HTPC Advice.

[abdul razaq]

Has anyone used a HTPC yet?
If so would they recommend these systems?

I'm seriously thing about one especially because they can be used as a comventional pc as well as a DVD and an avi film format machine.

[drawflex]

you on about buiding one ? or buying one ?

Either way, they're obviously built with size being the biggest design factor, and have to deal with the heat/airflow problems that come in... and are generally geared heavily towards power/heat efficiency, so only worth considering if you really need a small form-factor system... expansion/upgrades are limited, and can be very expensive.

Only good as a media-device imo, no substitute for a 'real' computer... i've built a couple and they get boring very quickly.

[oneman]

Have a look at ex-corporate small form factor PC (SFF). Something like a Dell GX755 with Core2 CPU, 2GB RAM and DVD-RW can be had second hand for around ?100 to ?130. Add a ?30 ATI 5450 HD video card and a decent wireless keyboard (Divono mini is a favourite). Not the prettiest looking but discrete and quiet.

Choice of OS is yours but I use Win7 with XBMC on my HTPC.

[Shady]

shop around and u can build a htpc which will double as a hdtwin tuner sat receiver akin to a plus duo for MUCH less money

[xant14]

Choice of OS is yours but I use Win7 with XBMC on my HTPC.

I use the same, XBMC live, spesh for big MKV's.
But if your processor is half decent, and a couple of gigs RAM, then you'll play owt in Win7.

I will be selling my Revo R3600 soon as I find the box for it. It works well, altho it could do with 1 more gb of ram.

I hvae a new HTPC, dual core in an Antac case so it looks right in the living room. Plenty about on Fleabay.

[phoenixhr]

As i found out the hard way you also have to think about either raid5/6 or backup hard drives for archiving. Sucks to almost lose a 10yr collection.

[Katherine5]

build htpc ?

If you want to build a HTPC, you can use a MINI-ITX card. The idea was to build a front-end, fanless, diskless and quiet. It is hard to build "nice looking" computer cabinets melting in from the environment (TV, Sorround amplifier) (at least according to my girlfriend) som my idea was to hide the hardware. I would to utilize present local community for storage space purpose.
It would have been nice to possess some details about the companies of factors to HTPC,,, some type of ranking,,, high quality of products: hardware motorists etc,,, high quality of services (will the give help in the event you have troubles etc).
That's all my experience.

[oneman]

First question I would be asking is what you are going to use it for. Couple common uses, streaming, web access, pvr, gaming, general purpose computing

If you don't want PVR and gaming then a low power computer will be fine. If you want to do PVR then check if you need to install a card or use USB tuner plus reasonable amount of disk space. For gaming you will need more powerful CPU and more importantly a good graphics card which will no doubt need a better PSU and cooling ruling out ITX / netbook based PC.

Next ready built or DIY. Obviously advantages and disadvantages to both but tbh after building hundreds of PC over the last 20+ years I have reached the stage where I would say just buy ready made unless you have a big reason not to.