Building a media center

[[GSV]Trig]

Guy at work wants me to soec him up, and ultimatly build him a machine that will sit under his TV with his Sky box etc and play movies etc to the TV.

I've got my own shuttle that does just that but he wants something that looks more like a DVD/Sky box..

Machine will need a BR drive in it and be able to play the content from said drive.
I'm also guessing heat might be an issue?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

One of these should do the job:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zotac...vga-sata-3gb-s

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zotac...0gb-sata-3gb-s

Alternatively you could use a Blu-Ray drive in this system:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/shutt...-optical-drive

There will also be a Zacate version of the ZBOX:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/a...-ad03-blu-ray/

The Atom based systems have an Nvidia IGP AFAIK so should be fine for media playback.

[scaryjim]

Heat shouldn't be an issue. You can use low power components if it's basically just for streaming and blu-rays. I'm currently rocking an undervolted Sempron 140 in a 785G motherboard, and with just the weedy stock AMD cooler I'm running at ~ 42C fully loaded. A decent low-profile cooler (or a case fan ) would probably give me silent running and temps under 40C.

What's his budget? The slinkiest option would be something mITX with a slimline BD drive, but that'll bump the cost up quite a lot. An mATX build won't look as good, but you can still get some nice slimline desktop mATX cases, and the components are generally much cheaper (e.g. standard BD-ROM drive ~ £40, slimline BD-ROM drive > £80!).

Incidentally, what are his planned uses apart from playing blurays / DVDs? I assume he has some otherwise he'd just buy a bluray player or a PS3, surely...?

[mycarsavw]

Popcorn Hour C-200?

[DanceswithUnix]

Novatech seem to be advertising quite a pretty uATX case these days:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...ov-vision.html

Rather reminds me of a NAD cd player.

Personally though I went for a PS3, and the media PC just doesn't get used any more.

[scaryjim]

Novatech seem to be advertising quite a pretty uATX case these days:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...ov-vision.html

Thank you *very* much - how on earth am I supposed to resist buying one of those?!? It's beautiful! *sigh* My bank account can't take those kinds of discoveries at the minute!!!

[DanceswithUnix]

Thank you *very* much - how on earth am I supposed to resist buying one of those?!? It's beautiful! *sigh* My bank account can't take those kinds of discoveries at the minute!!!

lol, I feel your pain. It doesn't look the best for thermals, the PSU is a complete unknown and yet such a tempting little thing
But I hardly use the media PC I already have, the wife would kill me!

[[GSV]Trig]

Mmmm, that Shuttle looks sweet, as do them Zotac things, I'll bang a few different spec ones together tomorrow and see what he wants, that Novatech case is nice too but seeing the size of it compared to the other ones it's huge lol..

Cheers boys