Ci4N
Established Member
Hi all. It's been a long time since I was on here. I was planning on spending quite a bit on a HTPC but then the recession happened
Anyway I've gotten the idea stuck into my head again. I just have a few questions on it and would like some suggestions of parts.
I plan to use it for Freesat TV, movies, music and podcasts.
I have Sky+ at the moment for TV but I barely watch any of the stations and the ones I do watch are all available on free satellite so I want to have this replaced. I need it to have DVB-T too though since I'm living in Ireland and the Irish stations don't broadcast in satellite. At the moment I have 2 satellite cables from my dish going to the Sky box so I assume I can just plug these into a card right? Or do I need new cables/dish to get stuff in HD? And if I get an external aerial installed, does it have to be one of the horrible unwieldy things that used to be on most houses or are they a bit smaller and more eye pleasing now? Also, is it possible to record stuff while on standby as a satellite box would do? I need some recommendations on TV cards too and where to get them.
For a case, I really like the look of the Antec Micro Fusion. It's nice and cheap and comes with an IR receiver and 350W PSU. I know it's a weak PSU but I won't really be pushing this thing too hard. I've heard great things about it too.
I'm unsure of a mainboard and CPU combination. I'll go AMD though as they're always cheaper. Mainboard must have HDMI out though, I don't want to have to spend on an extra GPU and I want to be able to get high quality surround sound too. Any well priced recommendations?
For storage, I was planning on putting most of the stuff on a 4TB NAS and connecting it to a gigabit router and then to the PC with an ethernet cable. This could store all my movies, music and pictures easily but would the quality be good? It would only be DVDs really, I don't want to go storing Blu Rays since I can use my PS3 for those and I don't want to incur the cost of Bluray drive, additional storage, graphical power, sound card etc.
I want a hard drive though for TV. How much does Sky come with as standard? Because whatever it is, I can compare how much I need to that (it would have to be a bit more). Also would need to be fairly fast so I could get good boot times.
Only important thing after that is a low profile cooler. I won't be doing any overclocking at all so all I need is one that's fairly quiet and will fit. Any suggestions?
I'll probably think of more stuff tomorrow but thanks to anyone for help in advance.
Anyway I've gotten the idea stuck into my head again. I just have a few questions on it and would like some suggestions of parts.
I plan to use it for Freesat TV, movies, music and podcasts.
I have Sky+ at the moment for TV but I barely watch any of the stations and the ones I do watch are all available on free satellite so I want to have this replaced. I need it to have DVB-T too though since I'm living in Ireland and the Irish stations don't broadcast in satellite. At the moment I have 2 satellite cables from my dish going to the Sky box so I assume I can just plug these into a card right? Or do I need new cables/dish to get stuff in HD? And if I get an external aerial installed, does it have to be one of the horrible unwieldy things that used to be on most houses or are they a bit smaller and more eye pleasing now? Also, is it possible to record stuff while on standby as a satellite box would do? I need some recommendations on TV cards too and where to get them.
For a case, I really like the look of the Antec Micro Fusion. It's nice and cheap and comes with an IR receiver and 350W PSU. I know it's a weak PSU but I won't really be pushing this thing too hard. I've heard great things about it too.
I'm unsure of a mainboard and CPU combination. I'll go AMD though as they're always cheaper. Mainboard must have HDMI out though, I don't want to have to spend on an extra GPU and I want to be able to get high quality surround sound too. Any well priced recommendations?
For storage, I was planning on putting most of the stuff on a 4TB NAS and connecting it to a gigabit router and then to the PC with an ethernet cable. This could store all my movies, music and pictures easily but would the quality be good? It would only be DVDs really, I don't want to go storing Blu Rays since I can use my PS3 for those and I don't want to incur the cost of Bluray drive, additional storage, graphical power, sound card etc.
I want a hard drive though for TV. How much does Sky come with as standard? Because whatever it is, I can compare how much I need to that (it would have to be a bit more). Also would need to be fairly fast so I could get good boot times.
Only important thing after that is a low profile cooler. I won't be doing any overclocking at all so all I need is one that's fairly quiet and will fit. Any suggestions?
I'll probably think of more stuff tomorrow but thanks to anyone for help in advance.