Media cntre/ Home theater PC

[legrandefromage]

Right chaps, thinking caps on:

I want to store my DVD collection onto HDD so instead of having 300 DVDs lying around, its all on a PC.

What do I need:

Hardware?

Software?

I know its a biggy but at least have a think while I'm off to work.

 

[mattbrown]

a big hard drive, an ok graphics card, a dvd drive, plenty of ram

 

[JeRkY]

an ability to ignore the constant whir of cooling fans whilst your trying to watch a movie.

I have done the media PC thing before but shelved it all as it was too noisy and using windows on a TV is just a bit poop.

Nice case though, CNC'd and plated, cost a chuffing fortune. Calle d a hoojum or something if I recall.

 

[terryhfs]

There are two approaches really.

I built a fairly low powered PC (AMD Athlon XP 2500) with big hard drives, reasonable graphics card and Nebula DigitTV in it. You don't need much power for DVD playback (especially if you can do the decoding in hardware on the graphics card) and so you need less cooling, making a quieter PC.

Mine is set up so that the TV is one monitor and an LCD screen on the wall by the sofa is a second. This means we can send emails, do some web stuff, while watching TV or DVDs. In theory we could actually watch TV on one screen and DVD on the other. The sound is output over TOSLINK optical to the A/V amp under the telly.

Probably the quieter and more elegant solution now would be to store all your stuff on a networked (NAS) drive somewhere else in your house and then have a Network Media Player under the TV. That way you can watch films on the TV, but also on a laptop or other computer elsewhere in the house too.

 

[perry]

i was thinking couldnt you just run a server ( fookin cheap on the bay for an oldun )

it would be annoying to lose it all though so best to save it all to dvd disc

 

[hondamatic]

Get a nice sound card too! X-Fi, one of the better Turtle Beach cards, etc...

 

[legrandefromage]

doh! Just put a 250W Shuttle PSU on ebay... super silent type..

der....

Cheers guys.

 

[barry2017]

I reckon a this could be a job for one of your skip PCs, a Raid controller, and Freenas.
A silent, diskless machine by the TV, connected via ethernet, et voila, media centre!
My ex girlfriend built a Media Centre PC, it sounded like a small aircraft was taking off every time we tried to watch a film.

 

[Xesh]

.....a Media Centre PC, it sounded like a small aircraft was taking off every time we tried to watch a film.

Have you had a look at Quiet PC ?

 

[OrangeRetro]

I use my xbox 360 as a media centre extender, so all my films, music are stored on my PC upstairs and then piped down via my LAN to the front room. It doesn't work properly with wireless though! The xbox is a little noisy, but you soon forget about the fans. Cheap and easy solution, plus, if don't have one alread, you get to buy an xbox!