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<blockquote data-quote="dcwp" data-source="post: 388576" data-attributes="member: 25562">I'm getting ready for another major upgrade to my MP system so I thought I'd start a thread documenting my progress.&nbsp; The problem is that I can't figure out where to start, or for that matter how I'll know when I'm finished.&nbsp; Up until now, the driving principle for me has been achieving minimum performance with the least cost.&nbsp; My new project still has budget in mind, but as you'll see, I'm more interested in high performance.&nbsp; So if you'll endulge, I'll start from the very beginning and document my long history of dabbling with HTPCs, bringing me up to my current rebuild.&nbsp; If this is too long and historical for this forum, let me know and I'll cut it off.&nbsp; Otherwise, I'd love to hear about some of your early experiments as well.My Story:I first got interested in 'TV on the computer' shortly after getting married in 2003.&nbsp; When we moved into a new condo, we went through a sort of minimalist phase where we tried to purge as much unnecessary stuff from our lives as possible.&nbsp; This went so far that I came home one day to find that my wife had sold the bed and all the furniture in the bedroom and we slept on mats on the floor for most of the next year.&nbsp; Odd as it sounds, this was great for my minimalist sensibilities.&nbsp; Anyway, before long the giant 36&quot; console CRT TV in the living room came into the crosshairs.&nbsp; We didn't want to give up TV, but wanted a smaller setup.&nbsp; At about that point, a friend with real computing cred told me about TV Tuner cards.&nbsp; He had turned an old PC into a TV and DVR.&nbsp; Awesome!&nbsp; So that gets me to my very first experiment with HDTV.&nbsp; I bought an ATI All-In-Wonder VE, popped it into an old HP desktop, and presto, I had an HTPC.&nbsp; Over the next few months I added a larger HDD (100Gb, wow!) and a wireless Logitech mouse with buttons programmed to change channels, volume, etc.&nbsp; As long as I was within 2m of the computer it was almost like a remote control.&nbsp; Plus I was able to rip all of my CDs to MP3 and move them out of the living room, eventually dong the same with DVDs.&nbsp; Great for the minimalist!That's the computer in the picture below, my very first HTPC:HP desktop: Pentium II 600MHz256 Mb RAM100 Gb HDD15&quot; CRTAIW with 64Mb onboard video RAM.Up next, Just how big do VGA monitors get? and Discovering MediaPortal.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dcwp, post: 388576, member: 25562"] I'm getting ready for another major upgrade to my MP system so I thought I'd start a thread documenting my progress. The problem is that I can't figure out where to start, or for that matter how I'll know when I'm finished. Up until now, the driving principle for me has been achieving minimum performance with the least cost. My new project still has budget in mind, but as you'll see, I'm more interested in high performance. So if you'll endulge, I'll start from the very beginning and document my long history of dabbling with HTPCs, bringing me up to my current rebuild. If this is too long and historical for this forum, let me know and I'll cut it off. Otherwise, I'd love to hear about some of your early experiments as well. My Story: I first got interested in 'TV on the computer' shortly after getting married in 2003. When we moved into a new condo, we went through a sort of minimalist phase where we tried to purge as much unnecessary stuff from our lives as possible. This went so far that I came home one day to find that my wife had sold the bed and all the furniture in the bedroom and we slept on mats on the floor for most of the next year. Odd as it sounds, this was great for my minimalist sensibilities. Anyway, before long the giant 36" console CRT TV in the living room came into the crosshairs. We didn't want to give up TV, but wanted a smaller setup. At about that point, a friend with real computing cred told me about TV Tuner cards. He had turned an old PC into a TV and DVR. Awesome! So that gets me to my very first experiment with HDTV. I bought an ATI All-In-Wonder VE, popped it into an old HP desktop, and presto, I had an HTPC. Over the next few months I added a larger HDD (100Gb, wow!) and a wireless Logitech mouse with buttons programmed to change channels, volume, etc. As long as I was within 2m of the computer it was almost like a remote control. Plus I was able to rip all of my CDs to MP3 and move them out of the living room, eventually dong the same with DVDs. Great for the minimalist! That's the computer in the picture below, my very first HTPC: HP desktop: Pentium II 600MHz 256 Mb RAM 100 Gb HDD 15" CRT AIW with 64Mb onboard video RAM. Up next, Just how big do VGA monitors get? and Discovering MediaPortal. [/QUOTE]

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