Advice/thoughts/suggestions on building a CHEAP media center

[noiseredux]

I'm thinking of using junkparts from my attic to build a mediacenter PC for the living room. And I do mean junkparts. I'm going to try my damndest to not spend any extra money building this. I have an eMachines desktop in my attic from oh say 2006ish already. Ideally, I want something that:

1. plays DVD's (easy)
2. streams internet video (maybe less easy, as I'll be using a wifi card and most mediacenter frontends are based on linux builds, so compatibility with wifi cards is hit/miss)
3. has a harddrive full of movies (pretty easy -- we've got shelves and shelves and binders n binders full of DVD's to rip)
4. has a harddrive full of music (very easy. I've got the bulk of my music collection ripped to an external HDD)


more thoughts....


it won't be doing HD, but the LCD in our living room has VGA-in.

I do have a lot random computer parts in my attic, so we'll see how this goes...

I'm not 100% opposed to spending SOME money, but I want to talk about doing everything as cheaply or free as possible.

[isiolia]

What are the actual specs of the machine you've got?

Really, the main hurdle comes in when trying to play HD video. Personally, I had a 2Ghz P4 with 512MB of RAM that, with the exception of a shitty wireless driver crashing it at one point, did just fine for playing fansubbed anime and the like until I started getting more stuff recorded from HD. Even then it can depend on the encode.
If you can get hardware acceleration for your videos from whatever card you have, the CPU required drops way down.

What I replaced it with, and am still using, is an Athlon X2 4850e - basically a low voltage X2 4800+. 2GB of DDR2 800. I've used several video cards, currently a fanless GT 430. When I built it, the CPU, mobo, RAM, and PSU were less than $300.
That setup still works perfectly for any media playback I've thrown at it.

[CRTGAMER]

Do any of your DVD players have a USB port? I use a DVD player with an external USB hard drive that acts as a 200gb memory stick, filled with you tube captures and family video. Some of the newer DVD and Blueray players offer both USB and streaming. Cheaper and takes up less room on the shelf.

[pakopako]

Do any of your DVD players have a USB port? I use a DVD player with an external USB hard drive that acts as a 200gb memory stick, filled with you tube captures and family video. Some of the newer DVD and Blueray players offer both USB and streaming. Cheaper and takes up less room on the shelf.

I second this; I used an old Pentium laptop as a desktop replacement for awhile after the screen went bad; all I needed as extension cords (or wireless keyboard/mouse) to access everything.

[MrPopo]

How sold are you on the idea of having a pretty frontend as opposed to just using Windows and having a spare mouse/keyboard lying around to control it?

[noiseredux]

How sold are you on the idea of having a pretty frontend as opposed to just using Windows and having a spare mouse/keyboard lying around to control it?

I want it to be very non-geek friendly for my wife.

Also, NO none of my devices have USB in. Other than my FMB'd PS2 which I've used in the past for videos, but I'd really like something where I can have tons of ripped movies and streaming online videos.

[fastbilly1]

What about running boxee as your frontend?

[Hatta]

I use XBMC on my HTPC. It's forked from the Xbox code, but they still intend the UI elements to be runnable at around 700mhz like the Xbox. My artist girlfriend has no problems with the UI. It's designed to be usable from a remote control, and runs on both Linux and Windows. Give it a shot. Lots of neat plugins available for it too.

[isiolia]

I've seen some nice setups using XMBC.

Personally I don't bother with it, since everyone using my living room setup on any kind of a regular basis has enough technical proficiency to use a PC connected to the internet. Easier to just point a web browser to whatever site and go, rather than wonder if it's supported in a media shell yet.

For a lower resolution screen a 10-foot interface would definitely be nice though. The Windows UI was hard to read on my old CRTs - Windows 7 on an 1080p TV, with the DPI settings changed to scale the interface up really isn't bad to use from back on the couch.