Does this look like it would make a good media center PC?

exampasser

I have been considering putting together a media-center pc so I could watch Youtube videos and such on my 32" 1080p lcd tv. I can't fit a full-size tower in my entertainment center but this kit I found off of Newegg looked interesting: Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!
I know this this far from a powerful system but the board does have an hdmi out and such. Any thoughts about this?

I do have a laptop that lives in the living room so if there is any way I could get a device for it to send its video signal wirelessly to my tv that would be a better and less expensive way to go for me if anybody knows of any such devices.

Hyper-Me

I think itll probably do fine.

I use a toshiba laptop (with broken screen) as a Media Center PC. Its got Win7 Ultimate, 1.67ghz Core Duo, 1.5GB 667mhz DDR2, and onboard intel 9XX graphics, which surprisingly runs areo and Media Center just fine.

I get a lil lag when loading Netflix Streaming libraries but thats it.

ULWiz

Yeah i dont think you need anything special for a media center pc. Old Pentium 4 with a little ram should be more than enough.

Am having a problem with my own though. My machine is a quad 2.6 with 8gb of RAM going through some cisco gear. For some reason i get a slight freeze for a second on my screen when watching movies. Have no idea why its happening, but happends on all movies being watched through the xbox.

CSCOnoob

Here's my spec for HTPC just to give you and idea.

E5200
2GB RAM
1GB 9400GT

Connected to 46" LCD 1080p.

HD OTA plays and records fine under WMC.

Playing recorded HD contents via Comcast cable using Hauppauge HD-PVR and SageTV sucks - TS file sucks on this computer using Vista. However, whenever I play it on my Q6600, 8800GT OC'd, Win 7 based PC then it plays just fine.

Played HD using MKV files and plays fine using VLC.

Flash based player do not play HD (1080p) content very well. CPU utilization goes caput even with hardware acceleration turned on (I think Flash has that option). No, I have not tried playing 720/1080p content from YouTube yet.

Netflix plays fine. Though, I don't use it anymore since I have PS3 that takes care of Netflix nowadays, especially now I can play HD contents. Though, Netflix streaming content still sucks.

I guess the purpose of your HTPC will depend if it is okay or not.

If you're gonna spend money on your HTPC then pay a little more than that, IMHO.

exampasser

CSCOnoob wrote: »

Here's my spec for HTPC just to give you and idea.

E5200
2GB RAM
1GB 9400GT

Connected to 46" LCD 1080p.

HD OTA plays and records fine under WMC.

Playing recorded HD contents via Comcast cable using Hauppauge HD-PVR and SageTV sucks - TS file sucks on this computer using Vista. However, whenever I play it on my Q6600, 8800GT OC'd, Win 7 based PC then it plays just fine.

Played HD using MKV files and plays fine using VLC.

Flash based player do not play HD (1080p) content very well. CPU utilization goes caput even with hardware acceleration turned on (I think Flash has that option). No, I have not tried playing 720/1080p content from YouTube yet.

Netflix plays fine. Though, I don't use it anymore since I have PS3 that takes care of Netflix nowadays, especially now I can play HD contents. Though, Netflix streaming content still sucks.

I guess the purpose of your HTPC will depend if it is okay or not.

If you're gonna spend money on your HTPC then pay a little more than that, IMHO.

The problem is though I need to be able to fit it in a small space that does not provide much ventilation. If you know of any boards and cases that have a small form factor that runs cool please let me know.

CSCOnoob

exampasser wrote: »

The problem is though I need to be able to fit it in a small space that does not provide much ventilation. If you know of any boards and cases that have a small form factor that runs cool please let me know.

Buy a Mac Mini and make Windows as your default OS. From the last time I've read about HTPC, a lot of people are buying it to make it their HTPC.

exampasser

CSCOnoob wrote: »

Buy a Mac Mini and make Windows as your default OS. From the last time I've read about HTPC, a lot of people are buying it to make it their HTPC.

Thanks. Do you know if those machines are easy to open up to put in a larger capacity HDD? I have never worked on a Mac before.

tbgree00

I purchased a 200 dollar Acer Revo r1600 from Best Buy for my HTPC. I had an extra 2GB stick of memory laying around and a free license of Windows 7 from my family pack. It does 1080p over HDMI and has an Nvidia Ion card which can handle anything I throw at it with Flash 10.1.2. I stream DVDs from my media server into WMC and watch Hulu Desktop with no stutter.

The thing is whisper quiet and about the size of an external hard drive. It's a bit underpowered out of the box (XP Home, 1GB ram) but it would probably work fine that way too.

exampasser

tbgree00 wrote: »

I purchased a 200 dollar Acer Revo r1600 from Best Buy for my HTPC. I had an extra 2GB stick of memory laying around and a free license of Windows 7 from my family pack. It does 1080p over HDMI and has an Nvidia Ion card which can handle anything I throw at it with Flash 10.1.2. I stream DVDs from my media server into WMC and watch Hulu Desktop with no stutter.

The thing is whisper quiet and about the size of an external hard drive. It's a bit underpowered out of the box (XP Home, 1GB ram) but it would probably work fine that way too.

Thanks! If I added more RAM and a larger HDD it looks like it would work fine.