- Joined
- Jan 7, 2008
Ok first off let me say I'm on a budget but can manage to buy some of the most important stuff straight up. Ice had an emotionally rough year which has led to low funds and lots of debt. I'm moving back home soon with my parents (sorta crappy after being alone for 5 years) there will be no cable in my bed room at least for a while, just no jack and my parents are gonna be jerks about running coax all over or phishing the walls(even though i was an electrician forever). Im use to a 280 dollar cable bill pretty much have every channel.
Any input would be great thats home theater related too. Such as should i just use an HDMI connection for video/sound or run the sound from the computers audio the video from a VGA port? Right now when i watch downloaded movies i just plug my netbook into the vga input on the tv the use a stereo cable to get the sound from the netbook headphone jack to the tv.
So heres what i would like the htpc to do asap.
Eventually i would like tooo
Ok here is what im using home theater wise right now.
A 32 inch 720p LCD it has
Xbox 360, only has component no HDMI it is surprisingly an original 360 which hasnt died in the 4 years Ive owned it. Cd-Rom is getting a bit flaky but i will tune it up soon with a new cd rom and bigger HD, or buy a newer xbox with HDMI, Im not sure if HDMI is that much of a btter picture than component though or at least good enough to justify the money for a new console.
Ok here we go with the meat here is what i so far have frankensteined from some dells i had, and other crap.
So far the specs are
This PC was the weaker of the two dells. I chose this one because of the case first of all!! Damn itll look sexy under an xbox especially with some mods. Its also dead silent!! And besides form this one has an AGP slot while the other one only on board video which also wouldnt work in win7. Originally it had some cheap 512mb of ram So i upgraded that, and this was also a non HT p4 2.66 so i took the p4 3.0 HT from the other dell (or will when i get off work tonight).
So heres what i need help and suggestions with.
First of all the blu-ray, should i just get an exernal drive or can i find a blu ray burner that will fit in this thing? Im assuming the dvd rw in there is just a lap top drive but not sure if its a proprietary dell thing (maybe someone who knows dell could answer this)
Second is a video card!!!!!!!!!!!! need that one badly!! Ok heres the deal its got to be a low profile card that only takes one slot. Ive noticed some of the low profile cards have brackets that take two slots this is a no no. I already dont have enough PCI slots. Im going to have to get external on alot of stuff!! I just want a media rich card thatll play a blu ray is low profile and hopeully under 100. I know that Blue Ray can stutter on a system like this without some acceleration
Third Id like to rip the hard drive out and put a small SSD in there. The reason being is i look at this as an appliance and want it fast as possible. But its ide.... im assuming the only way to pull this off is a sata card, also this wouls be a bit easier on the tiny psu
So now that leaves the last two questions. When im ready whats out there as far as a good hd tv tuner? Im gonna go ahead and say by this time PCI wont be an option and i will have to get some sort of external HD TV tuner/capture. It would be nice if this piece could record more than two shows at a time and even nicer if it used like compnent and coax hook ups so i could record any content from cable including paper view.
LAst question win7 64 or 32? which will be faster suite this stuff better? Im stuckon win 7 cuz i have a WMC remote for now and i also know that there are plugins for hulu and netflix.... If anyone has a better software suggestion let me know!
Sory for the long *** post hope some can help me out with this stuff im way enthusastic about gettin a vid card andgetiin this show on the road, wanna build the best budget htpc possible I know the hd tv capture stuff and blu ray burner will be pricey especially if its not internal and ide but i can wait a bit on that stuff just need a point in the right direction. Ive built mega water cooled tri sli quad core gaming systems for along time now but am new to htpc and home theatre optimization
ps sorry about spelling and grammar ive had no sleep and have struggled to type this hoping for an answer when i wake up. Also i wont find the vid card locally but if theres somewhere here in so cal selling the vid card i need ill drive to buy it. I forgot to mention i have a low profile fx5200 but im doubting thatll do much of nething in win 7
Any input would be great thats home theater related too. Such as should i just use an HDMI connection for video/sound or run the sound from the computers audio the video from a VGA port? Right now when i watch downloaded movies i just plug my netbook into the vga input on the tv the use a stereo cable to get the sound from the netbook headphone jack to the tv.
So heres what i would like the htpc to do asap.
- Watch Blu-Rays
- Save Blu-Ray and DVDs and CDs to storage (either locally or on a separate file sever). This isnt about pirating either i would just like to trash all my hard discs there clutter.
- Watch HULU, Netflix, YouTube, and any other streaming content through a media interface (So far WMC in win7 seems like the best bet?)
- Watch downloaded movies and podcasts, remmber downloaded videos are in all sorts of formats thats why i dont like streaming to my xbox it doesnt even support alot of popular codecs without using TVersity or whatever.
- Play Wow and other light games in good quality, basically just older RPG and RTS stuff thats not on xbox
Eventually i would like tooo
- Burn Blu-Rays (I have no blu ray at all so maybe just buying a burner would be best the first time, dunno if i should go external youll see why)
- Record TV shows when i have a cable jack, and be able to record HD cable content. acually have an ati 550 pro tuner, not sure how great thatll work out or if it records hd channels.
Ok here is what im using home theater wise right now.
A 32 inch 720p LCD it has
- One HDMI input
- One component Input
- One VGA input
- Coax
- maybe and S-vid and a regular rca hookup too (not never used if it has em)
- Stereo in
- Stereo Out
Xbox 360, only has component no HDMI it is surprisingly an original 360 which hasnt died in the 4 years Ive owned it. Cd-Rom is getting a bit flaky but i will tune it up soon with a new cd rom and bigger HD, or buy a newer xbox with HDMI, Im not sure if HDMI is that much of a btter picture than component though or at least good enough to justify the money for a new console.
Ok here we go with the meat here is what i so far have frankensteined from some dells i had, and other crap.
So far the specs are
- 3.0 Hyper Threaded P4
- 2gb of Patriot DDR400 the cas is like 2-2-2-4 or something close
- DVD RW slim drive (Has a weird ribbon which seems to connect to a standard ide slot, not sure its proprietary, i havent looked close enough yet)
- Built on crap intel video window 7 does not support
- 80gb 7200 RPM IDE drive
- On Board NIC
- On Board Sound
- 1 pci slot
- 1 agp slot
This PC was the weaker of the two dells. I chose this one because of the case first of all!! Damn itll look sexy under an xbox especially with some mods. Its also dead silent!! And besides form this one has an AGP slot while the other one only on board video which also wouldnt work in win7. Originally it had some cheap 512mb of ram So i upgraded that, and this was also a non HT p4 2.66 so i took the p4 3.0 HT from the other dell (or will when i get off work tonight).
So heres what i need help and suggestions with.
First of all the blu-ray, should i just get an exernal drive or can i find a blu ray burner that will fit in this thing? Im assuming the dvd rw in there is just a lap top drive but not sure if its a proprietary dell thing (maybe someone who knows dell could answer this)
Second is a video card!!!!!!!!!!!! need that one badly!! Ok heres the deal its got to be a low profile card that only takes one slot. Ive noticed some of the low profile cards have brackets that take two slots this is a no no. I already dont have enough PCI slots. Im going to have to get external on alot of stuff!! I just want a media rich card thatll play a blu ray is low profile and hopeully under 100. I know that Blue Ray can stutter on a system like this without some acceleration
Third Id like to rip the hard drive out and put a small SSD in there. The reason being is i look at this as an appliance and want it fast as possible. But its ide.... im assuming the only way to pull this off is a sata card, also this wouls be a bit easier on the tiny psu
So now that leaves the last two questions. When im ready whats out there as far as a good hd tv tuner? Im gonna go ahead and say by this time PCI wont be an option and i will have to get some sort of external HD TV tuner/capture. It would be nice if this piece could record more than two shows at a time and even nicer if it used like compnent and coax hook ups so i could record any content from cable including paper view.
LAst question win7 64 or 32? which will be faster suite this stuff better? Im stuckon win 7 cuz i have a WMC remote for now and i also know that there are plugins for hulu and netflix.... If anyone has a better software suggestion let me know!
Sory for the long *** post hope some can help me out with this stuff im way enthusastic about gettin a vid card andgetiin this show on the road, wanna build the best budget htpc possible I know the hd tv capture stuff and blu ray burner will be pricey especially if its not internal and ide but i can wait a bit on that stuff just need a point in the right direction. Ive built mega water cooled tri sli quad core gaming systems for along time now but am new to htpc and home theatre optimization
ps sorry about spelling and grammar ive had no sleep and have struggled to type this hoping for an answer when i wake up. Also i wont find the vid card locally but if theres somewhere here in so cal selling the vid card i need ill drive to buy it. I forgot to mention i have a low profile fx5200 but im doubting thatll do much of nething in win 7
