Home Theater PC's....

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Who has one, and what is your build like??

I'm considering doing it down the road, and am going to combine everything I can, including Blu-Ray.

[Sith Vol]

Mine isn't anything big and fancy. My dad has a slim Dell computer tower that he put an HDMI adapter in to connect to our den TV. We have all of our movies extracted to the computer as files and we play those through PowerDVD.

The thing that would be really cool is, have 1 TB+ external hdd and put all of your movies on there. Put them on iTunes and then use an Apple TV (hooked up to TV/projector) and then stream them that way. The new ATV supports 1080p so Bluray movies would work to I would imagine. The ATV would also give you the abilities to stream content from Netflix, iTunes videos, NBAtv, MLBtv, etc. Using iTunes may be too time consuming though. Having to upload all of them to it.

I've done this before and although it is an added step, it works great and allows for everything to stream smoothly. There's a website that has a lot of movie artwork that is available on iTunes. Let's you have a nice professional-looking setup.

Just my 2 cents.

[thehardknoxlife]

I use my PS3. Decent media center. I use it more for media than actual gaming.

[Sith Vol]

Originally Posted by thehardknoxlife

I use my PS3. Decent media center. I use it more for media than actual gaming.

Same here. Mine is mainly used for the blurays.

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Check out this case for a HTPC....

Newegg.com - LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C33B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

That thing would look awesome in most all home theater setups.

I've always been an audiophile, but have never really had a place to REALLY set a good HT up.

[utvolpj]

was looking for something else and found this thread. Since I'm almost done ordering parts I figured I could give some updates. Got many of the ideas from assassin24 on parts so I can't take all the credit

Silverstone GD05B
Intel i3-3225
ASRock H77M
Antec EA-380D
GSkill 2x4mb
Samsung 840 120gb SSD
Lite-on BD burner

remote will be my Harmony One (for the wife) or the Nexus 7 (for me). Also be running XMBCbuntu to start so no need for an OS (yet)

Goal is to do OTA recordings and share with all tv's and devices around the house.

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Originally Posted by utvolpj

was looking for something else and found this thread. Since I'm almost done ordering parts I figured I could give some updates. Got many of the ideas from assassin24 on parts so I can't take all the credit

Silverstone GD05B
Intel i3-3225
ASRock H77M
Antec EA-380D
GSkill 2x4mb
Samsung 840 120gb SSD
Lite-on BD burner

remote will be my Harmony One (for the wife) or the Nexus 7 (for me). Also be running XMBCbuntu to start so no need for an OS (yet)

Goal is to do OTA recordings and share with all tv's and devices around the house.

That's an excellent setup!!! I have been looking a fully going to the Linux Desktop side, but I'm having a hard time justifying it, simply because of flash support. Sometimes it works great with onboard video, sometimes not. Also, I've noticed some issues with Ivy bridge chipsets in some forums. Just figured I would let you know what I've read some of the Ubuntu forums.

[utvolpj]

I figure worst case scenario is I order a copy of Windows if it doesn't work quite right. Just saving a bit of money up front

all or just specific chipsets? Guess I can hope to get lucky but I've read nothing but good things on that board. It's basic but it's for an HTPC

[Through_The_T]

Originally Posted by utvolpj

was looking for something else and found this thread. Since I'm almost done ordering parts I figured I could give some updates. Got many of the ideas from assassin24 on parts so I can't take all the credit

Silverstone GD05B
Intel i3-3225
ASRock H77M
Antec EA-380D
GSkill 2x4mb
Samsung 840 120gb SSD
Lite-on BD burner

remote will be my Harmony One (for the wife) or the Nexus 7 (for me). Also be running XMBCbuntu to start so no need for an OS (yet)

Goal is to do OTA recordings and share with all tv's and devices around the house.

Nice setup, pj. Good call on the SSD. Considerably more speed than traditional HDDs.

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Originally Posted by utvolpj

I figure worst case scenario is I order a copy of Windows if it doesn't work quite right. Just saving a bit of money up front

all or just specific chipsets? Guess I can hope to get lucky but I've read nothing but good things on that board. It's basic but it's for an HTPC

I think it's mostly just drive support for the 77 based chipsets. Some of them work great, and some of them, not so much. Also, does that board have a UEFI BIOS?? They say that those are the one's with a lot of the trouble for some reason. Something about Linux not interfacing with it very well. They say the generation boards before the newer ones are great though.

[Freak]

I've thought about doing something like this with PLEX. What was your hardware budget?

[9296potsguy]

Originally Posted by g8terh8ter_eric

Check out this case for a HTPC....

Newegg.com - LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C33B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

That thing would look awesome in most all home theater setups.

I've always been an audiophile, but have never really had a place to REALLY set a good HT up.

A little OT here, but what is your non-computer setup A/V wise?

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Originally Posted by 9296potsguy

A little OT here, but what is your non-computer setup A/V wise?

Nothing right now, but I'm hoping that I can do like a Mythbox sometime.

[utvolpj]

Originally Posted by Freak

I've thought about doing something like this with PLEX. What was your hardware budget?

Didn't really have one. Will probably add a media server sometime in the future and was trying to keep it all under $1k. XBMC has a plex add-on I believe. Will look at that to pair with our roku for a cheap extender if possible

Originally Posted by Through_The_T

Nice setup, pj. Good call on the SSD. Considerably more speed than traditional HDDs.

Figured I would try it for the OS. Will have a traditional drive somewhere in there for storage

[Rasputin_Vol]

Originally Posted by utvolpj

was looking for something else and found this thread. Since I'm almost done ordering parts I figured I could give some updates. Got many of the ideas from assassin24 on parts so I can't take all the credit

Silverstone GD05B
Intel i3-3225
ASRock H77M
Antec EA-380D
GSkill 2x4mb
Samsung 840 120gb SSD
Lite-on BD burner

remote will be my Harmony One (for the wife) or the Nexus 7 (for me). Also be running XMBCbuntu to start so no need for an OS (yet)

Goal is to do OTA recordings and share with all tv's and devices around the house.

Cuanto cuesta?