Media PC

Supine

Supine

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I am thinking of putting together a media PC system. Any tips or suggestions?

I don't know much about them except that I would like to play music and movies on my TV / Sound System without having to copy stuff onto memory sticks or plug in my iPod.

Should I buy the components and do it myself or is it just better to go buy one of those MVix things? There seems to be a good Linux based system out there called XBMC and another called Boxee. I am not sure what do look at and it is difficult to choose something based on specs rather than first hand experience, so any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Russell.
 
Well since I've just done this myself... (and its not totally finished yet)..

I'd recommend going the full media PC route... its more flexible, but its ALOT more expensive though...
Something like an MVix or Mede8er is going to set you back about R3k whereas a full media pc will probably run into R7k or R8k.
 
Case
Motherboard

Intel E5300
2GB DDR2-800 RAM
250Gig 2.5" for OS or hard drive of your choice of you are not using EXT/network drive for content.

Optional: BD-ROM
 
P924

How much is that case ? Where can I get it ? I have been looking for something like that for a while.

There are several options, you can even use an xBox or PS3 do make a nice media center, I'm actually using my wii at the moment.

I'm using an old PC but the case is a bit clunky and its slow to boot up. The good thing about it is that you can do your downloads directly from the PC and set up things like PVR.
 
I've future proofed mine somewhat.. so Yeah it is alot of Media PC :)

I tried XBMC and it was good, but it didn't quite match up to Media Center running Media Browser on top of it...
 
Case is around R650, google it. Motherboard is harder to find. Keep in mind that the case is only for ITX-size motherboards and only has a 150W PSU, so you should only try it on basic systems. (IE no quad cores/ fancy GPUs)
 
Buy as cheap as possible - even those stupid little Atom mini pc's they sell in IC would do the trick if it had Ion to output 1080 without hiccuping.
 
Mini pc with ion GFX you are looking at ~R5k-R6k = not worth it. Plus those atoms don't have enough processing power, you need surplus just in case some idiot did the encoding and did something wrong so it can't do decoding though the GPU...
 
Get a playstation 3 dude, best media center i reckon

You then just a put a 1tb hdd on the network and run ps3 media server. Plus you then have blu ray and a console to game with.
 
I’m running mythtv on mine:

M3N78-VM mobo
Athlon64 X2 5200+
nVidia 9500GT (HDMI)
Antec NSK Case

Runs very quiet as well. Handles 1080p through the graphics card without breaking a sweat.
 
That system may be able to handle 1080p without needing the gfx card because the motherboard has HDMI with Nvidia onboard 8200 graphics:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3430&p=5

So you could get a system like that without needing an additional graphics card. And it would be totally silent. That is something definitely to keep in mind. Or the (I think) 790's have AMD 42xx onboard graphics - would give even smoother playback.

The only platform that can properly handle 24 fps output is NVIDIA's GeForce 8200/8300. It just works.
Click to expand...
 
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Yeah, but my proposed system has the 9300 onboard GFX, wich is better because 9300>>8200.

And the whole thing can be had for ~R4k incl if you have the right contacts.
 
cerebus said:
That system may be able to handle 1080p without needing the gfx card because the motherboard has HDMI with Nvidia onboard 8200 graphics:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3430&p=5

So you could get a system like that without needing an additional graphics card. And it would be totally silent. That is something definitely to keep in mind. Or the (I think) 790's have AMD 42xx onboard graphics - would give even smoother playback.
Click to expand...

i actually started without the 9500GT. I just wasn't totally satisifed with the onboard's handling of 1080p content. That may have been due to poor VDPAU drivers at the time.
 
I used an old Pentium 4 - 2.6 Ghz PC. I installed Windows 7 32 bit on it. This is what I am using in the meantime until I can afford a better system. But to be honest it does not really play the videos all that well. I dunno if it is the AGP card or the IDE drives or the power of the CPU. But it seems to stutter on all video no matter which player I use. It cannot play HD stuff at all. It can barely manage the normal AVI files. Funnily enough my Mvix plays the AVI files flawlessly. I also tried MythBuntu... and it had the same problem.
 
Garyvdh said:
I used an old Pentium 4 - 2.6 Ghz PC. I installed Windows 7 32 bit on it. This is what I am using in the meantime until I can afford a better system. But to be honest it does not really play the videos all that well. I dunno if it is the AGP card or the IDE drives or the power of the CPU. But it seems to stutter on all video no matter which player I use. It cannot play HD stuff at all. It can barely manage the normal AVI files. Funnily enough my Mvix plays the AVI files flawlessly. I also tried MythBuntu... and it had the same problem.
Click to expand...

which graphics card were you using? that being said, i used to play xvid AVIs on my P4 2.6GHz on mythtv without issue (on a nVidia FX5200).
 
milomak said:
which graphics card were you using? that being said, i used to play xvid AVIs on my P4 2.6GHz on mythtv without issue (on a nVidia FX5200).
Click to expand...

I think it is an AGP Nvidia Geforce 5500 with 256 Mb RAM.
 
Its probably a combination of all the different aspects of your system.....

I tried to build a media PC on a P4 3.06GHz machine, and it just stuttered too much on HD video, everything else was ok though.
 
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