Shentar
Well-Known Member
So I want a media server/player for my living room. I don't want to do live recording, I just want something to play video files I download and occasionally use to surf the net in the living room on my 50" 1080p plasma.
The big questions: Do I make a HTPC or just a media server? An HTPC would just be to watch movies off the PC or video files I download (like races or Top Gear or whatnot). I wouldn't mind watching Hulu or Youtube stuff as well.
Or do I just make it a server and use my PS3 or 360 to play the files. I'd lean toward the PS3 as the Xbox doesn't play a lot of codecs (or last time I checked it didn't).
if I go with an HTPC, I'd probably run Ubuntu and something like Boxee, XBMC (most likely), or Myth.
I have this nice PC I got free from work. Its an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard with 2Gb RAM and a Pentium D 3.2 GHz CPU. Its got an Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 256mb card in it. I've got a Dual Layer DVD-drive for optical use. I scored an LSI PCIe 8-port SAS/SATA raid card from work and 8 750gb SATA hard drives for storage. I can probably scare up some more ram if needed. Like 4 GB worth. The motherboard is nice as it has an optical audio output for surround sound to my home theater system.
So any thoughts? I supposedly could just do the HTPC and experiment with the PS3 and Xbox functionality using daemons. Who knows, but thoughts are nice to get from others. Originally I was going to use a Macbook Pro 15" laptop that I salvaged with a broken LCD, but then I later salvaged another MBP with a good LCD but bad hardware...sooo while that is still an option (as I have another MBP 15" I use for work and a 15" Dell laptop for home use), I got all that storage on the desktop pc, which is nice
The big questions: Do I make a HTPC or just a media server? An HTPC would just be to watch movies off the PC or video files I download (like races or Top Gear or whatnot). I wouldn't mind watching Hulu or Youtube stuff as well.
Or do I just make it a server and use my PS3 or 360 to play the files. I'd lean toward the PS3 as the Xbox doesn't play a lot of codecs (or last time I checked it didn't).
if I go with an HTPC, I'd probably run Ubuntu and something like Boxee, XBMC (most likely), or Myth.
I have this nice PC I got free from work. Its an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard with 2Gb RAM and a Pentium D 3.2 GHz CPU. Its got an Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 256mb card in it. I've got a Dual Layer DVD-drive for optical use. I scored an LSI PCIe 8-port SAS/SATA raid card from work and 8 750gb SATA hard drives for storage. I can probably scare up some more ram if needed. Like 4 GB worth. The motherboard is nice as it has an optical audio output for surround sound to my home theater system.
So any thoughts? I supposedly could just do the HTPC and experiment with the PS3 and Xbox functionality using daemons. Who knows, but thoughts are nice to get from others. Originally I was going to use a Macbook Pro 15" laptop that I salvaged with a broken LCD, but then I later salvaged another MBP with a good LCD but bad hardware...sooo while that is still an option (as I have another MBP 15" I use for work and a 15" Dell laptop for home use), I got all that storage on the desktop pc, which is nice