HTPC Build questions

Ian_Eb

Ian_Eb

Ian_Eb

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Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
1,425
Location
Congleton, Cheshire
Hi,

I have been asked by a friend to build him a Media PC/HTPC setup.

I have been a bit out of th eloop on all this stuff now for about 2 yrs, so i thought I would throw myself on the mercy of the beast that is the OCUK forums!

The current budget is around the £1k mark and he would like it to be as automatic as possible (Auto rip his cds etc) and would like to be able to record live tv whilst watching another channel and so on.

Any decent recommendations are welcome :)
 
He isnt a gamer at all really. I think he just picked the budget off the top of his head, he would be perfectly happy if it came in less, but thats the absolute maximum price including OS and whatever s/w is needed.

His wife just pointed out that it has to look "Pretty" if that makes a difference :)
 
This would be great, unfortunately case is out of stock atm, you could up the CPU if wanted but theres really no need on this sort of build

HTPC.jpg
 
Interesting, I was originally going to look at one of the standard hi-fi sized cases. Something like the Lian-Li Muse (Also Out of Stock) but I am still straightening the Micro ATX / Mini ITX thing out in my head. Which is best for this purpose etc, etc
 
this is smaller, more compact, but still does the job very well, the integrated gfx on this board is v good, and it has a PCI-E x16 slot for expansion, the only draw back of this is as its so small you cant add additional HDDs as theres no room
a bigger mATX case/build gives you more options, obviously uses more space too, depends what the priority is
 
Ahh... would this allow me to use a dual tuner freeview card? or isn't there enough space?
 
Ian_Eb said:
Ahh... would this allow me to use a dual tuner freeview card? or isn't there enough space?
Click to expand...

No space for Tuners, everything would have to be USB. Which kinda defeats the purpose of a small box imo.

Go with mATX, if you have the room, I like the Lian Li cube type boxes like this for HTPC.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-154-LL&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=187

Loads of room for HDDs and other cards, yet still quite small and would fit in a corner somewhere.
 
"tuners" being the key word. Ideally with Windows7 you'd want dual DVB-T and a DVB-S2 in there for Freesat. There's not a lot of options for PCI-E cards that have 4 tuners for both T and S.
 
I use a cheap Compro VideoMate S350, works a treat.

You dont DVB-S2 (yet) for Freeview HD. DVB-S works fine.
 
Biffa - awesome kit list! Very complete. I might just order exactly that for my htpc build. Can you recommend tuners in particular? I have a cable coming from a sky sat dish which we no longer use as we have gone with Virgin. I'd want to use that dish for freesat - but dont know what i need in my pc to plug the cable in to :)
 
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