Doesn't have to be ultra tiny, but something maybe half the overall size of a standard minitower...looking for something to network and run to a plasma tv's RJ45 port

also I'm looking for something more vertical tower shaped

ie



as opposed to a cube

ie

6/5/2008 12:43:59 PM

ill be interested as well


I just and moved into this new house last week


and already, im thinking of a decked out home theater.

Plasma, media center, surround, cables in the walls, etc.

6/5/2008 1:17:50 PM

So I take it you won't have decent graphics card or a TV tuner in your media PC? That small of a form factor requires low-profile cards, microATX or miniITX boards, and most limit you to at most 2 expansion slots, and possibly only 1 if you are forced to use a riser card.

basically what i'm saying is you can't get smaller than a minitower unless you go low-profile and/or only using it as a front end

i used to own an Antec Minuet, and loved it.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 3:05 PM. Reason : .]

6/5/2008 3:03:04 PM

not worried about expansion as there are a couple other full sized systems nearby...it wouldnt even hardly need a monitor or keyboard except for loading stuff on it

i think this might work well

http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3685642&CatId=2313

6/5/2008 3:04:51 PM

I struggled with this for a while. A ps3 ended up being the best thing for me. mac mini for a friend of mine. if you dont need a tuner card to run the tv, I'd recommend either. you can pretty much play all media with both and I get more utility from the ps3 for blurays and games. he gets more use out of having a better browser, checking his email in the morning with a real client, and the device playing nicer with his linux machines. building your own is pretty much a waste of time and effort with as cheap as you can get the 2.

6/5/2008 6:00:11 PM

i was thinking possibly the game console route but i might need to use it a little bit for some encoding and conversions, etc...also not positive how the RJ45 connection will work so I'd like the option of being able to adjust the display settings on the graphics card just in case to try and fudge with the resolution and aspect ratio if certain movies dont fit on the tv correctly

6/5/2008 6:55:51 PM

well.. rj45 is ethernet... so I dont know what kinda tv you got. anyway I do the transcoding on the computer that's actually streaming the media. it does it on the fly, but most media doesn't require it. if you want a computer with a small footprint and remote, it's hard to beat a mac mini, especially a refurb on apple.com.

6/5/2008 9:50:12 PM

yeah its a Pioneer Elite and it has an RJ45

6/5/2008 11:13:08 PM

How much would it cost build from scratch a decent Media PC with basic capabilities (decent size hard drive and surround sound decoding with HDTV compatibility)? Also, how does using a Media PC for surround sound duties compare with a dedicated receiver?

6/6/2008 8:42:56 AM

Quote :

"building your own is pretty much a waste of time and effort with as cheap as you can get the 2."

only the ps3/360 won't play the most common HD format (the only format really if you choose to download via newsgroups/torrents), mkv. Reason we ditched our 360 for a laptop until we get an actual media center pc.

^Get the media center pc plus a receiver and go optical from pc to receiver. Best way to go.

Quote :

"it's hard to beat a mac mini"

Yeah but i wanna be able to play all my computer games on my hdtv. With the price of video cards these days it's almost as cheap to build a decent gaming pc, as a decent media center pc. Plus mac minis are ugly.

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 9:08 AM. Reason : .]

6/6/2008 9:02:44 AM

Quote :

""it's hard to beat a mac mini""

What type of hard drive do they use? On the apple website it only lets you configure it to 160gb, which is obviously inadequate for a Media PC. If you have attach external storage, I think they lose their appeal pretty quickly.

6/6/2008 9:17:15 AM

Oh yeah, I'd like it to be mostly silent as well.

6/6/2008 9:29:14 AM

Yeah mac mini is a bad idea. For 600$ you get an older 1.83Ghz Core 2 duo with only 1 gig of memory and an 80 gig harddrive. Plus a crappy integrated video card. You're able to build a MUCH better media center pc with 600$. Hell you could build an alright gaming PC for 600$ to use with an HDTV. If you REALLLLY want Leopard build a better pc and put leopard on it, but in my opinion Windows Media Center or other linux alternatives are much better.

6/6/2008 9:34:59 AM

why do you need disk space on the media pc? especially if you want it quiet. all you need is a network connection to be able to stream from elsewhere. also, my ps3 plays mkv very well. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131782 that tool takes about 2min per ~5gb mkv file on my slow athlon 4400x2 with 2gb of ram.

6/6/2008 9:37:34 AM

^In case you aren't near your router? If your far away running cables becomes problematic and wireless quality begins to degrade. My experience with streaming over wireless has been bad. I'd like to enable sharing, drop all my files on the Media PC, and then watch them locally. I don't trust streaming regular def. content over wireless, much less HD content.

6/6/2008 9:41:11 AM

^^No it still doesn't play .mkv files natively. You still remux it to .vob. For larger movies it's too much of a hassle to do that to every one. Plus it doesn't support subtitles/multiple audio tracks (or did that change?) and i've had sync issues and various other problems like only being able to convert to 1280x720 or 1920x1080 and no DTS. It's just so much easier to play the file natively and not deal with all that crap.

Still the mac mini is a horrible deal. You're basically paying 600$ for an OS and some crappy hardware. You can build yourself a media center pc with MUCH better specs for 600$

^I've never had luck streaming HD content over wireless G, but it probably works fine over N. We wired our whole apartment with cat6 cable so the streaming isn't a big deal. The main reason i want my media center pc to have tbytes upon tbytes of storage space is for portable reasons. I have so many friends with HDTV's now it would be SO easy to pick it up and take it to a friends house along with an hdmi cable and you're set to go. If you choose to stream all your content over your network you can't bring your media anywhere. What's the fun of having all this content if i can't bring it to a friends place?

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 10:03 AM. Reason : .]

6/6/2008 9:54:52 AM

So what then is required for a decent Media PC?

- Decent videocard ~ $200. Does it need to be HDCP compliant?
- Mobo/CPU. Preferably something low wattage and cool. Probably also ~$200
- HDD of decent size ~ $100. Depending on what deals you can find.
- Enclosure of choice. ~ $50


With the right motherboard it should include low-grade sound, ethernet, and all the controllers I need. Am I missing something or can this be built for around $500, +- $50? I can get the OS through the MSDNAA.

6/6/2008 10:15:06 AM

^are you going to be playing games on it? If not get a mobo with integrated HDMI for HD content so you don't even need an additional video card (if you wanna upgrade later you can always buy a video card for games). If it's just a media center pc you don't need to spend 200$ on a processor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131237

That was just a quick search. You can find hdmi mobos for 75-150$ easy.

6/6/2008 10:24:33 AM

^I don't care about playing games on it, I have an Xbox360, but for the reasons you mentioned I'd like to have a dedicated storage tank for my media. So with the need for a video card eliminated and a cheaper mobo, it seems like this can be had for closer to $300. Is that about right?

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 10:45 AM. Reason : .]

6/6/2008 10:34:55 AM

I'd still say around 500$.

Mobo/integrated video:150$
Cpu:150$
Power supply:75-100$ (don't cheap out on this)
2 gigs ram: 22.99$ after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227139
Case:50-75$
HDD:1 tbyte for 175-200$
HDTV tuner?

It adds up. You can always get a smaller 500GB HDD for ~80$.

6/6/2008 10:54:31 AM

for $574 this is what i'd get:
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=11804287&WishListTitle=mediaPC

just add your OS of choice and a small form factor case.

6/6/2008 11:14:08 AM

I'm still not sure how decent of a video or sound card you need...if the Media PC is on your network via RJ45, you'd be more reliant on the video of the tv and the sound of the amp/receiver...Media PC would be more or less a storage device, with a media connector

6/6/2008 3:04:54 PM

WTH are you talking about?

What exactly do you have?
What do you want/need?

You confuse me with every post.

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 3:55 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2008 3:53:36 PM

i said in the first post its going to connect to a plasma TV using RJ45 / Cat5 / Cat6...I'm thinking the TV is going to be responsible for most of the video encoding, not the computer...its not like I'm trying to run a video out from the video card into one of the TV's video inputs

6/6/2008 3:56:07 PM

^that's exactly what you're supposed to do. A media center pc connects its video card to the display through hdmi. The tv is essentially a display for the computer. What you're talking about is simply networking your tv to a network so it can access media, but from what i understand that type of tv has no where near the codec support of a pc or console.

6/6/2008 4:00:19 PM

but I've already successfully played DivX and XVid AVIs and WMVs, as well as VOB files through the TV's USB port...I figure all those should therefore play through the RJ45 as well

I had a similar setup with a Buffalo Terastation but it required a separate receiver to output video to a TV (through video in ports)...seems like this TV has that receiver built in

6/6/2008 4:05:22 PM

^probably. tried any HD content? You know it being an HDTV and all.

6/6/2008 4:06:49 PM

nah no mkvs yet...only realize the TV had an RJ port last weekend...setup is down in Florida

6/6/2008 4:10:06 PM

yea, if that's the case why not just use a NAS

6/6/2008 4:10:37 PM

i never understood why people played any compressed SD content on an HDTV. Normal SD/dvd already looks bad on a large HDTV, compressed/ripped .avis, xvids, divx look simply HORRIBLE.

6/6/2008 4:22:23 PM

i dunno, ive had some divx rips look damn good when played through my 360 on my hdtv...not hd, but very good

6/6/2008 4:46:14 PM