My popcorn hour A-110 has served me well, but it's time to add a blu ray player to the home. So I am selling my two A-110's (sold one for $200 already) and some other equipment to fund my first HTPC. If there was a good blu ray player that played the files off my file share, I'd go with it, but it seems they only support divx, not x.264, or there is some other limitation. Then there is the PS3, which, well I'm just not interested in it.
The goal here is to build an HTPC with the same functionality that I used on the popcorn hour (play MKV/x.264 1080p vids streamed from a file share), with the addition of being able to play blu ray discs, and future ability to be a DVR (I'm looking at the new ceton card and also the new HDHomeRun with cablecard support). I'm also interested in using the HTPC's to view home pictures/videos streamed from a file share.
Also interested in quiet, power efficient, cool, and something that looks nice on my entertainment stand. I'm not planning to play games on this HTPC. I have an xbox 360 for that, and a desktop computer.
What I have so far for my home theater:
Samsung LN46A650 LCD 120Hz HD television
Xbox 360
Desktop (see sig) on the gigE LAN with a file share of some 1080p MKV's.
Yeah I know not much. No sound system (using the TV's speakers) and no receiver.
Components I've picked out for an HTPC:
Case: Lian Li PC-C36B w/PS - $184 shipped from East Luna
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H LGA - $96.56 shipped from NewEgg
CPU: Intel Core i3-530 - $105.98 shipped from MicroCenter
Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 - $92.98 shipped from NewEgg
Hard Drive: WD WD6400AAKS - $69.99 shipped from NewEgg
BluRay Drive: LiteOn iHOS104-06 - $66 shipped from ZZF
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 - $89.99 shipped from NewEgg w/promo code EMCLMLS58
Total Cost: $705.50
Software:
I plan to use WMC and whatever software/codecs I need to make the above requirements work.
Things I'm not sure about:
Good Keyboard/Mouse for an HTPC
Good Remote (Logitech harmony???)
Timeline - next week or two.
Reasoning for the above components:
Case - Really I don't know much about cases, especially HTPC cases, except that I've had one really good one and one really bad one. The really good one was made by Lian Li. The really bad one made by Ultra. So I'm hesitant to sacrifice on this, although it is a large cost and I'd like to save a bit here. But I do feel it's worth the cost.
CPU/Mobo - With the i3 out it seems that you can get an inexpensive CPU/Mobo combo with GPU on die, giving you low power usage, and play 1080p with minimal CPU usage. The mobo has HDMI out.
Memory/HDD/BD - Not much thought went into this... just would like to have 4gb ram, a decent (Quiet!!) hard drive. It would be nice to have a BD that also plays HD-DVD but it seems those are not as easy to find anymore (I do have some HD-DVD's).
OS - Well, Windows 7 is out so why not. And WMC on Vista seemed really nice. I hear that the issues WMC had on Vista 64 are gone in WMC on Windows 7 64.
So, I'm open to comments/criticism.
Thanks!
The goal here is to build an HTPC with the same functionality that I used on the popcorn hour (play MKV/x.264 1080p vids streamed from a file share), with the addition of being able to play blu ray discs, and future ability to be a DVR (I'm looking at the new ceton card and also the new HDHomeRun with cablecard support). I'm also interested in using the HTPC's to view home pictures/videos streamed from a file share.
Also interested in quiet, power efficient, cool, and something that looks nice on my entertainment stand. I'm not planning to play games on this HTPC. I have an xbox 360 for that, and a desktop computer.
What I have so far for my home theater:
Samsung LN46A650 LCD 120Hz HD television
Xbox 360
Desktop (see sig) on the gigE LAN with a file share of some 1080p MKV's.
Yeah I know not much. No sound system (using the TV's speakers) and no receiver.
Components I've picked out for an HTPC:
Case: Lian Li PC-C36B w/PS - $184 shipped from East Luna
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H LGA - $96.56 shipped from NewEgg
CPU: Intel Core i3-530 - $105.98 shipped from MicroCenter
Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 - $92.98 shipped from NewEgg
Hard Drive: WD WD6400AAKS - $69.99 shipped from NewEgg
BluRay Drive: LiteOn iHOS104-06 - $66 shipped from ZZF
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 - $89.99 shipped from NewEgg w/promo code EMCLMLS58
Total Cost: $705.50
Software:
I plan to use WMC and whatever software/codecs I need to make the above requirements work.
Things I'm not sure about:
Good Keyboard/Mouse for an HTPC
Good Remote (Logitech harmony???)
Timeline - next week or two.
Reasoning for the above components:
Case - Really I don't know much about cases, especially HTPC cases, except that I've had one really good one and one really bad one. The really good one was made by Lian Li. The really bad one made by Ultra. So I'm hesitant to sacrifice on this, although it is a large cost and I'd like to save a bit here. But I do feel it's worth the cost.
CPU/Mobo - With the i3 out it seems that you can get an inexpensive CPU/Mobo combo with GPU on die, giving you low power usage, and play 1080p with minimal CPU usage. The mobo has HDMI out.
Memory/HDD/BD - Not much thought went into this... just would like to have 4gb ram, a decent (Quiet!!) hard drive. It would be nice to have a BD that also plays HD-DVD but it seems those are not as easy to find anymore (I do have some HD-DVD's).
OS - Well, Windows 7 is out so why not. And WMC on Vista seemed really nice. I hear that the issues WMC had on Vista 64 are gone in WMC on Windows 7 64.
So, I'm open to comments/criticism.
Thanks!
Last edited: