[jmodic]

Hi all,
I will gladly take any inputs or suggestions so if you all could give me help on building my 2nd HTPC that would be great. A little history first:

My first HTPC is from old system that I upgraded my desktop to last year. It was an Athlon 2.5GHz 64bit processor, 1.256Gb of ram, Primary HD is an 80Gb IDE and my storage drive is a Terabyte Western Digital green drive. Along with the Asus mainboard it has built in Digital optical output(Which works beautifully in 5.1 with my Denon reciever). for video I have a 512MB NVIDIA 7500GT AGP(This board does not support PCI-E, hence it is old)(I used an DVI to HDMI Cable to convert over works great). I used this only has a media server to store my movies on the hard drive to watch movies that is it no TV DVRing or anything else like that. The case is some POS that I bought that came with a P/S that works fine(I will replace that too). I am wifi connected to the internet via a linksys pci G card. I used CloneDVD and AnyDVD as my rippers to store my movies on it. Oh I also, have a Logitech MiniDINO wireless keyboard. It is running Windows XP and of course XBMC. this is all attached to a 67inch SAMSUNG DLP TV. For the most part it runs great without any issue. i find that at times in watching movies about once in a 2 hour movie it does a video skip for a second and the audio never loses sink. it happens at odd times....

So my ultimate question is what compnents should I buy to build an awesome HTPC that is used for one sole purpose to watch ripped movies off of it?

My initial start was to build a Quad core intel board with a Micro ATX mobo that has built in HDMI on the mainboard but I have read that the output would be not as good as an ATI or NVIDIA Video card(TorF)?
I set my sights a little high and my price point is close to but not going over with Taxes and shipping about a grand.
Also, should I go to Windows 7? or stick with XP? I like to take advantage of 64bit Windows7 to allow for more memory 4GB+ maybe? but that is me. What I was thinking also was getting a small either 30 or 60 gigbyte SSD drive to be my primary that would boot quick and have all the software i need to run it.

Is my hardware thoughts way over kill? is thinking more than 3GB memory really necessary?

what about video cards that do the best output to my 67inch DLP TV? onboard HDMI sux or will it do? Win7 or XP?

Lastly, what about Blu-Ray? I read someplace that you need a certain qualified video card to support Blu-ray output...is that BS or truth?

So any input would be great!! I am willing to spend more but trying to keep it at a grand is ideal....Please help I am getting antsy would like to start buying as soon as possible.

[jmodic]

hi all,
i will gladly take any inputs or suggestions so if you all could give me help on building my 2nd htpc that would be great. A little history first:

My first htpc is from old system that i upgraded my desktop to last year. It was an athlon 2.5ghz 64bit processor, 1.256gb of ram, primary hd is an 80gb ide and my storage drive is a terabyte western digital green drive. Along with the asus mainboard it has built in digital optical output(which works beautifully in 5.1 with my denon reciever). For video i have a 512mb nvidia 7500gt agp(this board does not support pci-e, hence it is old)(i used an dvi to hdmi cable to convert over works great). I used this only has a media server to store my movies on the hard drive to watch movies that is it no tv dvring or anything else like that. The case is some pos that i bought that came with a p/s that works fine(i will replace that too). I am wifi connected to the internet via a linksys pci g card. I used clonedvd and anydvd as my rippers to store my movies on it. Oh i also, have a logitech minidino wireless keyboard. It is running windows xp and of course xbmc. This is all attached to a 67inch samsung dlp tv. For the most part it runs great without any issue. I find that at times in watching movies about once in a 2 hour movie it does a video skip for a second and the audio never loses sink. It happens at odd times....

So my ultimate question is what compnents should i buy to build an awesome htpc that is used for one sole purpose to watch ripped movies off of it?

My initial start was to build a quad core intel board with a micro atx mobo that has built in hdmi on the mainboard but i have read that the output would be not as good as an ati or nvidia video card(torf)?
I set my sights a little high and my price point is close to but not going over with taxes and shipping about a grand.
Also, should i go to windows 7? Or stick with xp? I like to take advantage of 64bit windows7 to allow for more memory 4gb+ maybe? But that is me. What i was thinking also was getting a small either 30 or 60 gigbyte ssd drive to be my primary that would boot quick and have all the software i need to run it.

Is my hardware thoughts way over kill? Is thinking more than 3gb memory really necessary?

What about video cards that do the best output to my 67inch dlp tv? Onboard hdmi sux or will it do? Win7 or xp?

Lastly, what about blu-ray? I read someplace that you need a certain qualified video card to support blu-ray output...is that bs or truth?

So any input would be great!! I am willing to spend more but trying to keep it at a grand is ideal....please help i am getting antsy would like to start buying as soon as possible.

anyone??

[ccMatrix]

My initial start was to build a Quad core intel board with a Micro ATX mobo that has built in HDMI on the mainboard but I have read that the output would be not as good as an ATI or NVIDIA Video card(TorF)?

A quad core is way more than you need even for 1080p playback. If don't plan to also use your machine for gaming you should go with a much cheaper dual core with about 2.5Ghz.
The HDMI output of an onboard Geforce 9300/9400 GPU should not be any different from a dedicated Geforce GPU. If you are using onboard GPU the support for audio over HDMI can even be better since you don't need to run special cables to the GPU.

I set my sights a little high and my price point is close to but not going over with Taxes and shipping about a grand.
Also, should I go to Windows 7? or stick with XP? I like to take advantage of 64bit Windows7 to allow for more memory 4GB+ maybe? but that is me. What I was thinking also was getting a small either 30 or 60 gigbyte SSD drive to be my primary that would boot quick and have all the software i need to run it.

A grand should be easily doable - even with software licenses. I would go with Windows 7 since it is comparable in speed and XP will not get much support in the future. Also most HTPCs run with 2GB RAM even if they have an onboard GPU. Using 32bit Windows 7 and 2 GB Ram should be all you need. An SSD is nice but not really necessary - go for it if you want.

Is my hardware thoughts way over kill? is thinking more than 3GB memory really necessary?

Obviously by now - yes your hardware is way overkill

what about video cards that do the best output to my 67inch DLP TV? onboard HDMI sux or will it do? Win7 or XP?

Lastly, what about Blu-Ray? I read someplace that you need a certain qualified video card to support Blu-ray output...is that BS or truth?

HDMI will output 1080p without a problem and doesn't care how large the panel is.
For Blu-Ray you will need additional software like WinDVD or PowerDVD or sth. All the latest video cards (dedicated or onboard) are qualified for that. You just need to make sure your TV is HDCP compliant because of the copy-protection.