Basically, a media center PC will be connected to your television and contain all your media files (music, videos, pictures, etc.). It will generally be running XP MCE, Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate, or one of many Linux equivalents.
The thought process behind it is that it's much easier to store and access your media on a hard drive than on optical discs (CDs, DVDs, etc.). Instead of going through your library of DVDs, you can just access them through the media center program w/ the click of a mouse or remote. Also, because most of the media is stored on the hard drive, it means that you no longer have to convert and burn your music, movies, etc. that you have downloaded to optical discs in order to view them on your TV.
Most media center PCs will also have at least one TV tuner for recording live television. Basically, making the PC a home-made TiVO, if you will. 1 person I know even have 4 TV tuners (2 SD, 2 HD), although you will require a very powerful computer to record/watch 4 instances at once. In addition, they will also at the very least have a DVD drive and many are now incorporating HD-DVD and/or BluRay drives now that they have fallen in price.
Media center PCs can be fairly expensive, depending on what you're playing (i.e. SD content will run on anything that's 5 years old or newer, HD content will require much beefier hardware). My media center PC is basically just my old gaming machine (AthlonXP 2500+, 1 GB of RAM, GeForce 7600 GT, Windows XP MCE). I have 2 terabytes of NAS (network accessible storage) hooked up to it and output to my HDTV via HDMI.
The thought process behind it is that it's much easier to store and access your media on a hard drive than on optical discs (CDs, DVDs, etc.). Instead of going through your library of DVDs, you can just access them through the media center program w/ the click of a mouse or remote. Also, because most of the media is stored on the hard drive, it means that you no longer have to convert and burn your music, movies, etc. that you have downloaded to optical discs in order to view them on your TV.
Most media center PCs will also have at least one TV tuner for recording live television. Basically, making the PC a home-made TiVO, if you will. 1 person I know even have 4 TV tuners (2 SD, 2 HD), although you will require a very powerful computer to record/watch 4 instances at once. In addition, they will also at the very least have a DVD drive and many are now incorporating HD-DVD and/or BluRay drives now that they have fallen in price.
Media center PCs can be fairly expensive, depending on what you're playing (i.e. SD content will run on anything that's 5 years old or newer, HD content will require much beefier hardware). My media center PC is basically just my old gaming machine (AthlonXP 2500+, 1 GB of RAM, GeForce 7600 GT, Windows XP MCE). I have 2 terabytes of NAS (network accessible storage) hooked up to it and output to my HDTV via HDMI.
Anything Alienware will run you 8 arms and 3 legs. That shit is like JL, over priced but you can do better/same for less. It'll be WAY and I mean WAY cheaper to build it yourself.
Well, again, it depends on what you want the PC to do ... Like I said, if you just want to do SD content, you can basically just take an old PC and hook it up. Depending on the computer, you may need to upgrade the video card and you may want to add more storage and a TV tuner, but all that can be done for
For me, it was pretty cheap as I had a spare PC that was suitable and I just needed an NAS enclosure ($50) and I throw a 500 GB drive into it when I start to get low (currently at 4 x 500 GB, average cost of about $120/drive, my enclosure can handle up to 6 drives).
Building one from scratch, right now you'd be looking at:
~$130 for case (Silverstone HTPC)
~$50 for power supply (Seasonic 350W)
~$100 for CPU (AMD Athlon BE-2400)
~$80 for motherboard (Gigabyte 690G)
~$80 for 4 GB of memory
~$260 for 1 TB HDD (Western Digital Green Power)
~$30 for DVD RW
~$40-$200 for TV Tuner card
~$120 for Windows Vista Home Premium/XP Media Center Edition
That's $900-ish for a basic HTPC ... It would be more if you wanted to add an HDTV tuner and support for HDDVD/Bluray (Need to upgrade video card to ATI HD 2400 series, probably add more hard drives so you don't need the discs).
$2200 for the Alienware one is pretty weaksauce considering the one that I just put together looks like it's a better HTPC in most regards for half the price.
- Thread Starter
- #6
Understood, anyone know of a forum or somewhere to start researching this kind of stuff? I know absolutely nothing about this kind of stuff, I feel like a caveman!!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/viking2.gif.35c13a457368016b956ccf693af31291.gif
Most any computer forum will be helpful, but it's pretty simple if you have built a computer before. For the most part, when building an HTPC, you want:
Case - Most HTPC cases are smaller than standard ATX cases and are usually positioned on their side. Cases can range from $50 up to $300 with design and materials generally being the main differences. The more expensive ones will generally run cooler, be built better, have less annoyances (i.e. rattling), and will generally be easier to work w/.
Power supply - In an HTPC computer, you won't need much power. It's more important to have a quiet and efficient power supply, so choose one that's 300-400 watts and is 80-plus certified.
Motherboard - Depending on what you're using it for, you may want to go w/ motherboard w/ integrated graphics (i.e. AMD 690G or Nvidia 7050 PV) or, if you go w/ dedicated graphics, it won't really matter too much. The AMD 690G is probably the best choice overall, IMO, as it is a fairly efficient chipset, offers HDMI w/ audio, and is generally pretty reliable. If you're not too big into computers, Asus and Gigabyte are safe bets for motherboards.
CPU - CPU won't matter too much as long as it's fast enough. Power consumption and heat generation is more important and the AMD Athlon64 X2 BE-series is the best choice, IMO. It has a 45 watt TDP (thermal design power), making it the most efficient CPU available for the desktop and, while they are priced a fair amount higher than their 65 watt counterparts, I think it's worth the extra $20 to save 20 watts for an HTPC.
Memory - Realistically, 1 GB of memory would be fine for an HTPC that's doing SD content. 2 GB would be fine for HD. However, w/ the prices of 4 GB kits these days, why not spend the extra $30-$40 ? You won't be overclocking, so any 4 GB kit will work, really.
Hard Drive - Probably the most important part of an HTPC as it will store the information. HTPC cases are not large, so if you're going to store the drives in the HTPC itself, you'll want a high capacity drive. Like anything in an HTPC, having a quiet and power efficient component is also a plus. I chose the Western Digital Green Power 1 TB drive because it's huge, quiet, and power efficient and the cost isn't too bad, either. If you want lots of storage, you may want to look into NAS (network accessible storage) enlcosures for a couple reasons. The first is it allows you unlimited storage in a different location (say a closet, cabinet, etc.) and the second is it removes a source of noise and heat from the HTPC.
Graphics Card - For SD content or even HDTV, the onboard video utilized on a 690G or 7050 PV board will be more than sufficient. However, if you want to get into Bluray or HD-DVD, you'll probably want to look at a dedicated GPU as the integrated ones won't be able to cope. The AMD/ATI HD 2400/2600 series GPUs are the best choice at the moment w/ lower power consumption and slightly better HD decoding than Nvidia while offering audio over HDMI (something Nvidia doesn't have yet). If you're not a fan of ATI, the Nvidia 8400/8500/8600 GPUs would be their equivalents. There is NO point in getting a high-end GPU as they won't offer any better HD decoding while increasing power consumption and heat generation significantly.
Optical Drive(s) - The base HTPC will have a DVD burner, which will run in the area of $30. The main area to look for is noise output for the most part. Samsung and Pioneer are some of the better brands in this area. If you want to get into HD-DVD and/or Bluray, those drives can be had for about $200 (read-only).
TV Tuner(s) - I'm not a TV tuner buff, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on this topic, but tuners are available in a wide variety of options and qualities. Make sure you get one w/ a remote and that it is compatible w/ your OS.
Operating System - You'll want an operating system that features a media center application such as Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate or Windows XP Media Center Edition. There are also many distributions of Linux that are built around media center applications which work quite well and, of course, are available for free. If you're not very familiar w/ Linux, you may want to stick w/ one of the Windows versions. I personally prefer Vista Home Premium for media center applications as I find the media center portion is better than what XP Media Center offers. The extra expense of Vista Ultimate over Vista Home Premium doesn't add anything to an HTPC unless you have "home-made" //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
content that you don't want others to see.
Case - Most HTPC cases are smaller than standard ATX cases and are usually positioned on their side. Cases can range from $50 up to $300 with design and materials generally being the main differences. The more expensive ones will generally run cooler, be built better, have less annoyances (i.e. rattling), and will generally be easier to work w/.
Power supply - In an HTPC computer, you won't need much power. It's more important to have a quiet and efficient power supply, so choose one that's 300-400 watts and is 80-plus certified.
Motherboard - Depending on what you're using it for, you may want to go w/ motherboard w/ integrated graphics (i.e. AMD 690G or Nvidia 7050 PV) or, if you go w/ dedicated graphics, it won't really matter too much. The AMD 690G is probably the best choice overall, IMO, as it is a fairly efficient chipset, offers HDMI w/ audio, and is generally pretty reliable. If you're not too big into computers, Asus and Gigabyte are safe bets for motherboards.
CPU - CPU won't matter too much as long as it's fast enough. Power consumption and heat generation is more important and the AMD Athlon64 X2 BE-series is the best choice, IMO. It has a 45 watt TDP (thermal design power), making it the most efficient CPU available for the desktop and, while they are priced a fair amount higher than their 65 watt counterparts, I think it's worth the extra $20 to save 20 watts for an HTPC.
Memory - Realistically, 1 GB of memory would be fine for an HTPC that's doing SD content. 2 GB would be fine for HD. However, w/ the prices of 4 GB kits these days, why not spend the extra $30-$40 ? You won't be overclocking, so any 4 GB kit will work, really.
Hard Drive - Probably the most important part of an HTPC as it will store the information. HTPC cases are not large, so if you're going to store the drives in the HTPC itself, you'll want a high capacity drive. Like anything in an HTPC, having a quiet and power efficient component is also a plus. I chose the Western Digital Green Power 1 TB drive because it's huge, quiet, and power efficient and the cost isn't too bad, either. If you want lots of storage, you may want to look into NAS (network accessible storage) enlcosures for a couple reasons. The first is it allows you unlimited storage in a different location (say a closet, cabinet, etc.) and the second is it removes a source of noise and heat from the HTPC.
Graphics Card - For SD content or even HDTV, the onboard video utilized on a 690G or 7050 PV board will be more than sufficient. However, if you want to get into Bluray or HD-DVD, you'll probably want to look at a dedicated GPU as the integrated ones won't be able to cope. The AMD/ATI HD 2400/2600 series GPUs are the best choice at the moment w/ lower power consumption and slightly better HD decoding than Nvidia while offering audio over HDMI (something Nvidia doesn't have yet). If you're not a fan of ATI, the Nvidia 8400/8500/8600 GPUs would be their equivalents. There is NO point in getting a high-end GPU as they won't offer any better HD decoding while increasing power consumption and heat generation significantly.
Optical Drive(s) - The base HTPC will have a DVD burner, which will run in the area of $30. The main area to look for is noise output for the most part. Samsung and Pioneer are some of the better brands in this area. If you want to get into HD-DVD and/or Bluray, those drives can be had for about $200 (read-only).
TV Tuner(s) - I'm not a TV tuner buff, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on this topic, but tuners are available in a wide variety of options and qualities. Make sure you get one w/ a remote and that it is compatible w/ your OS.
Operating System - You'll want an operating system that features a media center application such as Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate or Windows XP Media Center Edition. There are also many distributions of Linux that are built around media center applications which work quite well and, of course, are available for free. If you're not very familiar w/ Linux, you may want to stick w/ one of the Windows versions. I personally prefer Vista Home Premium for media center applications as I find the media center portion is better than what XP Media Center offers. The extra expense of Vista Ultimate over Vista Home Premium doesn't add anything to an HTPC unless you have "home-made" //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
content that you don't want others to see.
Scoobydoo
5,000+ posts
POOPSIE McSQUIRTYSHORTS
just make sure you allot enough money for hard drive space it will fill up fast.
you dont have to use windows media center, i use windows xp pro and meedio
i use my onboard video and it plays HD content fine so unless your gonna game with the computer or you need video capture there really is no need to buy an expensive video card if you get a decent processor(i.e. dual core)
this is what the interface looks like on my 37" lcd
you dont have to use windows media center, i use windows xp pro and meedio
i use my onboard video and it plays HD content fine so unless your gonna game with the computer or you need video capture there really is no need to buy an expensive video card if you get a decent processor(i.e. dual core)
this is what the interface looks like on my 37" lcd
Are those HD Movies 1080P HD/Blu-Ray movies ripped? Also waht is Meedios/free?
Scoobydoo
5,000+ posts
POOPSIE McSQUIRTYSHORTS
i only have a 720p lcd so they are all 720p mixed bluray/hddvd, about 125 so far
http://www.meedio.com/home.html
free if you know where to get it
it can do a ton of stuff, i just like it where i open it choose a movie and it plays, i dont need all the thumbnails and movie description stuff
http://www.meedio.com/home.html
free if you know where to get it
it can do a ton of stuff, i just like it where i open it choose a movie and it plays, i dont need all the thumbnails and movie description stuff
Activity
No one is currently typing a reply...
Similar threads
Featured
center console box designs
- Started by cadedickens2001
- Enclosure Design & Construction
About this thread
