[O/C]Do I really need a Home Theater PC (HTPC)?

Do I really need a Home Theater PC (HTPC)?
by Joeteck aka Joe Schibani Jr.

The Home Theater PC has hit an all time high. Everyone wants to have a single location to play music, stream movies, and capture movies like a DVR, and some would like to browse the Internet on that same PC. I think this is a little extreme. The HTPC is now becoming the do everything PC, and not really doing HTPC duties. Do we really need a HTPC?

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Thanks,
sno.lcn

Nice article Joeteck!

Holy crow.

the article said:

The cost of the DVD player is around $60. External 500 gig hard drives are another $100 or so. I like to use 2.5” portable drives; however I do have a few 3.5” externals at each location. I have a total of three of these DVD players throughout my home. Each drive has the same movies and shows on them. If you don’t need to record because you have a DVR, and playing movies and music is your main goal, then this is the solution for you!

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Honestly it sounds like an expensive kludge. He's probably better off with very lightweight computers for each TV and a file server somewhere. Multiple ($100?) external hard drives containing the same shows?? Newegg has 1TB drives for $80 and 1.5TB for $110.

ALL my computers are HTPCs and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's just too easy to timeshift the programs I like watch and I never worry about having to choose between 2 programs appearing at the same time.

I just recently built a HTPC to achieve all of the above named as well as being able to surf the internet while in front of my tv.

What comes to mind from this reading is that again we are being offered "services" from other people that we have to pay premiums for. Also, the DVD players might have limited formats. I also built my HTPC to stream websites like HULU which are HQ 480p streams and watch all of my favorite television shows at my leisure. I will probably get rid of cable because I believe paying a 40 dollar premium to be able to watch shows that are available on line for free is ridiculous. I watch maybe 2% of all of the available Television Programming.

I have a 42" 1080p that I can watch a HULU program or TV Program while surfing the internet. Nevermind the where games come into play. I do not have a game console and I can play all available PC games on my 42". I actually pulled the plug on the dedicated HTPC and put my primary PC hooked up to my 42" and moved my HTPC to the bedroom for websurfing duties.

Just my 2 Cents.

Nice read. Makes me want to build one even more ... now if only the article would pay for it too ...

Do I really need a Home Theater PC (HTPC)? YES!


It's sooooo much easier to have everything on your computer.........and............ who wants to watch AVI's through a DVD player on your $1500 50 inch High Definition TV? Ridiculous!

argh..... if you have to ask me, it would be a YES!! I honestly couldn't think of rolling back to the day without it!! especially nowadays, pretty much everything is in a digital format, it's just sooooo much easier to have everything w/in your finger tips!! especially in my case.

and look at most modern/highend housing, everyone is hiring a custom installer to try to centralized or to store their family's media (songs, movies, pictures, videos, etc.) and be able to access through out the house, and a htpc (or something similar) will just be the way the future is.

I would say hell yes I need one. I would be lost without my HTPC.

Very nice article!

I had built a HTPC a few years ago, but it wasn't capable of handling it.. it's now sitting attached to one of my TV's for use as a DVD player that I'm able to browse the web with and a HDD storage unit.

reading this, I feel it might be soon time to upgrade and get back into the game!

I can relate to the premise of the article. Recently I downloaded some photography courses in H.264 mp4 format, and I really wanted to be able to watch them on my TV. As I don't have a HTPC, my only options were to either convert the files to DVD format and burn disks (time-consuming and a PITA to figure out), or connect my work laptop to my TV using a VGA cable. It would be really nice to have a dedicated HTPC for this purpose, but I have a hard time justifying the expense and added complexity to my home theater setup. I have a HD DVR through DirecTV, so I wouldn't need a HTPC for any TV-watching. I've been unimpressed with the quality of streaming TV through sites like Hulu, so I can't see myself using that very often. I wouldn't game on an HTPC, and I would rarely browse the internet.

Being able to play videos from an external hard drive or USB flash drive is really all I need at this point. The article touches on a DVD player that can do this. However, there is also a dedicated device from Western Digital that can do this, and I believe it can handle more formats.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=wd_media_player-_-22-136-472-_-Product

I'm thinking of asking for one of these for Christmas.

KBuckeye, yah you can get SD versions of that for like 1/10 the cost IIRC. See them on ebay all the time.

I personally love HTPC and recommend everyone have one. once cablecard 2 comes out, who will need a cable box/ sat box DVR in their cabinet? Build a nice quiet actively cooled system , that is customizeable and can do so much more