypes="*" filename="*" player="mpv"/>
  </rules>
</playercorefactory>

Using a keyboard and mouse to control your system is not optimal for home theater usage. Instead, you should consider using an alternative input device:

• CEC Adapter Recommended
• Combo keyboard and trackpad devices
• USB remotes

Although the most expensive option, a CEC adapter is one of the best ways to control your HTPC. This allows you to use your TV's OEM remote control to send commands to your computer, including but not limited to directional pad, select button, color buttons, and more, depending on your specific make and model of TV.

We recommend using the Pulse-Eight CEC Adapter, which can often be found cheaper on second-hand marketplaces.

Pulse-Eight hosts builds for libCEC on their website. libCEC includes the cec-tray application, a tool that converts CEC button presses on a comapatible remote to keyboard commands in Windows, which can be used to control media player applications such as Kodi and mpv.

# Left D-pad - Seek backward by 5 seconds
KP_LEFT seek -5
# Right D-pad - Seek forward by 5 seconds 
KP_RIGHT seek 5
# F2 - Toggle debanding
F2 cycle deband
# F4 - Cycle through subtitles (backwards)
F4 cycle sub down
# F1 - Cycle through audio tracks
F1 cycle audio
# Select - Pause/play
ENTER cycle pause
# Backspace - Exit mpv
BS quit

$F4::
IfWinExist, ahk_exe mpv.exe
{
    ifWinNotActive, ahk_exe mpv.exe
    {
        WinActivate
        return
    }
    Send {F4}
    return
}
 
IfWinNotExist, ahk_exe kodi1.exe
{
    Run, C:\Program Files\Kodi\kodi1.exe  ; Replace with the full path if necessary
    return
}
 
IfWinExist, ahk_exe kodi1.exe
{
    WinActivate
    return
}
Send {F4}
return