Looking at buying a media centre for my girlfriends house.

How much am I looking for? Ideally capable of outputting HD. But i dont have much to spend on one really..

I assume its cheaper to build one as the systems ive seen pre-built are quite expensive.

just get a cheap xbox and mod it. The media center on that is fantastic.

Or just buy a 360/PS3 and a USB HDD.

If youre going to build a box, youll need to decide on whether you want to have BlueRay/HD-DVD support. If you do then for BR I believe youll need a HDCP gfx card. I speced up a low end and top end HTPC and the prices came out between £550 and £1000+ depending upon what I wanted to support...
...I decided to upgrade my server so that I could stream all my media to my 360 and I also bought a HD-DVD add-on for it.

Obviously now I need to do something about getting BR support but tbh, I am in no rush for that.

ps3 ftw

Will the xbox work with any format (incl mkv) ? Im not looking for one with bluray or hdd dvd tbh. Just want to maybe record tv and play video files.

The latest AMD 780G chipset is aimed at Media Center PCs, and it can decode Blu-Ray without the addition of a graphics card.  I think its on Toms Hardware where I saw the review.

Heh MKV.

Neither the PS3 nor the 360 support MKV.
I use TVersity to transcode MKV to my 360 on the fly.


(I have a dual Xeon server w\ 4gb ram for a media server. I dont know what the minimum specs to get real-time MKV transcoding are.)

oh, also Mozilla Songbird plays MKV files.

Quote from: CodedWill the xbox work with any format (incl mkv) ? Im not looking for one with bluray or hdd dvd tbh. Just want to maybe record tv and play video files.

plays most things - certainly anything Ive tried. Couldnt be sure about MKV though. WIll do a google later on for you. Not sure how youd make it record tv though!! Might not be suitable but its a great solution for streaming divx, avi, mpg, mp3 etc...

Never mind about recording tv really.

By the looks of it, xbmc does work with mkv aswell.

Another couple of questions as i cant seem to find the answer for them :

Can it output HD (by the looks of it i need a cable??) ?
Is it possible to play videos off a external hard drive (usb or firewire

thanks again.

seconded original Xbox (£29.99 preowned at Game stores), then around £15 for the stuff to softmod it. XBMC (the OS/Dashboard) will play pretty much everything inc MKV (with a little tweaking) but it only outputs SD. Once set up its really easy to control, esp if you get an xbox remote (I got a few free from Game stores) - even my mum can use it.

For TV recording I just got a cheap dual tuner PVR, This one to be exact.

£85 and your all set (assuming you have a PC/NAS to store the files).

Much less maintenence than a media center and a fraction of the price.

However if you want to play high definition then the above can be dissregarded.

Ive had a quick go at pricing one up, thoughts ?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ - £40
Abit AN-M2HD nForce 520 Micro ATX  - ££60
Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select 4200 - £30
Seagate Barracuda 160GB - £40

So im at £160ish at the moment, but no case or psu yet. Any reccommendations?

Im trying to keep the price low as possible. This should output mkv HD-files i think....

You not want hardware Blu-Ray decoding for a little future proofing?  

if so then a 780G based chipset would be the winner, and Scan have anice ANtec media case in for £67.  Was just discussing this ona nother forum I use the other day.  Including a Blu-Ray player you can kit the entire system up for £330 if you use a *NIX of some form.

do you mean this :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-269-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=807

?

ill have a look at that case now. cheers

Quote from: CodedIve had a quick go at pricing one up, thoughts ?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ - £40
Abit AN-M2HD nForce 520 Micro ATX  - ££60
Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select 4200 - £30
Seagate Barracuda 160GB - £40

So im at £160ish at the moment, but no case or psu yet. Any reccommendations?

Im trying to keep the price low as possible. This should output mkv HD-files i think....

Your also missing a gfx card and tv (twin) tuner card. I have to say though, a HTPC seems much cheaper than when I looked. Keep us posted