Computer Builds

[Aqweei]

I'd be careful with doing bluray in a htpc. I don't know if things have changed, but when bluray first hit the market me and my dad bought a bluray player for the PC. Quickly ran into an issue of no video players supporting bluray disks. There was an issue with different standards and ecodings being used that were supported by standalone players, but not windows applications. We eventually said screw it, and stopped using it and picked up a bluray player. Again, things may have changed since then, but I would do some research before dropping some money for the diskdrive. Also, I love my Roku. I spent $10 to get this app called "Roksbox" that allows me to stream music/pictures/video to my Roku device from a media pc. The UI isn't the greatest, but it allows me to get my movies to my tv. Between that and my Netflix account, I get tons of online content

Oh... that app sounds like a winner, you might just make me plug the roku box back up (had it disabled because we have slow internet at our new house so we canceled netflix) Can you stream content via wifi?

As far as the Bluray Players go as far as I know they have worked out a lot of the kinks they had with them initially, however, I still have a good year or two before I even think about an HTPC.

[Jcannon98188]

Yup, WiFi is what I use. I have a big old dumb TV, and use the program to stream my downloaded videos to my TV. http://roksbox.com/ . All you need to do is setup a webserver (really easy, Windows even comes preinstalled with one, or download Apache) and follow some tutorials on their webpage. This app + torrenting = great streaming content to your TV.

[WizardTrip]

Blu-ray playback on a PC (and inside a media center) is now there, but limited to just a couple of options. Total Media Theatre and PowerDVD both support blu-ray. I've only dabbled, but TMT also has a plugin for Windows Media Center, so blu-ray is definitely usable in today's HTPC's. With that said, if you choose to go Linux or Mac, you're SOL in wanting to play the discs (there are some workarounds, but they are not worth it). Also, if you plan on anything other than Windows Media Center, you also may be SOL.

Personally, my HTPC is an old intel based Mac Mini with a Broadcom CrystalHD decoder in place of the WiFi card. All of my Blurays, HD-DVDs (yes, I bought a lot of them), and DVDs have been ripped with MakeMKV (no quality loss) and stored on my unRAID server. I have flawless 1080p playback with this setup.

[Aqweei]

Blu-ray playback on a PC (and inside a media center) is now there, but limited to just a couple of options. Total Media Theatre and PowerDVD both support blu-ray. I've only dabbled, but TMT also has a plugin for Windows Media Center, so blu-ray is definitely usable in today's HTPC's. With that said, if you choose to go Linux or Mac, you're SOL in wanting to play the discs (there are some workarounds, but they are not worth it). Also, if you plan on anything other than Windows Media Center, you also may be SOL.

Personally, my HTPC is an old intel based Mac Mini with a Broadcom CrystalHD decoder in place of the WiFi card. All of my Blurays, HD-DVDs (yes, I bought a lot of them), and DVDs have been ripped with MakeMKV (no quality loss) and stored on my unRAID server. I have flawless 1080p playback with this setup.

Rough estimate on just how long it would take me to rip 200+ DVD's + 10-15 Blu-Rays?

[WizardTrip]

Rough estimate on just how long it would take me to rip 200+ DVD's + 10-15 Blu-Rays?

Blu-ray rip with MakeMKV will take ~1-1.5 hours, DVD's will take ~20-45mins depending on the DVD (the DVD decryption can vary widely). I'd say 100-150 hours total. My method during ripping wasn't trying to do one after another in a ripping marathon. I'd do 2-3 each night after work, make sure I had one starting fresh right before going to bed, another one in the morning while getting ready, then another one right before leaving for work. This would get 5-6 rips in a day. If I didn't have much going on during the weekends and was lounging around the house, I'd rip a good bit more. It may seem like a long time, but even taking it slow, you'd have your collection ripped in about a month.

Now, for storage requirements, your average DVD will be ~7+ GB full quality (somewhere between 4.7-9GB), and ~20+GB for the blu-rays (14-40+GB). So, ~2TB drive would have you covered. This will be just for MakeMKV since it just rips the main movie. If you do full "backups", your storage needs will go up.

I guess I should add that my software of choice is XBMC for so many reasons, but it's also the only one that supports the CrystalHD decoder.

[Aqweei]

Blu-ray rip with MakeMKV will take ~1-1.5 hours, DVD's will take ~20-45mins depending on the DVD (the DVD decryption can vary widely). I'd say 100-150 hours total. My method during ripping wasn't trying to do one after another in a ripping marathon. I'd do 2-3 each night after work, make sure I had one starting fresh right before going to bed, another one in the morning while getting ready, then another one right before leaving for work. This would get 5-6 rips in a day. If I didn't have much going on during the weekends and was lounging around the house, I'd rip a good bit more. It may seem like a long time, but even taking it slow, you'd have your collection ripped in about a month.

Now, for storage requirements, your average DVD will be ~7+ GB full quality (somewhere between 4.7-9GB), and ~20+GB for the blu-rays (14-40+GB). So, ~2TB drive would have you covered. This will be just for MakeMKV since it just rips the main movie. If you do full "backups", your storage needs will go up.

I guess I should add that my software of choice is XBMC for so many reasons, but it's also the only one that supports the CrystalHD decoder.

I would probably also be going with XBMC whenever the time comes. I really hate that I have to take 3 months off work. So much fun stuff I could do with that money instead of saving most of it! lol. I had actually thought of a method kind of like you were saying of just having it rip while im sleeping or whatever and taking it slow. I would just have to invest about 200-250 just to get started with it though. So at this time its not worth it.

[JohnnyA]

Main "Gaming" Rig (I don't game much anymore->Baby)

Built this back in 2009 and it has treated me well for the last 3 years. It is getting quite loud in its old age though. The case alone has 4 fans, plus the CPU fan, GPU fan, and the PSU fan. Even with all the fans turned down, this beast can't be awake if I'm trying to sleep. Performance is still great, especially after reformatting with Windows 7 Pro (originally Vista Home Premium ick)

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Midtower ATX

Mobo: EVGA 780i SLI FTW

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz with Zalman CNPS9500A (92 mm)

Mem: 4 Gb OCZ Platinum DDR2 1066

GPU: 512 Mb EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+

HDD: 640 Gb WD Caviar Black

PSU: 850W Zalman ZM850-HP (wayy overkill)

OS: Windows 7 Pro

Home Theater Computer

This is sitting on a dresser below my 52" Sharp LCD. The case is not super small, take a mid-tower and tip it on its side and this case is just a little shorter, but it's not too bad. The only thing I use this for is surfing, Netflix, and Hulu and it's plenty powerful :-)

Mobo: Biostar A880G+ AM3 (Micro ATX)

CPU: 3.3 GHz AMD Athlon II X3 Tri-Core

Mem: 4 Gb Crucial DDR3 1333

GPU: Onboard ATI Radeon HD 4250

HDD: 30 Gb OCZ Vertex SSD

PSU: 430W Corsair CX430 V2

OS: Windows 7 Pro

[Jcannon98188]

Gosh darnit, now I have a project to do I am moving into a new house next weekend, and will be buying a proper tv shortly (still using a big box, going to get a flatscreen). I guess I am going to convert my old webserver that I never use into a XBMC pc to run all my media off of. I have a couple 1tb drives sitting in my house, which should be more than enough to hold the videos and music And might I say, XBMC has come a long way since when I first started using it. I remember running it off of my soft-modded xbox

[Aqweei]

Main "Gaming" Rig (I don't game much anymore->Baby)

Built this back in 2009 and it has treated me well for the last 3 years. It is getting quite loud in its old age though. The case alone has 4 fans, plus the CPU fan, GPU fan, and the PSU fan. Even with all the fans turned down, this beast can't be awake if I'm trying to sleep. Performance is still great, especially after reformatting with Windows 7 Pro (originally Vista Home Premium ick)

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Midtower ATX

Mobo: EVGA 780i SLI FTW

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz with Zalman CNPS9500A (92 mm)

Mem: 4 Gb OCZ Platinum DDR2 1066

GPU: 512 Mb EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+

HDD: 640 Gb WD Caviar Black

PSU: 850W Zalman ZM850-HP (wayy overkill)

OS: Windows 7 Pro

Home Theater Computer

This is sitting on a dresser below my 52" Sharp LCD. The case is not super small, take a mid-tower and tip it on its side and this case is just a little shorter, but it's not too bad. The only thing I use this for is surfing, Netflix, and Hulu and it's plenty powerful :-)

Mobo: Biostar A880G+ AM3 (Micro ATX)

CPU: 3.3 GHz AMD Athlon II X3 Tri-Core

Mem: 4 Gb Crucial DDR3 1333

GPU: Onboard ATI Radeon HD 4250

HDD: 30 Gb OCZ Vertex SSD

PSU: 430W Corsair CX430 V2

OS: Windows 7 Pro

Very nice

Jcannon- Feel free to send me some tb drives

[littleblue]

I'm drooling over all of these builds. I'm going to be putting my own rig together for the first time soon. This thread is making me very excited to do so.

[Loren Wade]

To each their own! Nothing wrong with that. I would love to have some extra memory. Throw me a TB Edit: How do you like OSX in comparison to windows and the like? Ive always been curious about Mac products but Ive always been a PC/Android person. I wont touch an Iphone because Ive tried to use one and I simply cant stand texting on one and I enjoy tweaking around with my droid. However, the Macbooks are intriguing.

Haha. I bought those hard drive for really cheap a last year. Only like $40 per TB. I've always enjoyed OS X and iOS. I used to love tweaking and changing stuff around all the time but I don't have time for it anymore.

I'll be setting up the OS X raid this weekend I think.

[Aqweei]

I'm drooling over all of these builds. I'm going to be putting my own rig together for the first time soon. This thread is making me very excited to do so.

Let me know if you need help picking out parts. I wouldnt mind helping out at all.

Haha. I bought those hard drive for really cheap a last year. Only like $40 per TB. I've always enjoyed OS X and iOS. I used to love tweaking and changing stuff around all the time but I don't have time for it anymore.

I'll be setting up the OS X raid this weekend I think.

Very nice! It makes me kind of depressed. I paid 100$ for my 64gb SSD and I can now buy the 128gb model for 100$. I paid 50$ for my 500gb HDD and 1TB HDD's are going for 70$ now. /SadPanda

[JohnnyA]

I payed $230 for my modular Zalman power supply, I didn't even need to add any more of the modular connectors to it :-( I was a little excited when I built that rig....