Laptop or WD?

[flathead]

Ahhhh! Ive got that new member smell. Trying to get rid of the cd and dvd clutter. It would be nice to have everything on hard drive or memory card or both or something. Ipods and mp3 players just don't sound proper through the system. picture and sound quality are a must. which is my best bet, western digital, laptop (if so which one), or is there something better? I'm not interested in spending my kids college funds on this. Current system is Marantz klipsch and plasma. Thanks for your help.

 

[krzywica]

Ahhhh! Ive got that new member smell. Trying to get rid of the cd and dvd clutter. It would be nice to have everything on hard drive or memory card or both or something. Ipods and mp3 players just don't sound proper through the system. picture and sound quality are a must. which is my best bet, western digital, laptop (if so which one), or is there something better? I'm not interested in spending my kids college funds on this. Current system is Marantz klipsch and plasma. Thanks for your help.

Popcorn Hour gets my vote!

 

[flathead]

what type of connections does it offer?

 

[Nemo128]

flathead, welcome to the addiction. There is no rehab. You have been warned.

Give us some specific requirements. If you don't, we're all going to throw a whole lot of ideas at you with no real basis for recommendation other than "Cuz I like it!"

What media do you intend to play? If it will be archived data, where and how will you store it? Will this be a network-accessible storage? What existing hardware and components do you have? Budget? Those are the first questions I could think of, there will be more.

Have fun.

 

[jinjuku]

What encoding is your audio in (or is it all still CD/DVD)?

Do you want only music play back? Wireless?

 

[flathead]

We would like to be able to store media either in hard drive or flash drive. also be nice to play streaming audio & video eg. netflix. No need for network. Still just cd & dvd. Current system is Marantz sr6001, klipsch rf-82 home theater system w/ a couple of extra subs for the movies, satellite and an old jvc dvd player that doesn't enjoy my subs. open to any suggestions. hope this helps. thanks again!

 

[tbergman]

Well if you want to back up all your DVD/CD's you'll need a decent sized hard drive (or drives). Do you have any interest in building a small HTPC and running XBMC?

It is what I'm running to access all of my DVD's that I've backed up as ISO files. It's pretty easy to use once it's all setup and pretty cheap(XBMC is free, just need to setup a basic PC to run it). It even gathers up info and DVD covers for your movies from IMDB so you can have the wall of movies like with the much more expensive movie servers.

 

[flathead]

How much memory is enough? What's the best way to connect the htpc to the system?

 

[tbergman]

How much memory is enough? What's the best way to connect the htpc to the system?

With memory, and I'm assuming you are talking storage, not ram, is totally dependent on your DVD collection. Average DVDs ripped as an ISO are 3-6 GB, so you can see that will add up quickly. I would start off with at least a 1 TB drive.

My media center is actually a modded XBox original right now, so it's hooked up using component cables and a digital optical cable. But if you're building an HTPC, you'll usually use HDMI or HDMI and a digital audio connection if your receiver doesn't handle audio over HDMI(like mine).

Here are a couple cheap options for a XBMC based PC:

ASRock
The ASRock would still need an OS and probably a larger hard drive, a TB external or replacing the internal drive would probably work.

Acer Aspire Revo
This comes with an OS and small hard drive, but you would still want to add an external drive. Also it doesn't have digital coax or optical so you would need to have a receiver capable of audio over HDMI.

I have not personally used either one of these products but based upon all the reading I've done both of these would work well with XBMC but I don't know about other programs or applications.

 

[flathead]

Thanks tbergman, this is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Of all the options so far I find myself leaning toward something like your xbox. Accessories are readily available, service centers are easy to find, and I'm already familiar with xbox. Also I already spent a ton of coin on a 36' component video cable. Climbing back up into the attic to install another diamond encrusted (should have been) video cable isn't at the top of my list of favorite places or things to do. The next big advantage is that it doubles as a game console Lol. Thanks again for your help.