Who really uses there HTPC and nothing else?

Been using a HTPC for a number of years now, used for HDDVDs/Blu-Ray using media centre and TMT3 and streams music, photos and video from WHS via media browser, also using tunerfree MCE for iplayer etc. Also got a TV card and have it running recording duties as needed. Awesome thing, no probs with DTS/Dolby through my ATI 5450, sound is great. Admittedly over HDMI as others have said. Wouldnt get rid of mine. I have to admit that I cant think of any components that I have left from how it was originally, but its now silent and fast as you like.

Hawker
 
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My HTPC is my music player, my bluray and DVD player, my Freesat PVR and my ripped media player.

Basically it is the only thing I use for all my AV needs.
 
i use my htpc all the time, althou i do have a seperate blu-ray player as well

i have a media server with a lot of space and tuners so i have that recording all the shows i want to watch and access them via the HTPC

i wouldn't mind having a blu-ray player on the HTPC as well, but unfortuatlly mythtv doesn't currently support it

the mkv rips are usually good enough thou, and i always rip them with full uncompressed audio so it sounds good as well
 
i use my HTPCs for digital media playback virtually every day ... but I don't use it for DVD/BD playback as I prefer to use a standalone BD player for those (as it tends to quieter and "simpler").

I don't watch TV through my HTPCs even though one of them is capable of this.
 
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I use my HTPC almost exclusively now...sometimes i will have a go on the wife's laptop but thats it.

I love the fact that all my media is there and ready to go whenever i want it.

I couldnt honestly imagine using anything else now.
 
Before I moved in with the rents I used mine for all my TV viewing, I didn't bother with any aerial connection at all though as I don't like watching live TV, just internet and downloaded. It was also really good for parties (what's the cool way of saying that?) as you could just stick some music on through it and my amp, or if the night got really dire we could look at failblog/youtube vids/films.
 
Yep I do, I just don't watch normal TV anymore, I'll watch maybe 2 movies a week and a couple of episodes of something downloaded on the htpc. My bluray player hasn't been used in about 5 months now.
 
Love mine :cool:.

I'm using my old MacBook Pro running in clamshell mode as a HTPC. Blu-ray are ripped to ~30GB MKVs and then just left as that. Not compressed down or anything.
Currently I just store them on a RAID1 array in one of my PCs (couple of Caviar Blacks), but when I finally stop umming and arring I'll get a Drobo-FS.

Problem is my MBP is four years old (2007 one - 2.4GHz C2D, 8600M GT, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM) and whilst is does manage 24FPS+ on the uncompressed 1080p it's just maxing the CPUs out and gets proper toasty!
When Apple update the Mac Minis (next month or two I heard) I'll grab one of them.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Love mine :cool:.

I'm using my old MacBook Pro running in clamshell mode as a HTPC. Blu-ray are ripped to ~30GB MKVs and then just left as that. Not compressed down or anything.
Currently I just store them on a RAID1 array in one of my PCs (couple of Caviar Blacks), but when I finally stop umming and arring I'll get a Drobo-FS.

Problem is my MBP is four years old (2007 one - 2.4GHz C2D, 8600M GT, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM) and whilst is does manage 24FPS+ on the uncompressed 1080p it's just maxing the CPUs out and gets proper toasty!
When Apple update the Mac Minis (next month or two I heard) I'll grab one of them.
Click to expand...

Are there no hardware accelerated codecs for MAC? I have less hardware spec then that, and use the coreAVC Codec, it uses the GPU for H/W accelerated decoding using Stream or CUDA, and the CPU doesn't break into a sweat even on very high bitrate h264 material..
 
Demon said:
Are there no hardware accelerated codecs for MAC? I have less hardware spec then that, and use the coreAVC Codec, it uses the GPU for H/W accelerated decoding using Stream or CUDA, and the CPU doesn't break into a sweat even on very high bitrate h264 material..
Click to expand...

I haven't fiddled around with codecs or anything, just let Plex use whatever codecs it installed!

My old MacBook Pro is I believe the newest (IYSWIM) Mac that Apple haven't released new GPU hardware accelerated drivers for... all the ones after it have drivers available. Annoying really as the 8600M GT was a good card in its day! :(
http://elan.plexapp.com/2010/04/27/hardware-accelerated-h-264-decoding-on-plex/ & http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2267/_index.html
 
I use my HTPC for everything, its got my TV card in it for watching and recording TV and its linked to my server for everything else, music etc. I run MediaPortal with StreamedMP on it for a fancy front end and its linked to my amp for HD audio.

I need to get a Blackgold TV card at some point but they're a bit too expensive at the moment.

I love it and couldn't do with out it, it even doubles up as a gaming PC so I can game on my 50" plasma and its foolproof enough for my missus to use without breaking things! :)
 
Built my HTPC about 6 weeks ago and never use it :o :(

Silverstone GD02-MT case
intel i5-2500k cpu
Asus P8P67-M Intel P67 Matx motherboard
8GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance
GTX 580 GPU
Sony Slimline slot loading blu-ray rom
mini ninja cpu cooler
500gb & 1TB hardrives
Enermax Infiniti 720watt PSU
Keysonic 540RF mini wireless keyboard
Black Xbox360 wireless gamepad & Receiver
Windows 7 64bit retail.

DSC00264.jpg
 
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Use mine all the time for tv series rips, MKV movie rips and music using MediaBrowser on Windows 7MC.

This is setup in my lounge to the LCD TV and sound goes through my Onkyo amp and Acoustic Energy Aego T 5.1 speakers

Don't use it for regular tv though as I have a Tivo for that.
 
I have no aerial connected to my TV, and no TV card in my PC. Everything I watch is either downloaded, or watched online (live or on iPlayer, 4od, etc). It's been this way for over a year now. I used to have Sky+, and I don't even miss it slightly. I might watch a DVD on it now and again, as my DVD collection has never been ripped to my server.

The HTPC is modest. 2.5GHz Athlon 4850e, 2GB ram, on board ATI gfx (780G chipset, supports DXVA) and sound, HD-DVD/Blu-ray reader in a nice small Lian Li PC-C35.

All the media is stored on my server along with the .nfos, thumbnails, poster and banner art, fan art (all put there by media companion) so the HTPC never has to scrape it from the web.
 
I've got a WHS v1 back end connected to two Acer Revo's (3610and 3700).

I use windows media center 7 (64bit) for all of my Sky HD live TV and recordings (Available on either Revo). I then use media browser for Movies and TV series that I have and to make them available to either media PC.

On top of that i have VMCmote on the iPad to give access to music and create playlists, handy when people are around.

I've also got air video on the iPad to enable streaming of pre-recorded stuff.
 
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