I’ve been a member for a few years now. I read a lot but don’t post much. I’m not that knowledgeable but I enjoy reading and learning and there is plenty to learn here.
I put together a relatively modest 3D home theater system in our TV room a while ago. My next addition is going to be a HTPC system. My wife and I have decided to cut loose from cable, go OTA for television, and a streaming service, probably Netflix. We analyzed what we watch and found over 95% is on the three major networks for her. I prefer movies to television so an HTPC system with OTA TV seems like a win for us and a whole lot cheaper. My 2 year commitment with our satellite provider is over September 2013. That’s my deadline to have this built and functioning properly.
I’m going to list what I think I need and would greatly appreciate any suggestions or criticisms. I want to build my own PC’s. I was a field service engineer for a data processing company in the 80’s and 90’s. I have some electronics knowledge. Obviously it’s dated so I’ve been reading to get myself up to speed. The systems I worked on were OCR, ICR, and MICR processing systems connected to terminals for key correction. They were mostly TTL logic on wire wrapped augat panels with core memory. Jeez I just felt ancient writing that.
The new system will be two computers, one in the TV room, the other in the computer room connected through a wired/wireless router (already in place).
The PC connected to the HT will be used to watch/record TV, access Netflix, HULU, etc., and play movies and music stored on our main PC in the computer room. We already have a 3d Blu-ray player so a player won't be necessary in the PC.
The computer room PC will be used to rip both 2d and 3d movies, music, and data storage. It will also have MS Office and probably Call of Duty installed, if it works on windows 7. Occasionally I like to play a game or two (I’m old, I prefer blowing up Nazis to Aliens)
I subscribed to member Assassin’s blog site a few days ago. That was exactly what I needed to get my thinking process going. Thanks for providing all of that great info in one place.
For the computer room PC I’m considering an Ivy Bridge processor with an Asrock Extreme 4-M mother board, SSD for the operating system and a 2T HDD for data storage.
I haven’t considered anything yet for the other PC with the exception of having a dual TV tuner card to watch/record and integrating it with my Harmony One controller. The user interface has to be really simple. My wife will have a difficult time if she has more than one step to turn on the tv. The harmony one works great with my HT and from what I’ve read I should be able to configure it to operate a PC.
If you’ve got this far in my post, thanks for reading my ramblings. I’m really amped about this build and am looking forward to any suggestions.
Bill W.
I put together a relatively modest 3D home theater system in our TV room a while ago. My next addition is going to be a HTPC system. My wife and I have decided to cut loose from cable, go OTA for television, and a streaming service, probably Netflix. We analyzed what we watch and found over 95% is on the three major networks for her. I prefer movies to television so an HTPC system with OTA TV seems like a win for us and a whole lot cheaper. My 2 year commitment with our satellite provider is over September 2013. That’s my deadline to have this built and functioning properly.
I’m going to list what I think I need and would greatly appreciate any suggestions or criticisms. I want to build my own PC’s. I was a field service engineer for a data processing company in the 80’s and 90’s. I have some electronics knowledge. Obviously it’s dated so I’ve been reading to get myself up to speed. The systems I worked on were OCR, ICR, and MICR processing systems connected to terminals for key correction. They were mostly TTL logic on wire wrapped augat panels with core memory. Jeez I just felt ancient writing that.
The new system will be two computers, one in the TV room, the other in the computer room connected through a wired/wireless router (already in place).
The PC connected to the HT will be used to watch/record TV, access Netflix, HULU, etc., and play movies and music stored on our main PC in the computer room. We already have a 3d Blu-ray player so a player won't be necessary in the PC.
The computer room PC will be used to rip both 2d and 3d movies, music, and data storage. It will also have MS Office and probably Call of Duty installed, if it works on windows 7. Occasionally I like to play a game or two (I’m old, I prefer blowing up Nazis to Aliens)
I subscribed to member Assassin’s blog site a few days ago. That was exactly what I needed to get my thinking process going. Thanks for providing all of that great info in one place.
For the computer room PC I’m considering an Ivy Bridge processor with an Asrock Extreme 4-M mother board, SSD for the operating system and a 2T HDD for data storage.
I haven’t considered anything yet for the other PC with the exception of having a dual TV tuner card to watch/record and integrating it with my Harmony One controller. The user interface has to be really simple. My wife will have a difficult time if she has more than one step to turn on the tv. The harmony one works great with my HT and from what I’ve read I should be able to configure it to operate a PC.
If you’ve got this far in my post, thanks for reading my ramblings. I’m really amped about this build and am looking forward to any suggestions.
Bill W.
