Media Centre Spec

[TheCake]

What kind of spec would you recommend for a decent media centre? Keeping in mind performance, quietness and storage.

I've been looking on http://www.quietpc.com

I'm going to be building one from scratch and can get parts at good prices through work so give me your best.

Full specs would be appreciated inc part numbers if known.

Thanks

 

[Rasclart]

Go Core Duo if you can afford it IMO. 2GB of some decent RAM, OCZ, Geil etc.

If your planning on hooking up to a TV for HI DEF then I would suggest a HDCP compliant card to connect DVI socket or use a DVI-HDMI adaptor.

Small tip also the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive plugs into a PC and with a new driver works fine on a PC. Cheap HD-DVD playing PC that way

 

[TheCake]

Any graphics recommendations mate?

 

[Mike_182]

Can you put HDCP over DVI? I haven't watched that side of things closely. Both ATI and nVidia do 7600/X1600 sort of offerings with HDMI ports on, these are a good idea IMO.

I'd try go with a laptop chip - you don't need a huge amount of processing power (or the 2gb of memory whoever suggested this) depending on what you're doing. Have a look for s479 motherboards (threre are 3 major offerings at the moment, I think they all run the 945m chipset) and look for a Core Duo T2400/2500. A gig of RAM running good timings will suffiice, and that's about it.

Other than that, you don't give much detail. What do you want it to do?

 

[16v_jon]

If you want a quiet/ powerful(ish) base then i can recomend the laptop chips there arnt many motherboards around ensure you get a s479 as some are 478.
if you want to record TV then i highly recommend a hardware decoder tv card such as the wintv nova-t 500 with 2 hardware decoder chips record 2 channels at the same time with not much cpu utilisation, if your going for HD freeview or sat then the choice is a bit limited the happauge HVR4000 has sat and dvb-t hd ready hardware chips.
large hard disks are cheap now 320gig is the best value for GB seagate 10.7200 series have a 5 year warranty.

most "HD ready" graphics cards use a dvi-hdmi cable

This is my spec

silversone case
ennermax 560w psu
Asus p5 board with s479 adapter
centrino 1.6ghz cpu
1 gig ddr GEIL 400mhz ram
4 x 320 gig seagate hard disks raid 5 adaptec host card
geforce 7950
Happauge hvr 3000 sat+ freeview + analogue
happauge hvr 4000

GB-PVR media center, windows media centre

 

[Rasclart]

Can you put HDCP over DVI? I haven't watched that side of things closely. Both ATI and nVidia do 7600/X1600 sort of offerings with HDMI ports on, these are a good idea IMO.

I'd try go with a laptop chip - you don't need a huge amount of processing power (or the 2gb of memory whoever suggested this) depending on what you're doing. Have a look for s479 motherboards (threre are 3 major offerings at the moment, I think they all run the 945m chipset) and look for a Core Duo T2400/2500. A gig of RAM running good timings will suffiice, and that's about it.

Other than that, you don't give much detail. What do you want it to do?

Yes I belive you can, the 24" Dell Widescreen will accept it over DVI. And I have seen a couple of graphics cards I think.

It was me who suggested the 2GB thing, if he does plan to run HD material or maybe put a HD-DVD drive or Blu Ray for smooth playback you DO need a pretty hefty machine.

I have tried HD-DVD via 3 pc's with the Xbox drive and all but 1 stuttered at points

 

[McBunny]

yes alot of the graphics cards available today support hdcp as its also supported by vista.it could possibly become a requirement when vista takes hold too

 

[Rasclart]

I couldnt get my 20" dell to work via DVI when using the HD-DVD player on the PC, but I plugged in a VGA cable and it worked fine which was weird!