2009-10-20, 01:00
well, i just moved into a new home, with a nice basement which would make the perfect space for a home theater. Ive been using xbmc on my laptop for a year now and its great when i hook it up to my 40" 1080P HDTV. Problem is, that my laptop doesn't have enough space for all my HD movies, tv-shows etc. So i was planning on building(freeNAS) or buying(something like drobo with drobo share) a home server and then purchasing a small pc that can sit underneath my TV and play streaming HD videos (and make use of all the great XBMC plugins) without ANY lag if possible. I was thinking:
The NAS box
Also any suggestions on what kind of cooling i would need for this thing?
The HTPC
this is where i have no clue, ive looked at some of the nettops which claim full HD 1080P but have heard that they tend to lag a lot when anything is done over the home network.
Ive looked at the asrock 330(i think) but havent given it any thought.
Everything else that claims to be an HTPC looks like a standard tower PC which would look strange next to all my A/V equipment.
I also want something that has surround sound capabilities so that i can plug it into my A/V reciever
I can also assemble a PC myself so any suggestions for parts would be nice, but id want the HTPC to "blend in" with my tv equipment if possible.
The Setup
I was thinking id soundproof a small portion of the basement, wall mount the TV with a TV stand below consisting of the A/V reciever, Blu-Ray player, DVD player, and the HTPC. And to control all of this i was thinking logitech harmony remote. And to finish it off throw in the clapper(http://www.amazon.com/Clapper-Sound-Acti...B0000CGKLR)
Side Question: would the speed of my internet matter, since its going to be running on a LAN network? If so, is 12-15mbps enoughto stream 1080p video, or would i need to upgrade?
Note: im not great when it comes to computers by any means, and anything here can be changed according to your advice, so please help!
The NAS box
- Old PC off of craigslist with 4 Hard Drive bays (any suggestions for an always on CPU with low power consumption and capability to stream HD?)
- 4 1.5TB hard drives(which i think is the highest you can get at this time?)
Also any suggestions on what kind of cooling i would need for this thing?
The HTPC
this is where i have no clue, ive looked at some of the nettops which claim full HD 1080P but have heard that they tend to lag a lot when anything is done over the home network.
Ive looked at the asrock 330(i think) but havent given it any thought.
Everything else that claims to be an HTPC looks like a standard tower PC which would look strange next to all my A/V equipment.
I also want something that has surround sound capabilities so that i can plug it into my A/V reciever
I can also assemble a PC myself so any suggestions for parts would be nice, but id want the HTPC to "blend in" with my tv equipment if possible.
The Setup
I was thinking id soundproof a small portion of the basement, wall mount the TV with a TV stand below consisting of the A/V reciever, Blu-Ray player, DVD player, and the HTPC. And to control all of this i was thinking logitech harmony remote. And to finish it off throw in the clapper(http://www.amazon.com/Clapper-Sound-Acti...B0000CGKLR)
Side Question: would the speed of my internet matter, since its going to be running on a LAN network? If so, is 12-15mbps enoughto stream 1080p video, or would i need to upgrade?
Note: im not great when it comes to computers by any means, and anything here can be changed according to your advice, so please help!