While there exists a slew of options available to stream content from your computer to your brand spankin' new LCD (here's just a few we've covered in the past few months: Playstation 3, Wii, and Mac Minis), there is absolutely nothing that compares functionality-wise to having a full-fledged media center PC at your disposal. For those new to building computers, here is an in-depth guide we found that will walk you step-by-step through the most difficult processes to create your own media center powerhouse for (relatively) cheap.
DIY: Building Your Own Media Center PC
From PC Magazine:
Parts you'll need (while these are personally parts we found to be extremely well-performing and holds great value, feel free to switch out parts when necessary):
- SilverStone Grandia Micro-ATX GD02B chassis ($159.99)
- ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI Motherboard ($89.99)
- 45-watt AMD Athlon X2 4850e CPU ($77)
- Fanless SilverStone NT01 heat sink ($50.99)
- 500GB Western Digital Caviar Green Power (WD5000AACS) 7,200-rpm SATA hard drive ($74.99)
- 2GB of Crucial 667-MHz DDR2 SDRAM ($42.99)
- SilverStone 500-watt SST-ST50EF-Plus power supply ($89.99)
- Wireless-G PCI adapter ($21.19)
- DH-4B1s Blu-ray writer ($299.99)
- ATI's All-In-Wonder HD card ($219.99)
- Microsoft Vista Home Premium ($109.99)
- Total cost: $1247.00
Step-by-step guide:
Removing brackets and installing power supply
Installing hard drives and card readers
Installing the motherboard into the case and working your magic with thermal material
Installing the heatsink to the CPU, RAM, video card, and connectors
Putting in the Bluray burner and wireless PCI card
Congratulations! You're all done and ready to install Windows Vista Home Premium. You should now be able to use your computer to play Bluray movies, make Bluray movies, record full 1080p content, play video games, and without ever having to worry about streaming issues ever again!
Comments (3)
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That's surprisingly not a bad list. The only change I'd make is to ditch the ATI All in Wonder card and go with separate TV/Video cards. For about the same price you could get a nice, $100, mid-range cards and one of the new Hauppauge PVR-2250's which has does HD/SD and has two tuners so you can record two different shows at the same time.
view evilpenguin81's profile
Good recommendations. But it misses one important part - remote control. It should include IR or RF receiver. Also VFD display would be very helpful :)
view nite_man's profile
Good except for the very last item. Save yourself the money and go with Myth TV. Yes it is linux, but if this is just supposed to be a HTPC you don't need all the extras that come with Windows.
view luzar's profile