Media Center PC help needed

[MadMike]

This is my list so far, minus the external drives. I haven't added them yet.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/...Number=5920326

If you think I should double the RAM, I can certainly do that. Other than that, what do you think?

I don't know anything about TV cards (I'm also planning to use this machine for recording), so I don't know if the one I picked is any good or not. I already have a wireless LAN card, so I don't need to order one of those.

I'm not too worried about HD media. DVDs are just fine, and if I ever cross that bridge, I can always upgrade later.

[jb17kx]

Western Digital also do a 1TB 10KRPM external drive...
There was also something a friend showed me, something like an external drive that was already configured as a RAID cluster, and could have more space added as you wanted. Best part is that comes in either IEEE 1393, IDE, or SATA. I'll look it up for you... I think it started at 1TB (so 2TB with no RAID) for around US$700.

The sad thing is you will pay more for that P3 then you would if you went out and bought a new Core 2 Duo.

I've only ever seen two Slot 1 PIIIs. One was a 650MHz that was owned by my school (they were never going to - couldn't - use it, but the admin wouldn'tt let me have it), and the other a 1GHz that was at a flea market for AU$200. Didn't have the dough for it.

Actually, Mike, I'd spec the machine slightly higher than that. I;d want to have plenty of backup umph, and if all this HD media stuff kicks off it can never hurt to have a bit spare. I'd go for:
-- Around a gig of ram (or maybe 768 - two sticks, a 256 and a 512), and fast stuff too, maybe 400MHz DDR2-800 SDRAM.
-- At least 500GB in the hard disk department - a 10000rpm disk would be good idea.
-- A decent processor (dpending on your mobo and chipset) - perhaps a Northwood Pentium 4, or even a superceeded-but-still-available Pentium D? You should also be able to find AMD Althlon XP stuff around, I saw some for sale online in around Februrary...
I'm sure you can go from there - that's probably actually overkill. My mindset is just to build one very good machine that does everything, rather than a few small specialised ones.

[MadMike]

If you want to put your dvd collection on your HD, you might want to go with a RAID system. Extra safeguard so if one of the drives crashes, you don't lose all that time you put into ripping the DVDs onto your computer. And I'm not sure I would go with a low end processor to play back movies, unless you have a good amount of RAM with a good mobo that has decent bus speeds and doesn't really have many extra programs on it.

I'm probably going to go with an external drive (or more than one, actually. I have a lot of movies.) I don't really know much about RAID arrays, although I did try to read up on them, but ended up more confused than anything.

When I say "low end", it's actually a relative term. The old processor I mentioned previously played them back just fine, and the cheapest new processor I can get these days is faster than that, so I don't think there are any worries there. I think I'm going to put 512MB in the thing. It's going to be used solely for watching movies, not for any gaming, email, or anything else, although at some point I'd like to network the whole collection so I can share it with the other TVs in the house.

I'm pretty broke lately, and have to make sure I have enough for our beach trip, so I'm not buying it anytime soon. I do have a wish list, however. Maybe I could post it when I get home, if you wouldn't mind offering your constructive criticism.

[Shabo]

If you want to put your dvd collection on your HD, you might want to go with a RAID system. Extra safeguard so if one of the drives crashes, you don't lose all that time you put into ripping the DVDs onto your computer. And I'm not sure I would go with a low end processor to play back movies, unless you have a good amount of RAM with a good mobo that has decent bus speeds and doesn't really have many extra programs on it.

[technical.angel]

Yeah, I know, I'm going to need a shitload of hard drive space, but I don't need a very powerful machine otherwise.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/def...spx?EDC=834304 Terabyte drive $360

[MadMike]

The sad thing is you will pay more for that P3 then you would if you went out and bought a new Core 2 Duo.

So I found out.

I'm looking to build a machine that I can copy my entire DVD collection to and hook up to the TV, so that I'll have all of them readily available instead of having to repeatedly grab and return them to the shelf. Yeah, I know, I'm going to need a shitload of hard drive space, but I don't need a very powerful machine otherwise.

I was wishing I had held onto the Athlon XP 2000 that I gave away to a friend who sorely needed her machine upgraded, but figured I'd be able to get another one like it for cheap. Hmm, Newegg doesn't have anything less than an Athlon 64 these days, so I figured I'd stop by the local shop that has all kinds of stuff, both old and new. I looked at the processor list and saw they had really, really old ones for a few bucks. But to get another one like I had would be around $100. I could get a new low-end processor and motherboard for that. Oh well...