HTPC's in the mainstream spotlight:

[itschris]

I came across this today during my daily ritual of checking a dozen + news sites.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25882948/

 

[davestradamus]

sheesh....

i built my htpc for less than $200.... 2 terabytes??? jebusss, thats a lot of storage. although i am about to have one when i get my new hard drive here. am i behind on the times??
1.8Ghz
1Gb RAM
512Mb Video ram
600gb storage
DVI etc..

no tv tuner tho... but i refuse to buy cable.

 

[itschris]

I don't know that you're behind the times. I think the hardware you choose is solely a function of what you intend to do with it. If you're really going to have it be a media server then you're going to need more substantial hardware.

My HTPC isn't going to do blu-ray (there's just too many issues with that) but I will be copying all my DVD's and music to it as well as use it as an HD DVR with multiple tuner cards with the ability to stream to other TV's in the house.

That requires a bit more horsepower.

 

[davestradamus]

wow, sounds really nice. you building or buying?

 

[itschris]

I think I'm going to build. I'm probably going with an Oregin AE case, Quad Core MB, 4 Gigs RAM, 1 80 Gig HD for Vista, and 1 TB drive for storage. I'm thinking about using a Creative Labs Sound Card, and I'm not sure about the video card yet though it's not super critical since I won't be doing blu-ray or gaming. I'm thinking about using 3 tuner cards. I'll access everything with a Logitech dnova keyboard.

Honestly, this will be primarily a music server at first, so it's probably way overkill, but I'll eventually incorporate more and more of the HTPC functionality as time goes on. I no longer have the time or patience to constantly go and take things apart and upgrade, so I'm gonna try to build something a bit future-proof... though that sounds a bit naive when I think about it... but once I build it, I want to leave it for awhile.

 

[gus6464]

I just installed a 2TB NAS for my music and backup. Best buy has the 1TB WD on sale this week for $199. Using a Dlink 321 NAS which has built-in ftp, itunes, and backup servers.