Home theatre PC on the cheap.

[mondogenerator]

Hi, its been a while and I'm out of touch with the latest hardware so need some advice or even if someone has the time to put together a build for a home theatre PC, or at least something that will work as a media centre.

The requirements are:
The budget is £550
It needs to be small if possible and have a ok looking case (a shuttle is perfect but not sure which one!)
Needs a BR player and be able to play HD media from the HDD
Needs an optical out to plug into an amp
Doesn't need multiple drives, I have a back solution already so no need to raid it up.
I already have two spare 8800GT's so it doesn't need onboard video or a video card
I have a spare Vista 64 Home premium edition so doesn't need an OS.

Thanks!

[Terbinator]

I don't know/ think Blu-Rays will let you play the surround soundtracks over optical out as they aren't HDCP.

[Dayvo]

I don't know/ think Blu-Rays will let you play the surround soundtracks over optical out as they aren't HDCP.

If you just use AnyDVD HD you won't have to worry about HDCP.

[SiM]

You can play surround sound over optical regardless of HDCP... but you still won't get HD audio, it will be downmixed to plain DD or DTS 5.1

[Dayvo]

Did some builds for the OP

mATX from scan



Shuttle from ebuyer



This doesn't have Optical out, but you can add a sound card of your choice.

Mini-ITX from CCL Online



+ this This blu-ray drive.

[crazyfool]

Just to let you know that my 8800gt wont decode vc1 (which is almost all of my bd collection) outside of powerdvd or tmt3, it uses the cpu instead, I think because the older chips dont have that ability (VP1???), not sure if the current 8800gt's use a different chip which supports vp2/3.

[mondogenerator]

Thanks for the replies and the builds.

[arthurleung]

I would just use an X4 630 with a cheap 780G/785G board.

The integrated graphics is good enough for blu-ray and the X4 gives you more raw power than the i3, in case you need software based decoding.

Using a 8800GT is just wasting electricity. The 8800GT in idle use at least 20W more than the integrated graphics.

My HTPC use 49W idle, 85W with x264 encoding @ 90% CPU and 99W with Prime95.