home theater pc

[JEFF_H]

Anybody use either the Dell Studio Hybrid or EEE Box plugged into the TV to do home theater duty?
I would like to do hulu, pandora, and netflix streaming
Currently, I plug a laptop in to do pandora, netflix with the tivo, and hulu on the xbox using playon

I was thinking one of the small pc boxes could do all 3 of these, and also double for web duty when the laptop is occupied
will the hdmi connection provide a better picture than the VGA plug?
anybody have any experience with this?

[supraking21]

ASRock Nettop ION 330 ION HTPC

still doing more research on it but it's in my top top 5 HTPC

[JEFF_H]

looks nice
(even though you look like a bot to me)

except that a quick scan of reviews shows that the current ion drivers choke on flash content, which both hulu and pandora use

[mitt]

I spec'd one out last year, for about $260 but never built it.  I am the same way though, I would like to have a little pc next the tv, and not cart around a laptop.

I just looked at my build sheet, and the memory I was going to use was $45 with a $25 mail in rebate, so $20, now it is $70!
What happened in the last year?


mitt

[erkishhorde]

Keep in mind that HDMI is video and audio so it works best if you have a box with HDMI out. Otherwise it's easier to just keep it to VGA/DVI and a stereo cable. Will HDMI give better picture? Depends. What are you comparing it to? I'm not picky and I notice no difference between HDMI and DVI video. HDMI is a bit better than VGA but for the resolution that HULU and many other websites stream at, I doubt you will notice.

[NAKID]

I have played various networks video on demand (like NBC's Law and Order since the brodcast here is pixelated sometimes) from my laptop (VGA cable) to my HDTV's VGA input and it looks surprisingly good...

[derby]

Keep in mind that HDMI is video and audio so it works best if you have a box with HDMI out. Otherwise it's easier to just keep it to VGA/DVI and a stereo cable. Will HDMI give better picture? Depends. What are you comparing it to? I'm not picky and I notice no difference between HDMI and DVI video. HDMI is a bit better than VGA but for the resolution that HULU and many other websites stream at, I doubt you will notice.

vga is analog.

dvi and hdmi are both digital. hdmi is basically dvi plus hdcp (digital rights managment).

(well, dvi-a is analog, and dvi-d and dvi-i are digital...)

[cokey]

(well, dvi-a is analog, and dvi-d and dvi-i are digital...)lol

where are you located Exact?  you getting digital break up through your cable? 

[NAKID]

CT, through Thames Valley Communications. Calls to them result in claims that the problems with the picture are from the transmission source, not them .

[cokey]

wow.. lol... na i work for time warner in ny though.. would be hard to snatch my signal meter all the way up there.. (i head to new haven once a month to visit family)

[NAKID]

New Haven is still 45 mins south of me. They have come out with a signal meter and said everything is fine...

[Monsterlover]

My wife is a Linux fiend and built exactly what you're looking for.  She spent more than $260 though.

Google Mythbox or Myth Tv or Mythbuntu.

It's main purpose is to record tv shows for viewing at a later date.  We have 2 400G HDD's mirrored and we're looking to go up to a bigger drive pair (terabyte)  We just in the last month switched to a higher HP video card as full screen on our tv (with Hulu) was clearly in need of more memory.  The new card has more dedicated ram and an HDMI out port, which is nice.

The picture is fixed but we don't have sound yet.  I guess that's just some settings that need tweaked. 

Im sure the same setup could be built for less now (she built this a couple years ago and spent $700ish)

Something similar with a blue ray drive in it would be pretty cool.  It could pretty much take care of all one's tv/movie viewing needs.

[cokey]

yea most techs just check signal, say it's fine and that's all.. a lot of things come into play.. if something is lose, you get BER (bit error rate) which causes your problem.. if something wireless is next to the box and the box's shielding isn't good, you'll get break up..  if your lines have water in them, dried or wet, you'll get break up..  there's a lot of things.. lol i'm not the # one tech in southern Manhattan for nothing..

[NAKID]

Ahhh, yeah, my wireless router is right below my cable box (Motorola HD dual tuner DVR)

[mookieo2]

Why not a mac mini?

or maybe

http://moxi.com/us/home.html