UBER HTPC?

[FoxBat]

I might be missing the point, but if the idea is to watch movies and stuff on it, wouldn't the ~$1200 be better spent on a regular/compact/out-of-the-way case and a good 30/32" monitor?

"Home Theatre" means widescreen TV and at least surround speakers around a comfy chair/sofa. If you're putting in discs, then it has to fit somewhere accessible, like a stereo cabinet (or whatever you call them)

[Lurker Wyrm]

So that means the LCD case thingy is just for making stuff go, not actually watching? If so, that clears up a ton of confusion.

[Sylva Firewind]

10 foot interface is a common term with media centers, meaning you can see what you are interacting with without having to be 2 feet away from the screen. The large screen on the case would be large enough to see from the average distance one sits from a large screen TV. It should be big enough to augment info on what the box is sending to the TV. Kids could use it while the adults use the big screen too. AND, Well, it plain looks cool 8). I am connecting this thing to a Sony Vega 60 inch HDTV and a rather dated DSP-A1 Yamaha surround sound receiver. Both have Optical in so already bought a splitter for the output from the HTPC.

I(noticed the video card has a -15 discount if you combo it with the oem vista ultimate - the 64bit version is actually cheaper, too)

With 64bit Windows still not very mainstream I would be hesitent to use it. It may be a useful upgrade down the road perhaps when windows 2009 or whatever it will be called comes out. Pricing I am sure will vary depending on the day I make the buy for parts. there was a 20 dollar difference from when I found the quote and today on the wireless keyboard.

[Sylva Firewind]

Well, I have had this thing for a few months and the family is enjoying it pretty well. There are however a few limitations I discovered while building it that may be useful for anyone contemplating creating an htpc beast such as this.
1. The case was a rather pricy choice but you may find that the factory refurbished route will give you some cost savings without loss of quality in the machine. I saved almost $300 going this route.
2. Vista in it's current form has some painful limitations when used as a Media Center(MCE):
a. Audio - windows limitation that only one audio device can be used with any particular software app. This prevents the simultaneous transmission of audio to your TV via mini-plug and toslink to a stereo. manual selection has to be done prior to the desired activity.
b. Dual Display - although you can run two screens you are limited to one desktop environment which basically cripples any idea of using the second display to be a picture show or Media center front end where you could select what is being seen on the main display. (a working but less than desired solution was a software app I came across that lets you change the desktop background at any desired interval from a variety of sources)
c. Native Blue Ray viewing capability does not exist in Vista. Third party software is costly and open source is limited. Even when using third party software it is not seamlessly integrated with the MCE interface
d. Vista's MCE 10 foot interface is very limited in what you can customize. There is a tool to edit this interface but you do not have the freedom to move things around or simplify the choices that are presented to you.
e. even though you tell vista what kind of HDTV display you have ie 1080i widescreen, MCE is not smart enough to resize content to fill the screen when different source formats are received. resulting in many cases of lots of black space on your TV display that you then have to manually adjust for via the MCE remote.

On the positive: I found a wonderful open source plug-in that is regularly being developed: Open Media Library (OML), this adds a row on your interface and allows you to graphically display your movie library. One can even play movies encoded direct from a storage device. need lots of storage for DVD (up to 8.5 gig ea) or Blu Ray (~25G ea) but could save the wear and tear on movies that the kids play over and over. I recently added the Seagate 1.5 TB internal SATA drive to the configuration.

Over all this build is quiet and enjoyable to make and use. The only problems I have had with Vista were ones I created (in terms of crashes/blue screens/lockups).

Like anything else things improve over time as things get more developed. I am hoping for some additional open source projects or developer improvements to resolve the limitations mentioned above for this to really become an amazing appliance in the living room. :wink2: