Media PC

[Pyrogopher]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to build a media PC. I want to make something that fits nicely onto my stack of existing equipment, so I've been looking into a mini-ITX board. However, the reviews aren't too reassuring...

What I essentially want to do is have a box running Windows MCE with the MyMovies plugin. The videos can be ripped to ISO's on my other machine and will also be stored on my other machine. My media box will basically be something to stream ISOs to a TV and watch videos from Hulu WITHOUT skipping and noticeable framerate loss. BluRay and HD streams are not of immediate concern, but the ability to handle these down the road would be nice.

If a mini-ITX won't handle the load, is there a slim case that will handle a full size mb? Again, aesthetics are an issue here. With so many MBs coming with 5.1 surround and YPbPr onboard, I won't have need for a heavy-duty PCIe or AGP video card, just the MB, RAM, and an HDD.

Oh, I'm trying to do this as close to $300-500 as possible.

Thoughts?

Bryan

 

[knotknut]

SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum ATX Media Center / HTPC Case $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163055

Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz/ GIGABYTE 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard Combo 240.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.165024

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W Power Supply $44.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

LG Black 22X DVD Burner with LightScribe $23.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136147

Nippon Labs ICR-BB All-in-one USB +eSATA Card Reader - Retail $19.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820816001

Total $489.94

Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2B $114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116049

There's wiggle room with the Motherboard/CPU and Case but these components make a fine HTPC


I'm back..sorry you will have to use that wiggle room to fit in a HDD
How much storage do you need?

 

[knotknut]

Option
Substitute The Phenom Combo for the following:

GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-UD2H 780G HDMI Motherboard $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128385

AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Processor 7750 AM2+ OEM $59.00
https://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AD775ZWC

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro CPU Fan $18.99
https://www.ewiz.com/query.php?categry=0&s=FREEZER+64+PRO

That takes $68.00 of the previous total and leaves room for HDD

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

New Total $501.92

 

[batuchka]

What u want to do is use this software:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220185
Learn how to use it and define low power PState as something with low multi/VCore so if you are not encoding/idling power is saved. In fact it works far better on Phenom 2 vs Phenom Agenas hehe It has awesome application even on enthusiast OCed systems but for a media pc you need not have an OCed performance Pstate hehe

 

[Pyrogopher]

Awesome awesome and awesome...

Here are my initial thoughts--

Since my TV is currently (and may be for a while still) a CRT with Component inputs, I need Component vid out. The HDMI is awesome, but I can't use it atm. Both would be great for down the road, but onboard Component out is a big one for me.

HDD space is less of a concern as I hope to move to TB NAS drives down the road. I've been playing with the software and the iso's stream very nicely coming off of a USB drive on another computer and then over my home network.

The boxes are a little chunky. I would love to use something like this, but I don't know how everything would fit.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/media-black.jpg

Low Profile Media Case - Matt Black
£49.00
£56.35 inc. VAT
Flexible PCI Riser Cable for Media Case
£9.50
£10.93 inc. VAT

Suitable for most Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX motherboards .

Bays: 1x 3.5in Hard Drive; 1x Slimline Optical Drive (slimline IDE Adapter included); 1x PCI (7cm flexible riser cable required, available in box on left).

Front Panel: 4x USB 2.0 (under flap), central power switch with LED.

Power supply: Internal universal 200W ATX PSU with 3000RPM fan and 2x 4 pin Molex, Floppy (for Slimline Optical Drive or Compact Flash power), P4 and SATA power connectors.

Measurements: 53(H) x 430(W) x 270(D) (2.1 x 16.9 x 10.6in)
Volume: 6.15 litres.

Supported boards: Jetway J7F2/5/9 boards; VIA EPIA boards.

Not supported: J7F4 (Front panel leads too short to fit J7F4 FPANEL connector).