Opinions Sought - Budget HTPC Build

[arctorbob]

Hi all

My trusty (no, reallly) Digifusion FVRT150 PVR PSU just died and I'm using that as an excuse to spend £300 on building an HTPC. Advice from the knowledgeable gratefully received:

Uses: Primarily watching Freeview (live/timeshift/recorded), watching dvd (on disc or rip), central home server for mp3s and backups of laptops. WAF is crucial :D

Bits:

Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H AMD 690G Socket AM2 Onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard. £43@ebuyer. I need S-Video out to CRT telly for foreseeable future, hence this choice.

Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5 Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty. £27.50@ebuyer

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor. £43@ebuyer. Seems the best combo of price/power/efficiency

Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM. £43@ebuyer.

Extra Value Sonata MATX MediaCenter Case - With 220W PSU 20+4pin. £40@ebuyer. Seems good value and very living room friendly: did toy with the Antec2480@£65 but gotta keep on budget.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English. £71@ebuyer. I've not got time for any of this let alone on Linux, however good Mythbuntu is supposed to be.....

Pinnacle 3010IX PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro PVR / PCI Express / DVB-T/Analogue TV Tuner / Whitebox. £17.99@play.com. Bargain (or too good to be true?)The cost of this takes away some of the pain of actually using my own money to voluntarily buy Vista.

LG GH22LP20 22x Internal IDE DVDRW Lightscribe Drive Retail kit inc. Bezels. £17.99@play.com. Seems a good price for a retail kit with Nero and PowerDVD. Blu-Ray is just going to have to wait.

Trust Rc-2400 Vista Remote. £20 from Microdirect. Selected largely through boredom whilst trying to research: any bettter ideas?

Might add wireless KB, card reader at later stage.

Not decided on VistaMC / GBPVR / MediaPortal yet but leaning towards GBPVR based on my needs.

Total £320ish. Given that a Humax 320GB PVR is £180 at best this seems like it's worth doing.

1. What have I forgotten?
2. What are bad ideas?

Cheers

Bob

[devo]

Thoughts...

AMD 4850e cpu:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144638

MS remote:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=143741

Change to 32 bit vista too. Could upgrade to the 750gb Spinpoint HDD if poss for the 32mb cache. Might be able to find a cheaper dvd drive on ebuyer. Wireless keyboard? How do you get s-video out from that motherboard?

[Cafe Racer]

I have one of the Pinnacle cards - works fine in my system.

You'll be "okay" with a 500Gb, but because you mention DVDs, MP3s and backups AND for the price of the 1TB, I'd think about it. Although I appreciate you have a budget.

As above, I see no S-Video out on that board? Also echo the "e" series comment.

Remote looks "cheap" but it IS wireless, so...

[arctorbob]

Thanks very much for the quick responses. In no particular order:

S-Video. From the ebuyer reviews:

"The card is supplied with a (standard PCI) height bracket which has a set of component & S-video sockets. The attached cable connects to a header on the MB. To answer an earlier question, this arrangement does not require a card! The sockets on the bracket are fed directly from the MB. The manual claims the Pb socket (one of 3 component output sockets) doubles up as the composite video out (but I haven't tried it). All in all, you get HDMI, S-video, component and composite video output as standard. I have only tried the S-video and it works."

4850e. This is exactly the sort of thing I posted for! I naively assumed that the one I chose was essentially the same (as it says energy efficient) but marginally faster for £3 more. I guess not.....................

32-bit. Happy to switch but curious why?

HDD. Point taken and with my ebuyer blinkers on I'd missed the 750GB compromise option (they only do 500GB or 1TB). I'll buy it from Scan together with the MS remote.

Remote. Agreed, it does look rubbish. I was tired.

DVD drive. It's still cheap and it definitely has the OEM software: most others seem sketchy on that........

Wireless KB. I was thinking Term Services or VNC for admin via laptop. Might add one later once SWMBO has forgotten about the initial £300

Thanks again

Bob