HTPC

[harveymt]

Do many people have PCs hooked up to their home cinemas? I was thinking of building one to go with mine. There seems to be a lot of products now offering access to various online content but none yet offer access to everything. Some might have iPlayer but not ITV Player etc. As everything appears to be headed online I thought it better to get a PC that would do everything.

Any tips on what to look for when choosing components? Low noise is probably a given. I don't play PC games so could I get away without a fancy graphics card and use the HDMI out on a motherboard? Best way to hook up audio to amp? Are solid state drives any good? I'd have NAS for storage so wouldn't need a big onboard hard drive.

Cheeers.

 

[nads]

what about something like

http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-mag-hd-nd01.html

 

[Anonymous]

Had my full size pc outputting video to the d sub input on my tv and sound outputted via optical to my denon 2310. ÿHad a wireless mouse/keyboard to control the pc. ÿGirlfriend didn't like the size of the pc, so ended getting ac ryan to stream media with. ÿHowever did consider a small form factor pc, which I think is the way to go if you want a pc hooked up to your pc. ÿ

There are variety of ready to go boxes out there on the market, but if you feel like making one yourself, you can't go wrong with this http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Shuttle-XPC-SN78SH7-S-AM2plus-DDR2-533-667-800-PCI-E-20-(x16)-SATA-3Gb-s-Black-On-Board-VGA ÿHas hdmi and toslink, and handles hd. ÿAll you need to do is add a cpu and hdd. ÿI'd get something mid range (low power consumption = less noise) for the cpu, and maybe 60gb solid state if you're after quietness, otherwise 250gb sata if you don't mind a wee bit of noise. ÿWorthwhile installing mediaportal software while you're at it, can navigate all your media files (inc tv tuner) via a suitable remote under one interface