WTB HTPC... Any suggestions?

[AntiFragger]

Movie watching
Internet surfing
hooking up to big screen TV with HDMI
enough juice to run a game or two
Fairly quiet but doesn't have to be whisper quiet
Has to be a nice suitable HTPC case

any ideas? Can someone price and build me something? For a fee of course.

[Spyhop]

I can. I have a XBMC media centre here with sabnzbd, sickbeard, and couch potato all setup and automated. I spent quite some time learning the speedbumps and solutions in XBMC. I could help if you like.

[AntiFragger]

I can. I have a XBMC media centre here with sabnzbd, sickbeard, and couch potato all setup and automated. I spent quite some time learning the speedbumps and solutions in XBMC. I could help if you like.

What the hell are those? heh.. I was just thinking windows 7. What are these other things your speaking of?

[Spyhop]

I can. I have a XBMC media centre here with sabnzbd, sickbeard, and couch potato all setup and automated. I spent quite some time learning the speedbumps and solutions in XBMC. I could help if you like.

What the hell are those? heh.. I was just thinking windows 7. What are these other things your speaking of?

You can pop by my house and see if you like. XBMC is a media centre front end. Sabnzbd is a web interface usenet client. Sick Beard is a web interface TV snatcher for Sabnzbd. Couch Potato is a web interface movie snatcher for Sabnzbd.

Meaning my TV and movie downloading are automated. Notifications are sent to my phone when something new shows up. All I have to do is sit down with the missus and click the remote and watch.

Also, Steamworks Big Picture is coming out soon. This is a Media Centre front end for steam. So all your steam games will be playable through a media front end without having to dig out a mouse and go to desktop.

[fittysix]

For a simple XBMC machine these things apparently make good hardware. I don't know the full capabilities of it (never actually used one myself), but apparently it has no problem decoding h.264 1080p.

There used to be barebones ones on memex (with the same specs but no windows or RAM) ~$300 iirc, but I don't see them anymore :/

[Spyhop]

the problems come with higher bitrate movies.
also, anti said he wanted games

[AntiFragger]

So inorder for me to pipe Audio to my TV (this Sharp Aquos doesn't have Digital Audio In, only out) I'd have to have HDMI out of the computer. Are there any stand alone video cards that will send out the audio too or does it have to be an integrated solution?

[Spyhop]

Pretty much any video card with HDMI will output audio nowadays.
Also, stick with Nvidia for HTPC. If you wanna do any custom refresh rates with an ATi card you'll end up with a strong desire to shove a pen through your eye in frustration.

[fittysix]

So I decided to try one of those eee box things...

While it took a small bit of setup involving audio within linux over HDMI (just some config changes entirely within the GUI... all this could have been avoided by using xbmc on windows mind you) this thing works flawlessly.

It can play every HD movie I throw at it, from my 30gb LOTR:ROTK extended to my 22gb ROTJ Bluray-rip - and since it's an NVIDIA card (ION2) it has no problem at all with the native refresh rate - you can push the 'O' key to check the framerate and it's not dropping a single one on either of those 2 movies.

I doubt it can play too much for games... I'd have to install windows to check that out, but the benchmarks here aren't very impressive.

Overall I must say I'm pretty impressed - for a device that uses about as much power as an average bluray player - and is quieter than a ps3 - this thing is pretty damn impressive as an HTPC.

[r337ard]

So I decided to try one of those eee box things...

While it took a small bit of setup involving audio within linux over HDMI (just some config changes entirely within the GUI... all this could have been avoided by using xbmc on windows mind you) this thing works flawlessly.

It can play every HD movie I throw at it, from my 30gb LOTR:ROTK extended to my 22gb ROTJ Bluray-rip - and since it's an NVIDIA card (ION2) it has no problem at all with the native refresh rate - you can push the 'O' key to check the framerate and it's not dropping a single one on either of those 2 movies.

I doubt it can play too much for games... I'd have to install windows to check that out, but the benchmarks here aren't very impressive.

Overall I must say I'm pretty impressed - for a device that uses about as much power as an average bluray player - and is quieter than a ps3 - this thing is pretty damn impressive as an HTPC.

We used them all the time at Sturgeon, they won't play games at all They're great for everyday use tho, it's all your average user would need and it's tiny. It comes with a VESA mounting bracket to hide it away and keep the wire mess down.