Media PC ?
 

Im lookin to buy a PC to hook up to my tv and stereo. I only want it for playing and storing music and movies. What do I need?
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Ok depends what you want to do... and what kind of computer you have right now and what you want to spend

If you are not recording tv, and just playing music and movie library (which is what i do) you just need a media extender.

I use my base computer (nothing impressive 4 years old) to hold all my music and movies.

I use a low profile microATX with an AMD athalon mobile. Looks like a VCR under my TV.

When XBMC gets ported, install Linux and XBMC.

Im not recording tv. I just need something that i can store movies and music that I download and also be able to play dvds, and cd's. I want something seperate from my home pc. I have an old Gateway here that I dont use anymore. Here are its specs. Can I just use it.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name MAIN
System Manufacturer Gateway
System Model "
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 2 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~648 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 063101, 7/23/1999
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name MAIN\Holly
Time Zone Eastern Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 320.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 82.74 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 774.32 MB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
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Another option is buy a used Xbox for cheap and chip it, then install XBMC on it, add the DVD remote and it is the perfect multimedia hub. You can store stuff on its hard drive or connect to your other computer and stream from there (it supports samba).
It is the perfect media box out there for SD stuff (if you want HD video decoding you'll need much quicker processor)

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

always one of my favorites. I would just put the PC in anothe rroom and used a wireless video connection

First question I have is this.

How do you want to interface the TV with the computer?

Thats was gonna be my next ? The only output on the pc is 15 pin. My Tv has the usual rca, and s video inputs. It also has DVI-HDTV input. Whats my best option.
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If you got a DVI then you gotta go with DVI. No sense in short changing now.
That means you got either a flat panel or a DLP.


If I were you. I would get a cheap intel dual core 2 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, a monster 1tb harddrive, get a PCIE Nvidia 7800(cheap, plenty of power and no HDCP) or something equivalent and throw media center XP on it. Yes, there are alternatives to XP media center but despite what people say its just so damn simple and easy to configure with other pc's on the network it makes no sense, at least to me, to use something else.

If you plan to do video capturing or use it as a TIVO then get yourself a twin tuner capture card from Pinnacle.

All of the above should run you no more then 600 bucks not counting the capture card. You can go cheaper with a smaller harddrive.

That PC you have you can go use as a boat anchor.

In the mean time, could I use this-
http://www.ramelectronics.net/audio-...d55873RCA.html
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Or this, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q4SRPU?...0&linkCode=asn
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Hey Sam thanks for your help but im not very computer literate, could you tell me the best place to look for a pc like your tellin me.
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easy peasy.

www.newegg.com its the Begi of online computer stores.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814136007

Svideo, DVI, and VGA

To expensive, you can find shit thats cheaper. Hell you can find a video card on the website above with composite out for 25 bucks.

This is for video capture, you need output.

let me know what configuration you want and i might be able to cut you a deal. my distributor has some good sales going on right now

Honestly, I second buying a used X-box idea. For the money, it cannot be beat, period. Gamestop sells them for $60, and with either a Softmod (free), or a chip ($50), it turns into an unbelievable media center. It will play almost any video file, audio file, and with X-box Media Center, you can stream both music and audio straight from your PC. It is by far the cheapest option compared to building a computer.

X-box - $60
HD Cables (component video, optical audio) - $5-$15 used at Gamestop
Softmodding it and installing Xbox Media Center - FREE!

Plus, it comes with a 10gb HD that has only about 3gb free on it, so you could use that, or go out and spend another $50 on a 300gb drive from Fry's, install it, and you're set! Seems like the best idea IMO......

Xbox is a great solution as people have mentioned, but if you need Tivo style capabilities it wont do it. Also Xbox is limited in the formats it can play, I think, while a computer with codecs will play anything under the sun. Plus the Xbox drive is small, 20 gigs, so now you are keeping two computers on to stream data. Plus if you want to stream data to the Xbox realitime you need a pretty powerful system on the other end, according to my friend who has a dual dual core feeding his X360.

I stream to my ps3 and my computer isnt that powerful. 2gig amd athalon 64 and 768 megs of ram. Cost me 1000 dollars 4-5 years ago, i bet it wont be half that much now

I want simplicity. I dont want to have to use a pc and a xbox or ps. I want to put something in my entertainment center and leave it there. Hooked up full time to my tv and stereo and im also gonna run an ethernet cable to it from my dsl so I can download stuff right into it. I want to use it to store movies and music and also play the dvd's and cd's that I already have. I donot need it to have Tivo capabilities. I have a 50" HDTV RCA Projection monitonr that I amgoing to hook it up to.

Urbansoot- SamlO1 recomended this- If I were you. I would get a cheap intel dual core 2 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, a monster 1tb harddrive, get a PCIE Nvidia 7800.

Now I dont know enough to know weather or not thats good enough or overkill. I'll take a suggestions you might have.

Another question I have is can I use this spare pc I have here and overhaul it? New Hard drive, mother board, and video card DVD burner and maybe a better sound card. Basically just using the box and power supply from the old pc.
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Its not overkill because its like the cheapest stuff you can get today that will do what you want and will also last you a few years. The harddrive may be overkill, but if you plan to store a lot of shit on it might as well get as much space as possible so you dont have to think about it for a while. If you want overkill, I can do overkill too.:D Can you say 1TB mirrored array on 3mware controller? Thats like 800 just for two harddrives and a controller card.

No you cant use that computer. You will want a new case probably, a nice one that will implement well with your home theater. A horizontal style case, probably black, and thin, so it doesnt look gaudy standing near your TV. You will also need a new powersupply(comes with case) because the junk in your old computer probably wont have enough power to pull the new stuff.

That's the reason lots of people run XBMC on Xbox. Very simple, no worries about Windows, etc. Turning on/off, browsing files, etc. you can do all from your couch with the remote control in your hand.

I've used a full atx board, athlon 2500, radeon 9600xt agp via dvi-to-hdmi to a 55" sony lcd rptv, 1 gb ram, ATI theatrix 550, Diamond pci SPDIF out audio card, 500gb SATA, 250gb IDE, DVD r/rw for a couple years w/o issue. Software I use is from Snapstream - BeyondTV for tv and BeyondMedia for everything else. I rip dvds to the HD as ISOs and a plug-in for Bmedia downloads the info and cover image. You just click the play button and daemon tools auto mounts the ISO and plays it. The quality for the dvds is awesome.

The radeon just started crapping out on me, so I'm upgrading the architecture for pciE and dual core cpu for $250. It will have enough oompf to manage Hidef pvr duties. And I'm considering moving to SageTV since the Snapstream stuff is moving enterprise - less focus on consumer end and integration. Sage will do QAM hidef (unencrypted digital over cable) too.

IMO it's like anything pc/windows - ONCE you get it sorted out and everything working together AND leave it alone, it will run dependably. A lot like a turbo miata. :D My system runs just like the Xbox media setup- from the couch with the remote.

I've built a couple of these. One car PC and now one home PC. You dont need a lot of processor or memory. What you do want is a Nice video card with whatever outputs that your TV accepts, a BIG ass hard drive... stock/onboard sound is OK for me anyway, if you have a pimp sound system you can get a 5.1 sound card with optical out.

I use onboard video on mine, with VGA inputs on my DLP 1080p TV, looks good but it just cant handle some of the HD stuff, it gets all blocky so a video card will probably be my next upgrade.

Stealth, can you tell me more about what you built for your home PC.

J man, how much internal memmory do the xbox's have. I will need something that can hold alot of movies.

My biggest goal is to have something with alot of storage, kick ass video and sound cards. I have DVD's coming out of my ears and I dont want to buy anymore, especially when you can download everything.
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XBMC will play just about any file you can throw at it (I don't believe I've ever come across something it won't play). Here's a list of codecs/containers XBMC plays: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html

Given that a used Xbox is $60 from Gamestop now (and you can get a two-year warranty for $5-10), you could pick up one of those, softmod it for XBMC, buy a NAS like this for $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...4036&Tpk=nslu2 , and an external drive or two (I'm running two 400GB drives on my NSLU2), and you'll have quite the media extender/center.

A lot of people scoff when I tell them I use a six-year-old video game system as a media center, until they see it in action :) The interface is so mature and slick, and the media players, music database-handling so good...throw in the fact that I also run NES, SMS, SNES, Genesis, SNK/Capcom emulators on it with about 4,000 games that all work perfectly (for when you wanna throw down some late-night 4-player NBA Jam or Street Fighter Alpha 12 with your buds), and it's pretty much a no-brainer.

The software media player will also upscale DVDs to 720P and apply some nice post-processing filters, making it look as good to my eye as the best progressive-scan, upscaling stand-alone players, however, it doesn't quite have the horsepower to run high-def (1280x720 res) content...it does, however, have enough juice to decode and play h.264 std. def. content, though, which is nice.

I think anyone who as actually used an X-box with XBMC will understand, for simplicity like the OP wanted, it cannot be beat. No need to screw with installing software on a PC, running scripts to make it run just right, no need for an expensive video card or sound card, etc. The X-box can output Dolby Digital along with DTS, so its fine for DVD's with a surround sound setup. As people have said, the interface is extremely easy to use, very mature looking, and extremely capable.

Just checkout www.xboxmediacenter.com and poke around there. Checkout the screenshots and read about the capability of the software. Now, if you're nervous about having to actually mod the X-box, its really quite simple, but I'm sure there are members on the board who would be happy to do it for you.

Regardless, if you have a tight budget(or even if you don't), and you want simplicity, this is by far the easiest way to go.

hmm i might have to try this myself the xbox deal sounds cool. Just to clarify with this and the mods, will i be able to transfer streamed TV onto my PC for later use?

The modded xbox is great especially when you add in the disk space. If you do decide to go the pc route then definitely look into knoppmyth. It is linux but will do so much more that the time and money invested is so worth it. Good support in the forums too. Does everything including dvr functions and you can access your media from anywhere much like a slingbox.

now all i need to do is find a good site about converting FTA satelite recievers :D and i will be set.

The Xbox looks like the way to go, especially since I have no idea on how to build a pc myself. So what exactly do I need-

An xbox, some chip (can someone clarify what this chip is for), external hard drives for storage and xbmc. Is there anything else? What outputs do the xbox's use? Is there a way to put a DVI connection to it.
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sheez I got to check that out.

levnubhin, my home PC is not really that special... I say "built" but it's a compaq I bought from a guy at work for $50, its a AMD 1800+ with 256 ram, and I put in a CD burner and a 120 gig hard drive. It's hardly super fast but for movies and music it does the job fine.. save for the video card I mentioned earlier.

I've got another 120gb drive and a stick of 512mb ram sitting on the shelf to waiting for me to stick in.. aside from that and the video card it will do whatever I need. If you have cable a Video card with a tuner and a cable connection would be a big plus for DVR stuff, but I have a seperate box for that.

biulding a PC is not that big a deal. If you want to try it shoot me some PM I can "spec" out a few things that work together.

Speaking of slingbox. I installed one in my dads house in NY over the holiday. That thing is cool. However the image quality is subpar. Its best on my laptop but I think it could be better. Does the image quality depend on my video card? How can i tell what kind of video card I have?
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If you go the route of modding the hardware, yes, you have to get some kind of alternate BIOS chip and solder it to the board.

If you want to softmod, all you need is a hacked saved game for an original copy of Splinter Cell, MechAssault or some 007 Bond game. I already had Splinter Cell, so that's what I used. The softmod is great because it's easily reversible, and you can knock out an softmod and XBMC install on someone's box pretty quickly (~30-45min.). I've probably done 7-8 boxes.

The Xbox has 65MB of shared RAM :bigtu: What you're asking about it hard drive capacity, and they came with 8GB and 10GB drives (WD and Seagate, later on).

I wouldn't even bother upgrading the hdd of the Xbox, but instead, go network-attached-storage, as you then won't be tied to the Xbox as a media extender or have to pull the drive if you change media server/extenders in the future.

I just purchased a refurbed HP s3120n for $350. Great PC just what your looking for and more.

And the xbox has a drive size limit anyway- right? or is there away around that?

The big diff IMO between the Xbox and the htpc is the video quality of the dvds. My xbox's component out can't match what I see from the dvi on my htpc. It me also be the decoders, but there are some movies where darker detail is just lost on the xbox and there's no way to tweak that (or easy way to tweak it).

Geesh, lol my head is spinning. Is the pic quality really that bad with the xbox? Id hate to short change myself.
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I have another PC here. Its an emachines desktop with a 60 gig hd and 512md ddr sdram. What if I put a better video card (it currently has an Intel extreme graphics 3D card, sound right? , maybe better sound card, more memory and use an external hd for memory. Would it be worth it?
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Thats what I would do. Either way your buying a HD. Just do the HD you'd be surprised how minimal the computer needs to be. I think i have a fanless $50 video card and it works

The diff between the two really depends on what your standards are. I can see the difference between my xbox and my htpc. Whether it's the graphics or the decoders, I don't know, but I can tweak that stuff on my pc and that's the difference I need. No doubt the xbox is the simple choice. If you're running the video to something low rez (like composite or svideo) then there's no point in investing in the pc since you're "bottleneck" is the display device.

You can get a good graphics card graphics card for $50 no doubt. My current setup was using an agp 9600xt 128mb w/o any issues upsampling dvds to 1080p.

Well my tv has a DVI input, so it looks like I should go with a pc. What video card do you guys recommend with DVI output?
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Hows this?- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130197

or- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102080
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We've been watching the bulk of our TV from a PC for ... six years or so, I guess.

Athlon 1600, 512Ram, lots of hard drives, older ATI card with composite (single RCA) video out. Sound is onboard, 1/8" stereo output. It gets gussied up by the surround sound receiver, which does a reasonable job believe it or not.

The upside to using a PC: you have a computer when you need it. So if you're watching a movie and your wife says, "where do we know that guy from?" you can hop online and check.

You can also check email and forums while she's going to the bathroom. Again.

You can replace the hdd in the Xbox. I think it doesn't have 48-bit LBA, so you'd be stuck with 128GB partitions, I believe, but there isn't really a drive size limit. But again, I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to upgrade the stock drive. I replaced mine with an 80GB simply because I had it laying around, and the stock drive was beginning to get loud and clackety.

And you're using XBMC? The quality of the dvd player in XBMC is great, and upconverting to 720P and post-processing through XBMC over component on my 42" 1080P screen looks better than the upconverting to 720P that my 360 does with the HD-DVD drive over HDMI. It also looks better than my friend's upconverting DVD player over component (can't remember brand).

Well, it depends on whether your PC has an AGP or PCI-express graphics card slot on the motherboard...

How can tell?
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Its an older computer? AGP

Or go into the BIOS, look at the peripheral settings section and see if it says things about AGP or PCI Express.

About 4 years old.
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Can someone tell me what slot this is.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...otIMG_2007.jpg
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Its a PCI slot, a slot not used for any type of graphics card (unless you like really old shitty ones)

PCI, and its an older standard.

Firrst off try running it the way it is. Upgrade it later if need be.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103167

Well i wanted to hook it up to my tv thru the DVI input.
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Loki- I was lookin thru all the PCI cards and I noticed that most of them have a 3 part connection. Whats the difference?
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I need another 512mb DDR ram 184 pin. Is there anything else to match when buying one?
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What PCI cards are you looking at? Are you talking about the riser connection/expansion slots on the motherboard? I honestly wouldn't bother trying to upgrade that computer; it's just too darn old, unfortunately :(

Ya know, if you need a new computer (which it appears you do:bigtu:), and you also want a media center, something that might be up your alley is a Mac...their Front Row software is quite nice. Heck, for that matter, you could load Ubuntu Linux on it, then run the Linux build of XBMC on it.

But, man, $60 (okay, plus a few more bucks for a memory card and game with which to do the softmod hack) for a used Xbox plus another $200 for a NAS and external hdd. sure is the easy solution :-)

That card i thinked was DVI, so that covers that. How much ram do you have and what kind? If you dont know crucial has a little app that will tell you.

I have 512 MB DDR SDRAM (184 pin I believe)
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I also have an HP here with 3800+ AMD Athlon 64 Processor 1.0GB memory, 250GB hard drive and it has XP Media center in it. How ever the only out put it has id VGA. Should i use this one or stick with the emachines unit.
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Here is the inside of my HP. Is that black slot a PCI Express?

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...N/IMG_5821.jpg

Will this work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130097

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102080
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