Hi All, The Powers-That-Be (the wife) has stated that she no longer wants a "wall of DVDs", and as such has latched on to a previous suggestion of mine to rip them all and put the discs/boxes into storage. As part of this discussion (read decree) I have managed to negotiate the inclusion of Blu-ray playback. So my question to the fine people of Bit-Tech is this: What route should I take?: 1. Full-Fat HTPC 2. "Thin" HTPC with networked/external storage (either a NAS or a server - that's a whole other question!) 3. Some consumer device capable of network & Blu-ray playback (Bluray player, Xbone, PS4) with networked/external storage My primary requirements are: Storage and playback of my DVD collection Direct playback of DVDs and Blu-rays Not ugly! Easy to use all in a budget of ~£500 All/any help appreciated Cheers, MadG
+1 for full fat HTPC you can build one pretty cheap these days. Take a gander at an AM1 build. Depending on the size of your collection and if you want to preserve quality then id be tempted with a M-ATX case as opposed to a ITX. More storage space and smaller 2.5" drives are expensive for large ones. I have this which looks pretty nice in my TV cabinet - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silverstone-gd05b-usb-30-grandia-htpc-micro-atx-black-w-o-psu you can opt for smaller cases if space is a problem but you sacrifice on-board storage space. For the OS you can use OPENELEC (re-named Kodi from next release) as XBMC which is free and only needs a small USB stick to run (saves costs on OS drive) although it doesnt play blu-ray so you may need to RIP then like a do.
Hello Mate You thought about an ASUSTOR 202TE or above? It has 2 bays so can take 8TB total and has XBMC built in that you can plug directly into your TV via HDMI and use as you wish. All you would need to do is use a PC or laptop to rip the DVDs to digital format for the NAS to pick up on. I have an 302T (same thing but with faster CPU) and it works a treat. I even have CCTV attached to it which is a bonus. All in your looking at £180 for the NAS and about £220-230 for 2x 4TB HDDS to fill it. That's a hell ton of storage and a small unit that can be kept out of the way that uses little power and has the benefit of being an actual NAS and a CCTV station as well as your multimedia playing device.
Thanks for the suggestions guys! Thanks for the pointer. It looks pretty interesting, but I really want to be able to play blurays and dvds without having to rip the blighters first. It looks like I'll be going for the full-fat HTPC, yay! Having perused the forum for AM1 builds, I found Parge's AM1 HTPC build which has pointed me in some good directions. So far, my spec is: Case - Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black (SST-ML03B) PSU - ??? Mobo - Asus AM1I-A CPU - AMD 5350 Ram - ??? OS - Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit) HDD (system) - SanDisk Pulse 64GB HDD (storage) - Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache Bluray Drive - LG BH16NS40 16x SATA Internal BDRW - Retail Keyboard/Mouse - Microsoft All-in-One Media keyboard (wireless) Remote - MCE Remote with IR receiver (already got from previous dablings) Which totals out at ~£370 leaving me with ~£120 for the PSU and RAM... This is where my knowledge and experience lets me down, as I have never been able to get to grips with the varieties/flavours and umpteen thousand options available for RAM. Any suggestions? I am thinking about a "BeQuiet Pure Power L8 400W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply" for the PSU, but, is this too much? should I opt for something else? Thanks for the suggestion, although it would give me a decent stack of room, I like the styling of the ML05 in Parge's build, but it doesn't have much space. So, trawling through numerous pc component websites, I found its bigger brother the ML03, which gives me room for two 3.5" HDDs alongside the optical drive, and doesn't require a SPF PSU. Win-Win if you ask me I have opted for Windows 8.1 for two reasons: a) I don't have the time to faff with Linux distros, having not had much luck with them in the past (specifically the XBMC Linux distro, where I just couldn't get the sound to work properly, and could only hear, just, it with my TV turned up to 100!), I don't have much faith in being able to get it working. b) It needs to be easy to use with a remote as its primary control and familiar to someone who has not anything but Windows (and the Xbox 360) Cheers, MadG
PSU - any good brand between 350-400W is more than enough for HTPC RAM - AM1 doesn't support dual channel so a single stick of 4GB 1600mhz 1.5V is fine (£30) Storage - id drop that down to a 5400rpm drive or WD green etc - you don't need the speed, noise or power consumption of a 7200 rpm. fair enough around windows my HTPC is windows as it is sometimes used as other things. FYI you can get a small XBMC utility to force it starts before explorer and have the best of both worlds. For the remote you can use tablet or phone or a media remote control. Yatse is the best app for remote.
The Asus AM1I-A only has 2x SATA ports so if you'll need to get a PCI-E SATA card to connect all three drives up.
Cool, will probably go for the BeQuiet I had my eye on then Good to know! Would there be any advantage to more than 4GB? Good point, duh! Was just going with what I have in my main rig. Oooh, will hunt that out, sounds useful. I already have a MCE remote, so hopefully that'll work. And the wireless keyboard/trackpad combo is intended for setup/config, ripping, maintenance, etc. I'll look into that Yatse app though, might be good for myself. But useless for the wife (she doesn't have a smartphone or tablet!) Thanks!
D'oh! Thanks for the heads up. EDIT: just had a qucik poke on ebuyer, and found this. Seems to fit the bill?
The MSI still only has 2x SATA ports. The only one that I can remember having 4x SATA is this ASRock. mrbungle has this board, he put some pics of it up on the last page of Parge's AM1 thread.
Right, I'm going to be thick here but, on the ebuyer page it states "SATAIII - 4", does that not mean 4 SATAIII ports? Edit: Ok, just checked MSI's product page, and it says 2 SATA ports, dang Ebuyer Looks like I'll be going for the ASRock one then.
Thanks for all the help! This is what I'll be buying: Case Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black PSU BeQuiet Pure Power L8 400W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply Mobo ASRock AM1B-ITX CPU AMD 5350 Ram 8GB (2x4GB) Single channel DDR3 1600MHz Memory OS Windows 8.1 (64 bit) HDD (system) SanDisk Pulse 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD HDD (storage) WD 4TB Green Drive 3.5" SATA-III 64MB Cache Bluray Drive LG BH16NS40 16x SATA Internal BDRW - Retail Keyboard/Mouse Microsoft All-in-One Media keyboard Remote MCE Remote with IR receiver Totals out at just shy of £550. I think that'll do nicely. Now just need to pry the cash from the clutches of the Powers-That-Be...
Too much atm as ddr3 prices appear to be firmly developing in the wrong direction. So yep, 4GB will be enough for the purpose.
I'd suggest going the route of storing all your media on some form of NAS. Bonus if your NAS can run MySQL as if you run XBMC you can sync all clients up to a central DB. Paused a film in the living room and want to continue from your bedroom? no problem! I actually pulled my HTPC and replaced with a Prismcube Ruby and LittlePurpleBox. I was fed up of the lack of proper TV drivers for my satellite card with every update it would stop working. If you are looking for a HTPC pre-built on the cheap let me know and I can find specs.
Interesting to know. Ideally I would have a server/NAS to store all my media and files and provide backup functionality, but that will be a long term goal, as currently funds and space are limited. Thanks for the offer, will give you a shout if I decide that building it myself is too much like effort...
Looking at power supplies; I'm thinking that maybe I should go for a modular one to reduce cable clutter. PSU's I'm considering: Fully-tethered: BeQuiet Pure Power L8 400W Modular: Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular Any thoughts? Ideally, I don't want to spend vast quantities on the PSU (<£50), but would stretch if it was worth the extra... Cheers, MadG
