Building a HTPC. input requested

Sevs753

Sevs753

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
2,788
Location
Metro Detroit
Car(s)
'13 Subaru BRZ, '04 GMC Yukon
My father has decided that we need to overhaul out entertainment center. So he has decided we're getting rid of cable TV and getting netflix. He also wants me to build a HTPC to use as a bluray player and media streaming device.
The requirements are:
-able to play blurays
-able to stream netflix
-able to access from other computers to back files up to
-budget: ~$350 USD

So far, I have picked out these parts. What i want to know is if these parts will be able to play blurays in 1080p and if i've overlooked something major. Any suggestiong would be appreciated.

[All links lead to newegg.com]
-Case: nMEDIAPC Black
-PSU: Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D
-Disc Drive: LITE-ON Black 4X BD-ROM
-CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz
-Motherboard: ASRock 880GM-LE AM3
-RAM: Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3
-Sound Card: SIIG IC-510012-S2 5.1 Channels
-Raid Controller: Rosewill RC-216 PCI RAID 0/1/0+1/JBOD/ un-RAID mode Controller Card
-Wireless Adapter: TP-LINK TL-WN722N IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0
 
Last edited:
HDD would probably be nice. Any reason for that raid controller?

That will easily play blu-rays if hardware acceleration is enabled. I've played blu-rays with Atom 330+Radeon 4350.
 
h-p said:
HDD would probably be nice. Any reason for that raid controller?

That will easily play blu-rays if hardware acceleration is enabled. I've played blu-rays with Atom 330+Radeon 4350.
Click to expand...

Whoops, forgot about that... we already have a 120gb hard drive to use for windows 7 and the programs and two 500gb HDD's that i'll put in raid 1 using the raid controller.
 
Last edited:
The onboard HD4250 will have enough performance for an HTPC. That said, if it doesn't turn out to be enough, I can vouch for the 5570. Mine's super quiet and would be more than enough for what you need.
 
The problem with the blu-ray requirement is that you're stuck with Windows for the time being, which is a shame as Linux-based systems like mythbuntu/Mythtv/XBMC perform much better than their Windows counterparts.
 
XBMC on Windows run perfectly for me, though I don't have a Blu-Ray drive so I can't speak to that.
 
my original plan was to use XBMC on ubuntu but that's when i learned that netflix watch instantly won't work on linux. And Netflix is a big thing with my parents. so my choice is kind of limited.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top