I have a 55" Sharp that i love, but man it is going to waste in my opinion. someone mentioned to me a Home Theater PC as a way of really getting the most out of it. but i don't have the skillset for assemble a PC from scratch. still, the idea of having a Blu-Ray, HD media center replacing my old electronics excites me. i have some questions just to start a discussion. Can it be done on a budget? Anyone here have one set up already or do you just use your gaming console? I bought a 360, but my niece always has it. Any suggestions outside a custom build that isn't so obvious? Any tips/ideas for a sound system (key word here is "budget", lol.) after i get the HTPC assembled, i will focus on upgrading my sound system. I currently have a 16 year old Aiwa home theater setup- don't laugh...it may seem old, but it cranks out the juice. One last thing. i have had 2, 1TB hard drives die on me over the years, so i intend to back up everything on disc. *wish to god that Solid State Drives would come down on price* so if something goes wonky, i can replace it with little hassle.
I have it set up so I can use both my PC which is pretty much a server, and my PS3 when I wanna watch Blu-Ray. When I first started with my sound set up I used Craigslist to nab my speakers. 2 of which (Bose 201 series) I still use as my front R+L. All the other speakers I've upgraded over the course of a few years. On the cheap sound systems can be done, ya just gotta be willing to make some compromise between price and performance. As for media pc, I'm not sure about that. I got mine via my cousin, who works for a PC manufacturer.
A good BluRay player coupled a WDTV Live and some external HDDs would be a cheaper and simpler setup.
If I were you, I'd just wait for the new Xbox coming out next year. It'll have BluRay along with support for stuff like Netflix, Hulu, etc. We don't know yet, but it may even have some home theater outputs/inputs in addition to the ones Xbox 360 has (just HDMI out). BluRay really seems overrated in a world where you can stream 1080p HD video from Netflix. (unless you already bought a huge BluRay collection or have crappy internet)
current setup is a sharpe 60" quattron TV ps3 for blu ray and gaming charter cable (unfortunatly) with an onkyo reciever that upconverts to hdmi (but mostly runs hdmi) pusing 90 watts per channel with polk speakers for the sides and center beena big onkyo fan for years never had problems with them and currently on my 3rd unit (had to update with the times) and you can get their units for cheaper than say pioneer or yamaha. but do your homework so you can understand the features availible within the different units, so you dont over pay for a feature you have no intention of using or cant (zone 2 stereo or even 7.1 stereo though i believe that last one is more of a standard now a days)
I went all out, I have a Sandy Bridge Core i7 with 8GB of ram and a Radeon 4850 (Needed a single slot card) in my HTPC
i was avoiding a console since i can't play games all that well and wanted a new PC to replace my laptop. considering all that i do on that, i won't be taxing a HTPC at all. was planning to buy the parts and let the bro-in-law build it, btw.
Spend some time reading through the HTPC forum at [H]ard|Forum - Powered by vBulletin - there's several budget builds to pick from. You'll also need to pick a front end and think about remote control. I stick with Windows Media Center and MediaBrowser just because it's the easiest way to access netflix. If you have a bluray player already, you might not want to bother trying it on the htpc - even with anyDVD and Arcsoft TMT, it can be a pain. HTPC is sort of a hobby of mine, and I can see where casual users wouldn't like dealing with discs that won't play, especially considering the expense of the drive and software.
As far as a media PC, I wanted something small and nice looking on my set up. So I went with a Mac Mini. Running Boxee - Watch Movies, TV Shows and clips from the Internet on your TV. software. Free and very easy to set up. Just make sure you get a 2010 or older mac mini so you have a CD drive. Removing it was the doubest idea. If you watch craigslist you can pick them up for around $300. Just make sure you get a core 2 dou.
