Media Centre Build

[Tricky_Dicky]

I'm looking to build a Media Centre PC and put Windows 7 on it and was just wondering if people had any recommendations of the best hardware combination at the moment?

 

Also, does anyone here run Windows Home server and is it worth it? Just thinking in the future I would like to store all music/photos/videos on something a bit more central.

 

Cheers

Rich

[graywoodford]

dude,

depends on how much money you want to spend and what you want to do with the media center? Just for movies pics internet etc or do you want to play games on the machine aswell??

 

let me know and will look into it for you

[mortstar]

dude,

depends on how much money you want to spend and what you want to do with the media center? Just for movies pics internet etc or do you want to play games on the machine aswell??

 

let me know and will look into it for you

 

Exactly

 

Are you wanting to watch Live TV on the Media Centre? If so, DVB-T (Terrestrial - a.k.a. Freeview) or DVB-S (Satellite - a.k.a. Freesat)?

Edited October 7, 2009 by mortstar

[Tricky_Dicky]

I was thinking in the region of about £500. Not to bothered about games on it, the main thing is going to be watching films and recording TV. It should be able to cope with at least two other media centres streaming content from it at some point.

The recorded TV will be DVB-T, haven't got a satellite dish and don't really fancy one unless you think it's worth it?

Cheers

Rich

[3s-gtech]

There are a wealth of options within that budget, ranging from solutions like the Asus eeeBox and Acer Aspire Revo (both of which come with HD capable hardware on the right models) right up to a complete PC. Do you want small and low power, or something a bit beefier? For the latter, good results come from using an AMD 785G motherboard with a low powered Athlon (or even Phenom), and spending the rest on good capacity and a nice case.

[Guest Guest]

Have a look at MythTV. You can get an Ubuntu distro with it built in called Mythbuntu.

As said have a look at the Revos, you can pick them up for £150.

 

Myth server backend as server, with TV card(s) installed.

Revos as Myth clients running only the Myth frontend.

 

Depending on what hardware you have laying around you could just about get a server and 2 clients for £500. Not bad for "follow me tv" and single TV card-multiple clients

[Tricky_Dicky]

3s-gtech - I was looking at something a bit beefier, mainly because space isn't too much of a premium and I'd like to have plenty of storage in it.

 

j17sparky - Have you done an install of Mhythbuntu? It looks awesome and I've been looking at it for a while, the only thing that worries me is how difficult it is to set up. From what I can tell it can do some amazing things but if it takes 12 months to get working the WAF might not be too impressed.

 

Which version of the Eeebox or Revo would you go for for the clients?

 

Cheers for the input though guys, some great ideas.

[Guest Guest]

3s-gtech - I was looking at something a bit beefier, mainly because space isn't too much of a premium and I'd like to have plenty of storage in it.

 

j17sparky - Have you done an install of Mhythbuntu? It looks awesome and I've been looking at it for a while, the only thing that worries me is how difficult it is to set up. From what I can tell it can do some amazing things but if it takes 12 months to get working the WAF might not be too impressed.

 

Which version of the Eeebox or Revo would you go for for the clients?

 

Cheers for the input though guys, some great ideas.

 

Clients id personally pay the few £ extra and get one with an ION gfx chip (ie nvidia 9400) and preferably the dual core atom 330. Apart from that its all aesthetics really.

 

 

MythTV - done it yeah. Used it for an extended period, no. Its easy enough to set up, the Mythbuntu CD just goves yoou the options; do you want to install as a, client, server, or client and server. It then guides you through with easy to follow GUI option screens.

 

I set it up for a mate whos not really techy. Hes not an idiot when it comes to these things but certainly not capible of managing a network and he found it easy enough to use.

[Tricky_Dicky]

The beauty of using something like Mhythbuntu is that it should provide a central NAS as well is that right? Which would save having to buy one at a later date.

 

With the above in mind, what sort of hardware would you put at the backend then?

 

Cheers

Rich