I'd say the h.264 1080p mkv ability is a must - they might be rarer, but what happens when you just happen to want to watch one? Seems mad not to consider it.
2 other points to consider. Noise and Heat. An HTPC will most likely be placed in a family / living room. (TV room as my kids call it. ) Also, my wife for one, would insist that it be installed in our entertainment center. I currently have an issue where my TiVo overheats if the DVD player is playing a movie. Noone is watching the TiVo, but it's darned hot. But I digress, that's a problem i have to resolve. My point is, if the HTPC significantly increases the thermal load in the entertainment center then it's a no go. Just my 2 cents (American ) worth. Look forward to the review / guide.
for me the first priority is low power as its something thats gonna be on for a lot of hours a day ( well mine is... comes on at 5:30 pm and goes off at 2.30 am).... For that reason an nvidia based hybrid power setup might be nice to see in the list for a gaming htpc. As to ITX, i dont get the point of it for an htpc, firstly you probably want more than one drive in there at the end of the day, and bluray laptop sized drives and itx cases are still quite pricey... + Matx is cheaper both for boards, drives, and cases and fits just fine in any AV rack... Bluray is next with dvd just behind. The whole sound situation with PCs is irritating at the moment Proper bitsteaming of truehd etc is only available with one sound card on one bit of software...Tho auzentech have a card in the works... Realistically the only cost effective solution is 7.1 lpcm. (which rules out the 780g mobo) file/media/web/mail etc serving makes a lot of sense if it going to be on all the time. May as well kill two birds with one stone. PS. it would be nice to see some gaming benchmarks on onboard chipsets at 720p (1080p might be too much to ask of the little fellas) as for a case recomendation, i have a thermaltake lanbox lite which is cheap £45ish, fairly spacious and not too offensive to look at. (especially considering its a thermaltake) http://www.thermaltake.co.jp/product/Chassis/CubeDX/lanboxLite/+_image/03_bns_angleview_450.gif
i dont very often as my HD2600XT rather limits these things. but trackmania and defcon are practically designed with projectors in mind
Thats the current thing that has put me off building a HTPC for a long time, and its the point of running it all day almost. Considering most decent TV's offer built in freeview, i dont record much as there is sod all on these days. Therefore a HTPC for me is a method to watch DVD's and BD discs, maybe playback music. Trackmania sounds good... hehehehe As soon as the nvidia atom love child makes it to ITX and the shops then i might consider building a small low power HTPC, that hooks up directly to my NAS/torrent box where my films and music will be stored. (1Gbit connection of course)
When you do the mAtx system I would do it with a full size, or at least something with a riser card. I feel that half height cards reduce your choices greatly. Of course if you had to do half height case, then the half height Xonar, and Sapphire makes a 3650 with DVI, VGA, and HDMI Out. (using that on myself.)
See Ive gone the other way entirely. I've got mATX with 1 drive and a Huuuuuuuuuge Lian Li but I'd happily swap it all for a mATX with a 120W pico-PSU. More expensive and harder to find good parts, but dinkier, a little more lower power and easier to hide. Much harder to find a nice mini-ITX case though The hardest part is finding the stuff you want - that J&W I looked at last year - awesome, but can't find it for **** in the UK still
i know what you mean, sometimes the challenge of getting something tiny that does a load of tasks well is quite fun... but it's one of those law of diminishing returns things.You could have spent half the amount on something not really that much bigger that does exactly the same thing AND has more expansion room down the line... My system (Amd be-2350, Amd 690G motherboard, 1gb of ram, 2 500gb hdds, hauppauge twin tuner freeview card and an ati 2600xt, running XP, GBPVR and Squeezecenter) currently does everything i want it to barring 7.1 lpcm (which is a 25 quid graphics card upgrade) but i still have the urge to upgrade the whole lot. PS. Jetway do a decent range of ITX boards, including a 780g one Having said that, if the nvdia ion chipset gets released and does 7.1 lpcm im totally gonna bag one
http://www.projecthtpc.co.uk/htpc.html Some thing like that where it tells you how to set up the best hardware and software. Include cases like the Silverstone CW03 as that is a nice case with a full 1080p screen on the front. Also check out http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=162555 as there are a few cases on there
How about a J&W MINIX 780G mobo in a tiny mini-itx case? It should run 1080p fine, according to their website.
could you try to recommend parts where they can be found globally, NZ has **** all when it comes to mini ITX.
Some people (ie me) may have the feeling that a HTPC may be more flexible and capable than the collection of boxes already under the TV. But for someone who isn't a huge audio/video enthusiast, where do you start? A basic, but capable setup which they can add to later if they want would be the best reccomendation. Need a Blu-ray player - add this. Need a fancy soundcard - add this. It should be important that what you get has room for expansion and isn't obselete in 3 months.
Nice One I hadn't looked recently £96 is a good price! The problem is finding a really nice mini-ITX case. Most look like they were designed on the back of a *** packet.
I've recently come across this, which i think has to be one of the best choices for a mini-itx case (they have a full range of cases). It is also quite customizable, for a price. Although knowing bit-techers, i'm sure they'd be quite handy themselves And i'm sure you're all aware of the mCubed HFX case, which has been covered by Nexxo here Another good contender is the Nexus psile which is not height restrictive, and so can place a substantial cooler into. I'm still torn between which of the first two i'd rather go for...
As long as it had ideas for a full/mATX case, board, PSU and TV card recommended, I would be happy. Hope this idea hasn't slipped off the radar
