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Ok I think i've just realised and answered my only problems so going to build another media pc for the front room.
Mostly to be used for watching / recording tv (kids), storing a fair few films and watching back in HD.
Massive capacity a given but what sort of spec processor and graphics should I be aiming for?
Built and used one for about 5 years previously but we used it primarily as the main pc so was a decent powerful spec.
This time I want something powerful but as it'll be on 24/7 something that isn't going to hammer the electric bill as well.
So priorties are quietness and low power without compromising HD viewing
mac mini 🙂
lol i want to be able to customize!!
and i've already got oodles of HDD's and SSD
mac mini plus external hdd enclosure or NAS
Raspberry pi?
Considered a Raspberry Pi? Running RaspBMC it'll be plenty for HD playback. Not sure about recording TV though...
What OS will you use? You could look into using one of the AMD APUs (integrated CPU and GPU on one chip). They're supposed to be very capable. If you're planing to use Windows though, you'll probably be best off with an i3 in something like a mITX or mATX board - AMD and Linux don't play well together.
RPi does TV recording too, with a suitable USB adapter.
currently running an old intel 775 microatx motherboard and 3.2ghz cpu i got on eBay for £15 posted.
2gb of RAM -eBay
nvidia 610 1gb gpu
nova hd wintv card - eBay
asus soundcard - optical out into my amp
2tb hdd - tv shows films
40gb ssd for o/s - xbmc
LG bluray drive
passive PSU - eBay
in a nice small case scythe CPU and two noctura 60mm case coolers
plays bluray discs fine and every type of movie format i can throw at it.
it didn't cost that much tbh and is nice and quiet.
have a rasp pi for other tv's in the house
pretty much anything can play back HD nowadays but if you have money to burn take a look at [url= http://www.quietpc.com ]Quiet PC[/url] for some inspiration.
Out of the loop for a while now so not sure what's out there. I want pretty much the windows media centre console or alternative that can play movies, watch tv, see pics etc.
I can hook it up to a NAS so storage not an issue and download / burn stuff using my laptop onto the NAS so a web browser isn't needed.
What it must do is...
- watch tv
- record tv
- do the above without lag or whilst watching HD films.
Can a raspberry Pi do that?
Ideally a dual or quad channel aerial so I can record and watch at the same time.
I like the slickness and ease of use of the windows media centre so something same or similar to that so its family friendly
xbmc is the one you need as the media centre program.
http://xbmc.org/
and something like a dual channel freeview/freesat tuner card.
I'm not sure the rasp Pi would be up to watching/recording on the fly.