Build or Buy HTPC?

Freakbro · 1 Jan 2015 at 13:34

I'm looking to replace my WDTV box with a HTPC running Windows/XBMC, is it worth building my own or just buying something premade?

It will be in the front room, so being quiet is important, and will be streaming files from a HP Microserver running Unraid through an A/V amp, so DTS sound over HDMI is important too.

The files are in multiple formats, avi, mkv, mp4 etc etc so I guess the HTPC will need to do any transcoding required.

I have used the specs from this guys 'value' build http://mymediaexperience.com/htpc-builds/value-htpc/ and come up with :-

Is the single channel DDR3 ok with this mobo?

But at £400 it seems a lot more than a lot of peoples proposed builds on here at ~£250 mark, especially as I will need other accessories too, like a IR controller and BT Keyboard.

Any advice?

Freakbro · 1 Jan 2015 at 16:03

That's not a bad spec Andy, the main saving seems to be going to AMD, I'm a bit out of the loop with their processors having gone with intel for the last decade.

But that minix x8-h also looks a good all in one solution and not bad for £120.

Since I'm mainly just going to want to run XBMC, what benefit would a custom built windows based HTPC bring me over the Android box?

Freakbro · 1 Jan 2015 at 19:09

The WDTV has been great, had it for a good few years now, but the interface is a bit clunky and doesn't have the polish or functionality of something like XBMC, so I fancy an upgrade

Also, it's been playing up a little lately, has frozen a couple of times on playback and it has a weird issue when sometimes I copy a show/film over the network on to the external drives plugged into it, it seems to 'lose' them.

It's really odd because you can go down and watch the programme, come back a day later and it's gone, nowhere to be seen on the HD :confused:

Freakbro · 5 Jan 2015 at 13:21

I suppose for £120 I could buy the all in one box and see if it does what I want, then upgrade to a HTPC at a later point if needed.

What I am a little confused with, so bear with me

My setup is HP Microserver with Unraid -> Media Box -> TV

So I would install the software I need (eg XBMC) on the media box and it retrieves the info from the server and does any transcoding necessary, just like my WDTV does now?

So why do people run something like Plex on the server itself, does this mean you don't need the media box at all? I assume my HP Microserver (the N36L) isn't man enough to transcode HD stuff, hence I am looking for the media box of whatever flavour.