media centre build

[Chris Debenham]

I use an ASRock ION 330 for media centre duties (replacing a mac mini)
Costs about $350 - just add disk and a usb tuner or two and you have a
decent machine capable of playing High Def media via HDMI (I can play
1080p without too much issue - generally about 40% cpu usage when
playing HD stuff - less for over-the-air HD stuff)
It only takes one internal disk, but add an external drive if you need
more space.

On 18 April 2010 06:24, bryn mitchell <bryn_mitchell at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
> I am going to get / build a media centre. I could buy a MAC Mini which seems
> just about ready to go out of the box or I could go thru the project of a
> Linux equivalent.
> I want to access the net, rip and play (thru a sound system) music, record
> and replay digital TV, play DVD's / Blue Ray, etc thru a Panasonic Viera
> wide screen plasma.
> This is something I would be happy to spend a couple of weeks on and off to
> complete but not a couple of months to get right. It also needs to work
> right every time or it will fall flat with the missus and kids.
> I have done some reading about Myth TV and it's variants and other
> applications such as Boxee and XBMC but my real sticking point is hardware.
> I got a quote from a local shop to build a box that would suit Win 7 and I
> assume that would also be adequate for a Linux equivalent but the cost was
> about $2500, about $1000 more expensive than a MAC Mini solution. For me,
> the real seller of a Linux system would be to do it on the cheap but as I
> said before I don't want to spend all my time (I am time poor) buying
> hardware and then buying more hardware because it doesn't work or endlessly
> trouble shooting a dodgy set up.
> Ideally I think my best scenario would be to buy a used PC and just add
> appropriate hardware such as a tuner card, graphics card etc but I don't
> know what to buy (or for that matter where to buy). Also fan noise etc is
> any issue I believe.
> Interested in any opinions,
>
> Regards.
> B. Mitchell
>
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