PS3 / XBOX360 v HTPC

[djglenn]

I have been recently looking at building a HTPC for media streaming to my TV. However to build a good HTPC you are talking around £350 for an AMD X2 setup (with a decent case).

However you can buy and XBOX Elite for £179 and a PS3 for £245…plus on those you can play good games…..where as my £350 HTPC would fall over if presented with a good game.

If I am not interested in recording TV & Having a TV tuner card, what other benefit does a stand-a-lone HTPC have over a PS3 / XBOX 360??

Thanks.

[kalniel]

Software. Lots of media software out there for PC, and if you wanted to turn it into a TV device later you can do that with cheap add-ons (and there's lots of software out there for that too).

[Stringent]

... and where are you buying your games consoles from!?

[djglenn]

... and where are you buying your games consoles from!?

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/34817...-for-179-witho

[Biscuit]

Another advantage of the HTPC is noise, assuming you build it with the right parts it should be considerably quieter than a console. There is also the upgradability which is especially important when you look at xBox hard drive costs... extortion really.

All depends how important the gaming is to you, i have a load of mega drive and snes games on mine which do the trick just fine

[Golden Dragoon]

Also the 360 is somewhat limited in the formats you can stream to it, no idea about the ps3 but I gave up on using it to stream stuff to and use an original xbox, it can handle many more formats than the 360 and I only stream to the 360 when I have 1080 stuff to stream as xbox1 can get a bit choppy when streaming hd.

[s_kinton]

I have been recently looking at building a HTPC for media streaming to my TV. However to build a good HTPC you are talking around £350 for an AMD X2 setup (with a decent case).

However you can buy and XBOX Elite for £179 and a PS3 for £245…plus on those you can play good games…..where as my £350 HTPC would fall over if presented with a good game.

If I am not interested in recording TV & Having a TV tuner card, what other benefit does a stand-a-lone HTPC have over a PS3 / XBOX 360??

Thanks.

The HTPC and games consoles are really separate thingsfor very different jobs. The HTPC is not really for gaming, just media viewing and sharing. If you aren't going to watch TV on it then get a games console and just convert your media to fit around what that will play.

Just choose the console based on its games and codec support.

Another advantage of the HTPC is noise, assuming you build it with the right parts it should be considerably quieter than a console. There is also the upgradability which is especially important when you look at xBox hard drive costs... extortion really.

I don't think any HTPC would be considerably louder than a PS3, mine's pretty much silent - quieter than my HTPC really. The 360 is a different story though! As you mentioned the HDDs are cheap and easy to replace on either system, but a heck of a lot cheaper on the PS3.

[Blastuk]

i stream to xbox360 using tversity because
1. xbox360 doesn't support softsubs
2. doesn't support mkv container format
3. my htpc blew up and i didn't have a choice

tversity basically transcodes the video on the host pc on the fly then streams it to the xbox, the downside to this is depending on how fast your pc is it may take a while to load a video
and i find fast forward/rewind a bit buggy so i never use it.

never tried a ps3 but i hear it is much better than xbox360 for watching stuff on..

personally i would just build a htpc and use mplayerclassic etc and basically have no limitations on what is supported.

[malfunction]

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/34817...-for-179-witho

Thanks - that deal (and the £30 off voucher) have finally made me cave in and buy a 360...

[djglenn]

Thanks - that deal (and the £30 off voucher) have finally made me cave in and buy a 360...

Sorry....I shouldnt encourage spending....

NOBODY ELSE SPEND MONEY....You all should go and invest in Icelantic banks...

[shadowmaster]

Another advantage of the HTPC is noise, assuming you build it with the right parts it should be considerably quieter than a console. There is also the upgradability which is especially important when you look at xBox hard drive costs... extortion really.

Depends, it would be pretty hard to make an HTPC as quite as a PS3. Not so hard for an xbox 360

If you use PS3MediaServer (http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/), then you wont have any trouble playing media files on your ps3, from your pc over wifi.

[TooNice]

The PS3 has two main weaknesses I am aware of:

1. No NTFS mean that you are going to have to split some HD movies into parts.

2. Limited file format support.

[shadowmaster]

The PS3 has two main weaknesses I am aware of:

1. No NTFS mean that you are going to have to split some HD movies into parts.

Doesn't that only apply to windows?

[Biscuit]

I don't think any HTPC would be considerably louder than a PS3, mine's pretty much silent - quieter than my HTPC really. The 360 is a different story though! As you mentioned the HDDs are cheap and easy to replace on either system, but a heck of a lot cheaper on the PS3.

Well on a HTPC you can use Sata II 3.5" 7200rpm drives so that would be cheaper than a PS3. Other than that i think my memories of the PS3 must be quite jaded because i seem to recall my mates being really noisey :/ oh well my apologies there

Doesn't that only apply to windows?

I cant speak for the PS3 as i dont own one but i know my linux and mac dont like files over a couple of GB on FAT32 drives.

[dshepsman]

filesize doesnt really come into it, if you are going to stream it from a pc anyway.
and as for the file format, again, PS3MediaServer takes care of it, or TVersity.

im loving using my PS3 as a media player... almost as much as the games

[TooNice]

Doesn't that only apply to windows?

Not really, FAT32 inherently limit file size to 4GB.

filesize doesnt really come into it, if you are going to stream it from a pc anyway.
and as for the file format, again, PS3MediaServer takes care of it, or TVersity.

But if you have a PC to stream from, why not just hook it to your display? [I suppose if it is in a different room - but otherwise, it's just an extra device to switch on].

And have you tried TVersity with full HD videos (those are the ones that definitely requires more than the 4GB)? I've not (it doesn't install properly), though I wonder how i copes. I don't like the idea of transcoding in the first place, and on the fly transcoding/playback of a full HD films sound quite taxing.

Personally I consider the file format/fat32 limitation to be a very significant limitation if you want to treat it as a standalone, independent HT device. Being reliant on a PC makes it more of a 'hub' when you want to play files (of course, it's still a standalone device when playing DVD/Bluray - but those are nothing you can have on an HTPC - console games is really what stands those out).