First HTPC. Opinions Appreciated (1 Viewer)

[hippydude]

Well Ive been wanting to build a htpc for a while now. Was going to use it for windows media centre, untill one fortunate day i found media portal.

I dont have much of a budget for it but hopefully will get a good system for it.

ive been looking over some parts and have came to decide on an amd system with the specs below:-

Motherboard - MSI K9AGM3-FIH socket AM2 AMD 690G Mobo Details
Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (with a Cooler Master Vortex heatsink)
Ram - Kingston 1GB ddr 2 ram 800mhz
Case - Antec Black Minuet 300 Slimline MATX Case Case Details
Tv Card - See Below
Hard Drive - Seagate 500GB Sata II
Windows Xp Pro Sp2
Media Portal (Stable version once the machine is built)

For the tv card i really wanted a dual dvb-t.
My first choice was the Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T 500, but reading about the forum i see it has some sort of problem with the fact its usb on a pci card making it problematic for hibernation.
The Compro VideoMate E700 was the next option but it wasnt on the compatability list sadly.
With the fact the case is a low profile one im finding it difficult to find a card suitable for my setup.

Some of the cards ive found are low profile, but they are not advertised as that, meaning they only come with the full height brackets. I have no problems making my own bracket for them, but would be alot simpler and less mess if they came with one.
Because im from the UK, hopefully someone has an idea of a good cards, or a recommendation based on experience and maybe where to get one. Pci or Pcie x1 slot cards can be used.
Oh and if you see a problem with any of my other setup id appreciate some input.
Im hoping the media centre will be able to work just from the remote control with as little keyboard/mouse and case power button pushing as possible.
Im impressed with the tutorial on how to make the media centre startup just in media portal and am hoping to make it a reality on my machine.
Also im deluded to think that maybe 720p will be able to get pushed out of the system via hdmi slot on the mobo to my tv. (yeah i know its alot to ask, but i gotta give it a go)

Thanks for any input recieved. Hope you can enlighten me on some questions i may have.

 

[Spragleknas]

MB: Gigabyte gets better reviews and has better specs.
Case: I believe NSK2480 is a better chioce. Read review @ SPCR

The reason I am saying this is that I did a lot of investigation before ending up with the above HW myself, and found these the best choice in their segment.

My setup: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/my_new_really_cheap_htpc-t32008.html

 

[hippydude]

Yeah i liked the gigabyte board, just couldnt find it in stock anywere, the other board i considered was the abit AN-M2HD. Which is similar to the GB but has the NVIDIA GeForce 7050PV / nForce 630a.

That is a really nice case. I looked at 100's of cases most outside of my budget, lol. I really liked the hiper cases. Only trouble i had with them was finding the parts for them easily enough. Which drew me to the slimline/ low profile cases. I wanted the media centre case to look slim enough to be mistaken for a 1980's betamax top loader or vhs player.
Preferably i wanted a low profile one that took a slot loading dvd drive, but was un succsesful.
Ill have a good think about the case though. Reading a few reviews and looking at piccys made me wanna buy it. I liked the triple chamber on the inside of it. Showed a bit of thought towards airflow.
And it would solve my problem with tv cards too lol

Thanks for your suggestions