New Project

For the longest time I have had been meaning to catalog all my DIVX format movies. DivX format is pretty great. The quality is very close to DVD. Plus, the size of the movies are lowered considerably. Generally 1 movie is close to 4 gigs in size. A DivX format Avi movie runs around 700 MB. I can get 6 movies to a DVD that way. Saving on blank DVD's.

So one night I sat on my bed with my laptop and typed all 600 of them into DVD database software. (Movie Collector)

Didn't realize how many I had until you get them all typed out into a database. I am going to do away with DVD's though. I will keep them for backup purposes only.

I've decided to build a HTPC. (Home Theater PC) I am only going to use it for playback of my movies and probably a bit of music listening. In the future I will put in a TV tuner so I can use it to capture/record HD television.

I just thought it would be nice to be able to sit down and scroll through all the movies I have via my big HD Plasma TV, see one you want to watch and click, it starts. Thought that would be cool, to be able to see the DVD front cover image and the movie description.

I've never built a HTPC before, I have built desktop computers though. There really isn't much difference. They both are capable of doing the same thing. Specially a gaming PC. This HTPC will also have internet access, so guest can veg on the couch watch movies, surf the internet, check their mail, etc. Plus I will be able to download my movies directly to it. The part I am dreading is the time it will take to load all the movies I have on DVD to the hard drive.

The hardest part so far was finding the right HTPC Case. Which is the chassis that would hold all the components. Roughly you want it to be slimline desktop case. On the lines of a FM Receiver that you would have for a Home Entertainment Center. HTPC popularity seems to be picking up speed and these cases aren't cheap, a nice one anyway. I managed to get one for $62 that came with a power supply. That was another hard one, finding one that came with a power supply.

I ordered the rest of the parts last evening and should arrive somewhere around April 15th. I just hope this all turns out the way I would like it to. Since this is my first attempt at a HTPC I'm not sure how the video play back is going to be or the Audio. We'll find out soon enough.

As far as the specs. go for the geeks out there:

Motherboard:

Asus M3A78-CM Motherboard - AMD780V, Socket AM2/AM2+, MicroATX, Audio, Video, Hybrix CrossFire, DVI, DP, VGA, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, RAID

Processor:

AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition Processor AD775ZWCGHBOX - 2.70GHz Dual Core

Hard Drive:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 32MB cache

Memory:

Kingston 2048MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory (2 Gig)

DVD Burner:

LG DVD Burner - 22x DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 22x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW, 16x DVD-ROM


I am still in limbo on getting a separate video and audio card until I have it put together. I am going to see how the onboard Video and Audio does first. So far I have spent $359. Which will go up if I have to get independent video and audio cards.

I will be running Windows Vista Ultimate. Ultimate comes with Windows Media Center.

I'll provide pictures and maybe video of how it all turns out. Wish I would have thought of one of these sooner.


Wikipedia for HTPC Check it out, you might be interested in one yourself :) The quality of video playback of a HTPC is far more superior than any stand alone DVD player you could buy. Even the top end expensive ones. Blu-Ray and HD DVD's. It also has other great benefits and capabilities I didn't mention.

Seems to be expensive at my price of $359 (so far). But when you think of all it can do and does, It's worth it.