Initially wanted some form of NAS for central storage and backup however i also wanted to play videos from this to the TV.
My current way of doing that was via a laptop which was ok but streaming over wifi and with only an integrated laptop gpu sometimes it became a struggle.
Ideas where
1. NAS - cheap but streaming issue
2. Windows Home Server - Expensive, streaming issue but some niffy features
3. Media Centre PC - Expensive but could be used as NAS and no streaming issues.
So thought to myself a media centre pc would be the best however i didnt want a massive desktop at the side of the tv. So started looking at some shuttle pc's. Then though my god for such a small barebone pc they are really expensive new, so trawling ebay and was tempted to buy a spare or repair one to do up but then stumbled upon a right bargain.
Shuttle XPC SN95G5 with a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ cpu, Crucial Ballistix DDR PC3200 2x 512MB, ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP 8x 256MB, NEC DVD Re-writer, Sony Floppy Drive and Genuine Shuttle XPC carry case.
Managed to get this for £90, only thing i need is a big Sata HDD and an media centre OS but what a bargain. Normally these things are around £150 barebone. Good thing about it is that it is fairly upgradable also. Still some decent AGP cards about that support HD content. Not sure it would be up to playing Blueray video however but might be worth a try.
Just out of interest. Has anyone bought a blueray drive for their PC. what spec is needed to play Blueray dvds?
My current way of doing that was via a laptop which was ok but streaming over wifi and with only an integrated laptop gpu sometimes it became a struggle.
Ideas where
1. NAS - cheap but streaming issue
2. Windows Home Server - Expensive, streaming issue but some niffy features
3. Media Centre PC - Expensive but could be used as NAS and no streaming issues.
So thought to myself a media centre pc would be the best however i didnt want a massive desktop at the side of the tv. So started looking at some shuttle pc's. Then though my god for such a small barebone pc they are really expensive new, so trawling ebay and was tempted to buy a spare or repair one to do up but then stumbled upon a right bargain.
Shuttle XPC SN95G5 with a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ cpu, Crucial Ballistix DDR PC3200 2x 512MB, ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP 8x 256MB, NEC DVD Re-writer, Sony Floppy Drive and Genuine Shuttle XPC carry case.
Managed to get this for £90, only thing i need is a big Sata HDD and an media centre OS but what a bargain. Normally these things are around £150 barebone. Good thing about it is that it is fairly upgradable also. Still some decent AGP cards about that support HD content. Not sure it would be up to playing Blueray video however but might be worth a try.
Just out of interest. Has anyone bought a blueray drive for their PC. what spec is needed to play Blueray dvds?
