Build A media center for under $800

[Electro]

Curious if it can be done. I am still debating what I want to put in atm.
I do know that it does need Blue Ray.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will need everything to build it.
I will not use any old parts from my old pc. Will be buying EVERYTHING new.

Thanks

[Lost]

Buy a ps3 and change out the HDD?

[Electro]

I currently own a PS3 which sits in our game room. I'm tired of lugging it around the house when I want to watch a blue ray movie. So this is the main reason I want to build a media center.

[octopus]

When you say a media center, what do you want out of it?

Does it need to play all the different formats in the world?
What inputs does your TV require? HDMI, component, DVI?
Do you have a separate sound system? Do you need your HDMI to include audio?
Do you already have a network storage solution or are you hosting all the video files in the media center?

Edit: so you just want to be able to watch blu ray? >.> Just buy a blu ray player...

[Electro]

I would like it to play as many formats as possible, more so .avi/divx movies/
My tv would be Component for the time being (although I might be getting a new HD tv with hdmi pretty soon. Sound system is kind of optional atm. I have a Sony 5.1 in the game room but I am beginning to think its too much for that small room so I might be moving it to the living room. I will be hosting files on the media server...although I would possibly like the option of streaming from my main pc but that is still optional atm.

[Cephius]

Lifehacker - Transform Your Classic Xbox into a Killer Media Center - DIY

Would run you maybe $200. It can play everything except those huge Blu-Ray rips.

[octopus]

Be careful, I believe I read that an Xbox running XMBC doesn't play HD content sufficiently...

[Cephius]

The 4-8 gig movie blu ray rips don't play well at all, that is true. However the smaller ones play just fine. Never had a problem with the TV shows.

[Isiolia]

Wouldn't imagine it does, I swapped out a P4 2Ghz 'cause it started not being able to handle some HD anime fansubs... (could also be due to the encodes, as some are better done than others, but still...)

One of the important considerations is the video hardware, as having h.264, MPEG-2, and so on acceleration can greatly reduce the amount of CPU power you need. That being said, any halfway decent board these days has that...provided you're using Windows where the drivers support it.


I wouldn't call what I have an HTPC proper I guess. I have a nice case that fits in on my TV stand, but otherwise I'm using pretty budget hardware and the standard Vista interface. Since I'm using it on a 40" 1080p LCD, it's not like I have problems getting to media on the network or whatnot without using an 10-foot interface.

AMD 4850e CPU, couple gigs of PC-800, and so on. PSU/CPU/RAM/mobo was under $300 when I bought that stuff, a bit cheaper now, and it's sufficient for playing back most anything, even with the built-in video (ATI HD3200). I have a slightly better Radeon in there instead, more so that it'll play FFXI at 1920x1080 (and because it was on clearance at Best Buy and seemed like a fun thing to mess with).

Doesn't have Blu-ray, but you can buy those drives for $75-110 range now I guess (I just use my PS3 for that, as it's hooked up to the same TV).

To a good extent, you can probably just follow a standard budget PC guide and pop in a Blu-ray drive if your primary goal is simply playback. Most of the time HTPCs get large and expensive because they roll in recording functions as well.

'course, stand-alone Blu-ray players are cheaper now, starting at around $200, offhand.

[Olo401]

This is actually not too hard to do... IF you're planning to build a dedicated home theater PC. Probably your most important parts of the computer in this case are the hard drive(s), a good quality Blu-Ray capable drive, and you'll probably want Vista Ultimate for its extended multimedia control capabilities.

[Blabj]

You'll be looking at a graphics card with HDCP support, which has a VGA out and perhaps a HDMI out. Many ATI cards have these exact specifications, especially newer models (anything from 43xx to 47xx will likely support these features, many are almost tailor engineered for media computers such as the one you're looking to build.)

The rest of the system should be pretty self explanatory. You'll need a motherboard for whatever CPU you choose, which also has a PCI-E slot for the graphics card (obviously all modern boards will have this, but it's worth reminding incase you're thinking or recycling old components...) The system doesn't need to be powerful, a dual core processor with 2gb of ram is more than capable of playing back 1080p, and shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg.

Where it's going to hit you in terms of your budget is all the extra modification and additional components, such as a media PC case, spending time and effort in making sure the computer is as quiet as you can get it, so that it's not a distraction during quiet moments in films. This means you should research into things like heat sinks with silence in mind, to go on your CPU (and maybe your graphics too). Consider replacing any fans you get with your case with slower running fans, as the ones usually shipped in cases are noisy as hell (not always though...)
Look out for the Zalman brand whilst you're doing your shopping, they make (in my experience) excellent products for the media PC and for silent operation.

Allow for any other things you might want to purchase, such as a remote control unit, a TV tuner card, capture card, bluetooth mouse and keyboard etc. And obviously whatever software you're gonna want to use ( ).

[kareface]

Oh, I have the perfect setup for you. I posted it a while ago.

http://stomped.com/mini/setup/tv1.jpg

The computer there can be built for really cheap and it works great for a media computer.

You can take your pick of motherboards (110$ish):
Newegg.com - 9300

There are 4 there, they all have the same chipset and should work. I have the Asus, but if you get the asus, make sure to get an extra fan to go with it as the north bridge gets hot. But with the fan, everything works great, I even have it next to the fireplace and it runs fine.

Memory 30$:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Desktop Memory

Processor 90$:
Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Case 160$:
(most HTPC cases will work, just make sure you get one with decent air flow)
Newegg.com - Antec Black Aluminum / Steel Fusion Remote Black Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - HTPC / Media Center Cases

PSU 80$:
(you also have a fiar amount of room here if you want something else.)
Newegg.com - Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Then just pick what hard drives you want to install. I have 3tbs of space with 2 of the 1.5tb drives in a raid 0. But if you don't need that much space, just 1 of the 1tb drives are pretty cheap 95$:

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives - Internal Hard Drives

This setup is plenty fast to play full 1080p encodes and I can even stream them off my file server w/o any problems and can be built for less then 600$.

Install XP (works great) or linux and use a program called XBMC:
XBMC Media Center for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux

Use the Aeon skin (or w/e, but the aeon skin is all sorts of awesome):
Aeon: About

Examples of the skin/program in action:
http://www.aeonproject.com/images/ga...on_lowmenu.jpg
http://www.aeonproject.com/images/ga...ovieroller.jpg
http://www.aeonproject.com/images/ga...ieshowcase.jpg
http://www.aeonproject.com/images/ga...ultiplextv.jpg
http://www.aeonproject.com/images/ga...on_submenu.jpg

Those are just a few of the things you can do with the skin. Also, the remote for the case that I posted works great with this program. The only down side is the equalizer on the front panel doesn't work with this app. If you can live with that, it's an awesome setup for media and if you have any questions about setting it up I'm down to answer. (PM me as I might not check this thread that often)