[matttyl315]

Hello and thanks for any help you might be able to provide. I'm very much considering trying my hand at building a HTPC that will aid in my transition from $100 per month satellite TV to free OTA and internet based media/entertainment. I've built gaming computers and such before, but never anything like that, any any and all resources would be greatly appreciated. I've gone through a lot of information on this site, and it still seems to be a bit over my head.


I've got some extra RAM, a 9600GT vid-card, a few small hard drives, DVD burner, and case lying around. I'll soon have windows 7, but also have a copy of Vista home premium. I need a new CPU and motherboard, and some bigger hard drives, as well as TV cards, and any suggestions for any of that would be great.


I've got time for this build, I'll keep satellite though the NFL season, and go this route by the end of the year. I'd like for it to have dual HD tuners, ability to record 2 HD OTA channels at once, possibly while watching a dvd or video file. There won't be any gaming, at least for now. Blu-ray will be a future upgrade, and won't be needed now. I'd like to store my entire DVD library on it, and have any accessible at the push of a button, some with full menus and such, others with just the movie itself. I also have TV show DVD that I would like to store, and be able to for instance access Seinfeld, and have a listing of all season and episodes (is that possible?). Storing all my music is also a must.


What software should I do some homework on and study up on? As for hardware, do I need a quad core, or will a dual core Intel do the trick? What TV cards work well with vista as well as windows 7? Any other sites with good information about htpc and software and such that I should be looking at?

 

[gbh2]

You should start by reviewing the recommended systems here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post14239742


and decide which form factor you think you would like (mini-itx, micro-Atx etc.) and whether you want a minimal system that will get the job done or a higher end system.


There is a tremendous amount of information there to get you started.

 

[Java Jack]



Quote:
Originally Posted by matttyl315 /forum/post/16882638


Hello and thanks for any help you might be able to provide. I'm very much considering trying my hand at building a HTPC that will aid in my transition from $100 per month satellite TV to free OTA and internet based media/entertainment. I've built gaming computers and such before, but never anything like that, any any and all resources would be greatly appreciated. I've gone through a lot of information on this site, and it still seems to be a bit over my head.


I've got some extra RAM, a 9600GT vid-card, a few small hard drives, DVD burner, and case lying around. I'll soon have windows 7, but also have a copy of Vista home premium. I need a new CPU and motherboard, and some bigger hard drives, as well as TV cards, and any suggestions for any of that would be great.


I've got time for this build, I'll keep satellite though the NFL season, and go this route by the end of the year. I'd like for it to have dual HD tuners, ability to record 2 HD OTA channels at once, possibly while watching a dvd or video file. There won't be any gaming, at least for now. Blu-ray will be a future upgrade, and won't be needed now. I'd like to store my entire DVD library on it, and have any accessible at the push of a button, some with full menus and such, others with just the movie itself. I also have TV show DVD that I would like to store, and be able to for instance access Seinfeld, and have a listing of all season and episodes (is that possible?). Storing all my music is also a must.


What software should I do some homework on and study up on? As for hardware, do I need a quad core, or will a dual core Intel do the trick? What TV cards work well with vista as well as windows 7? Any other sites with good information about htpc and software and such that I should be looking at?

There is a lot of info on this site as well as all over the net.


I made the transition from Sat. service to HTPC only back in Jan. I blogged about it here.

http://links.amd.com/AllIn


I followed that blog up with another on the steps I took to Cut the Cord...

http://links.amd.com/Cordless


I have several other blogs on the site that disucss industry changes, chassis, etc. that may or may not be of interest.


As to your questions...


Dual core is usually sufficient unless you are going to do a lot of transcoding, etc. Lower power CPUs are a little nicer for HTPC IMO because you can use less radical cooling solutions. Also, UMA (integrated) chipsets are pretty good for HTPC because the new chipsets can do HD/Blu ray resolutions without too much difficulty.


You really need to define what it is you want your box to be able to do, how much budget you plan to spend and the overall aesthetics you are going for.

 

[mike_311]

I made the transition myself back in Feb and i haven't looked back.


I figured I'd just go OTA and use hulu and netflix, but i found that i really just rent tv series and watch them from netflix, i barely even watch tv now.


The NFL will be the real test, i never had nfl network so no loss there and i can always go out the the bar if my Giants are on Espn. Every other game is on Network tv.


I would definitely go with win7, the dvr capabilities are top notch and if you need to go QAM it will do that.


check out hack7mc.com for win7 setups.