kpholmes Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Looking to start setting up a media center. HD with lots of HD room... Anyone have any experience with building one, or know of any good guides? Thanks -KP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Get one of these to start: http://www.sundialmicro.com/lian-li-pcc30i..._1756_1052.html And buy a copy of WinXP Media Center edition before they stop selling it in 60 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpholmes Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Get one of these to start: http://www.sundialmicro.com/lian-li-pcc30i..._1756_1052.html And buy a copy of WinXP Media Center edition before they stop selling it in 60 days. Page Load Error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Loads for me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Same case: http://www.ipcrepublic.com/lian-li-pcc30ib..._1805_1742.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moneymakers Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 motherboard and chip please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpholmes Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 We started out simple... just an extra computer laying around dedicated to holding movies and music hooked up to house wide speakers and the 42" via video monitor cable. So far, it's all we need. Just sayin' that ya dont' have to go crazy and spend a lot of money to get something working. Right, I understand. But I would like to run the satellite tuner through it, and use it as a substitute to a DVR or TIVO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrTed46 Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 HD will require a decent graphic card and processor. I would be skimp on those. I have built two media PCs in the past so I can help with my limited knowledge. Best place to go though is avsforum.com as LordOpie mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Make sure to get a Hauppage tuner card, the dual tuner with remote is about $180. Get an asus P5k mobo about $150, and a Core2 6750 $190 and 2GB of ram $75 and one 150GB raptor $180 and 2x750GB WD YS harddrives for storage, you're set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrTed46 Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 I dont think you can record HD off Satellite yet (or maybe ever). SD you can. So you might want to look into building a PC for satellite. I am not sure its possible. Back when I was buildings (few months ago) it wasnt possible. I doubt it will ever be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrTed46 Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 If the satellite is pushing an HD signal, why can't you capture it? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....light=satellite Not much has changed since this thread started... No NA satellite provider allows using a PC as a receiver. It can be done with some but is illegal. The BlackMagic card would record raw video (huge bitrate; you're looking at RAID). Video has to be HDCP-free. Audio recording is limited. Video re-encoding would be required. I don't think modded satellite receivers work with Dish's MPEG-4 encoded hidef (could be wrong). The announced Hauppauge HD card is the closest you'll get to consumer-level hidef recording at the moment... I guess there is a way to do so but it requires some tampering with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theeohiostate Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 I built mine about a year ago, went with 10-500GB HDD's in Raid 6 w/ QX6700 in an EVGA680i board. I've hooked mine directly to my HDMI switch in the theatre room for the sole purpose of storing HD and DVD movies to view with mulitple XBOX360's . I'd suggest going with a ATI HD3850 for HDMI audio/video and if your considering dumping HD movies, I would get a Q6700 that intel just dropped the price on to the low $200's . I use mine every day of the week and would also suggest that you get a 1GB ethernet controller (most recent MOBO's have it built on) with a 1GB router if you have plans on streaming any video. My Movies is an excellent front end application and The Green Button forums will help noobs out alot as well. I use Vista Ultimate and it finds and installs extenders much easier. Don't hesitate to pm if you have any question i might be able to answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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