HTPC - How does this sound?

fritzelly

Looking to build my own HTPC for as cheap as possible, to pipe satellite and dtt to the tv, play avi/mkv etc and eventually replace the blu-ray player with a drive in it as well (but not yet)
This is what I've come up with so far that works out at about €215 including delivery

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail
Corsair Memory XMS3 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop
Asus M4A78LT-M AMD 760G AM3 Motherboard
Arianet MTX-003B Black Mini ITX Case with 300W PSU

Already have a 1TB Sata drive and an old licence for xp - so don't need these.
Planning on using MediaPortal as it looks pretty nice with the plugins added into it.

Would I have any problems playing blu-rays through the hdmi when I get a drive? Read somewhere about audio problems or something with AMD setups.
Could I downgrade any components to make this cheaper?
Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance

silvine

Why Media portal? XBMC is versatile and easy to use. It's probably the definitive HTPC software.

If streaming TV is your thing, Windows Media Centre is good.
E


EDIT: What about the graphics card? That's an important part on any HTPC set up especially if MKV and HD is your thing?

fritzelly

Been playing with Media Portal on the desktop with some of the plugins and really like the look of it. With StreamedMP for movie info and others for series info, recording option etc.
I read XMBC wasnt as good at the program recording stuff.

On board VGA Integrated ATI Radeon 3000 - dunno if this is good enough though

fritzelly

It does have an onboard HDMI port but after reading some more reviews then I think I'm gonna change it - any recommendations? Don't see the point of a seperate video card for the purposes of tv and video playback.

fritzelly

Maybe this mobo instead
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard