HTPC advice needed

Goose

Goose

Goose

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Joined
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My brother has asked me to research building him a compact HTPC for streaming movies through his TV and since i've only ever built gaming PC's im not sure where to begin.

He's been looking at mini macs because he wants to be able to control it all via his iPad but he's also talking about building a hacintosh but i dont think ipad compatibility will be a deal breaker.

Basically, I just need a bit of guidance on putting together a compact HTPC for less than £500 as well as advice on what software to use, peripherals for controlling it etc etc.

Thanks
 
Intel,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £67.99
1 x Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black (SST-ML03B) £56.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £39.95
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £34.99
1 x Asus HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £31.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £352.93 (includes shipping : £11.75).



AMD,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £67.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black (SST-ML03B) £56.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2133HC11DC01) £49.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x AMD A4-5300 3.40GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD5300OKHJBOX) £39.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £349.94 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £92.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £82.99
1 x MSI A75IA-E53 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £71.99
1 x Thermaltake Element Q mini-ITX HTPC Case - 220W Power Supply £56.99
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £55.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2133HC11DC01) £49.99
1 x Liteon IHOS104-06 4x BD-ROM (Black) - OEM £29.99
Total : £440.93 (includes shipping : FREE).



It's even capable of light gaming believe it or not. XBMC is a popular program for windows based HTPCs. It has a remote control app on the android market so im sure apple is catered for too. There are also free apps for using a smartphone or tablet as a basic mouse and keyboard in windows.

I'm pretty sure XBMC has a Linux based OS if you didn't have a spare copy of windows to hand. He could try the windows 8 enterprise edition for free for 3 months. The metro UI would give a Xbox like feel to the interface. If he likes it he can buy the OS proper, maybe you have an old windows licence that could be upgraded even?
 
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This may do for an OS

http://openelec.tv/news/22-releases/86-openelec-3-0-0-released

This may have some up to date advice.

http://assassinhtpcblog.com/?page_id=160

I myself used to be into home theater and used a Grandia GD02B with an old 775 setup, Maximus II Gene with an E8500 passively cooled with an NT01-E cooler, and a passive cooled Powercolor 5750 GPU, with a BluRay drive. I built this to play BluRay, stream movies, and use MyMovies etc.

But the family stopped using it as they have Netflix etc, and could use the TV, game consoles and such to watch these movies anyway. Many TV's and household gadgets can stream or be connected to the internet, a network or storage these days, so really for me, with HTPC it's about the interface and having showy synopses and images of the movies. But with the family subscribing to Netflix, Lovefilm and the like, streaming from my storage or playing discs rarely happens now.

These days I would want something neater than the GD02, maybe a thinner case, or mini ITX, or even Raspberry Pi based. I cant stand cases which hide the optic drive, and if you are only streaming, it may be worth looking for a case without such.
 
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Thanks a lot guys, that gives me a good starting point.

I have absolutely no experience with Linux so i'll be avoiding that. Is XMBC an OS in its right or simply an a Windows application (i'll google it myself, i'm just a bit short on time).
 
XBMC is either a light OS (Ubuntu) + XBMC but you never see the Linux part, or a Windows app. The Linux version works better and just installs and works with no fiddling at all.
 
This is probably a really stupid question but what is the main benefit of a better CPU, more RAM etc for media centre PC's? Does it have an effect on playback at all or is it mostly just about the speed of ripping blu-rays, converting from one format to another etc?

Thanks
 
Rippling a movie will depend on the speed of the drive being used, but when you want to encode to a different format then the extra speed will help.

For general playback then all machines specced will be fine. I am playing with a Raspberry Pi at the moment which plays 1080p movies fine.
 
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