HTPC - Freesat

[Undertaker]

Getting a bit bored at the moment so thought I would start some project, I'm looking into building a htpc


I'm going to keep it quite simple,

Software - possibly myth tv

Hardware - I've no idea, so hopefully you guys can help. It has to be able to playback HD format files

For tv I will be hooking up to freesat, so wintv hd sd2 is probably what I would go for... no other input needed.


Can anyone recommend a few parts to get me started?

Case
CPU
Motherboard
Memory
Graphics card / sound card?? not sure about sound card, help
Hard drive - 350gb is enough
Cordless keyboard and mouse
DVD R/W drive - blue ray is too expensive, and not really needed
Remote control


and it needs to be reasonably quiet, would sit near the tv

any suggestions and prices would be great

[blacksheep]

with linux there is little support to offload anything to the gfx card so you're going to need a beefy cpu to do 1080p and if you want to use a bluray drive or higher bitrate hd video you're best getting a quad core cpu.

As for gfx card - as said above, little support for using any hd decoding facilities of gfx card so wouldn't spend too much cash, nvidea has better linux drivers though so would avoid ati.

Case wise the antec fusion looks quite nice and is v quiet and the psu is pretty good and should be enough for your needs.

[Undertaker]

it doesnt necessarily have to be linux, if windows is a better choice then why not

[pumpman]

I made this recently
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=746561

its very quiet and cool and plays blueray hddvd with ease with very little cpu use

[blacksheep]

I personally prefer mythtv to windows mce but you can probably knock something together cheaper that will also take advantage of being able to offset some of the load to the gpu - your choice tbh, don't think there'll be much in it moneywise as what you save on the cpu you'll be spending on a gfx card pretty much. Guess it depends on budget and OS what you want in the end, windows will probably be easier to set up and myth can take a bit of tinkering especially for anything that isn't really standard. Best bet may be to have a read through the myth wiki and forums and see if people have successfully done what you want to and what hardware they've used. If there's issues with anything that you want to do then windows may be the better route.