I really don’t have any blogging experience but I guess for my first tech blog, I’ll be blogging about my Home theatre PC that I built.
Why did I build a home theatre? Well here’s a list.
- I am an HD movie freak, for some reason I can't watch anything that isn’t HD anymore.
- I want to reduce my CD/DVD clutter.
- Take advantage of free HD movie downloads.
- Make use of my old PC hardware (although I ended up buying a new system)
- The wife enjoys shooting home videos and most video cams today use mpg or video files.
- My home theatre entertains my 2 year old, I pull up YouTube and play a list of nursery rhymes or other kid shows. No more need to keep running back and forth to swap disks.
- Hulu.com also lets you watch free shows so you have the option to cut your cable service.
- With a PC camera and using a communicator software of your choice I can have a video conference with extended family.
Well you would be asking me now, why didn’t I just buy a standalone media player? There are great media players out there like the popcorn hour. I actually bought a popcorn hour but ended up selling it to a friend since I came across problems playing some video files. Of course you can always download the firmware but at times you have to wait for the manufacturer to come out with one.
So now down to my current specification. Please take not I did not base my system on complex mathematical equations of CPU, memory speed or graphics. I simply wanted a Home theatre PC that would be quiet and fill up my cart with the current spending budget that I had during that time. So here’s my list…
I made this order in September of 2008 so prices are based on that date.
- ZEN 400W Fan less power supply $149.99 Remember my goal was to come up with the most silent HTPC so I had to invest a bit more in the power supply. During my research, other HTPC bloggers out there suggest building a real quiet HTPC which could ruin your movie experience. Honestly, I could have gone with $60-$70 Antec quiet power supply. My HTPC is in the living room which is quite noisy and once we’re watching movies with all the explosions and sound effects, you won’t really hear that fan.
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 Brisbane 2.9 $87 This was the cheapest processor I could find at that time, you won’t need all that power if you’re only going to use your HTPC for watching movies.
- WD Caviar Green 1TB $139.99 I can’t believe I spent that much for a 1TB!! You can get them around 70$-80$ today, but I swapped it with 250GB drive, I added the 1TB to my home server. You won’t need that much space on your HTPC drive, this is of course if your HTPC will be connected to a server.
- Silverstone GD01B-MXR ATX Media Center $259.99 Do you ever have a friend hanging out with you when you’re browsing in Newegg that says buy it!! buy it!! Well I bought this, it’s got an LCD panel that I rarely use. I don’t think the cool LCD was worth the buy. This case is a Tank! If you have back problems do not buy this. Well anyway I’m stuck with it now.
- Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 $79.99 Great motherboard, I never had any problems with gigabyte motherboards.
- ASUS Triton 75 CPU Heatsink $39.99 Again I wanted to go fan less, so I got this huge heat sink for my CPU.
- HIS H365P512GNP Radeon HD 3650 512MB $109.99 This is also a fan less video card that has HDMI out.
- Corsair Dominator1066 DDR2 4GB $172.00 You should be okay with 2GB, to avoid worrying about memory upgrades later on.
All in all these set me back $1158.85 with shipping and taxes, this is quite an outrageous price for an HTPC today. I recently made a price check on this similar spec items in Newegg and it cost a little over $500. My home server which I will be blogging later about cost me $495.
Unless your house is already wired, you may also need to shell out around $50 for your wireless card but I strongly do not recommend this especially if you will be streaming HD. I have tried different brands and was not successful using wireless connectivity.
But of course if you don’t need to connect to the Internet or connect to a server then you won’t have to worry about this. You have an option to use an external drive for your movies or you could go by installing an internal hard drive swap bay.
And finally a great add on for anyone who has an HTPC is the gyration remote. You can purchase this at gyration.com I bought the gyration music remote with the wireless keyboard which set me back $75 with the rebate. If you’re just using your HTPC to navigate within the windows media center then you should be good with a regular MCE remote. Navigating a web browser using an MCE remote can be cumbersome, the wife hates it. The gyration remote is easy to use, it works like the WII. And because it uses RF, you don’t have to operate using line of site; coverage is great I can control my HTPC even 30 feet away. Best yet it makes navigating the web easier. You can also pre program it to control other devices such as the TV. Cable box and an auxiliary device, I set mine for my Bose system.
