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Recommendations/Suggestions for building HTPC

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somunny:
I'm leaning more and more towards building a home theater pc and am looking for input on components.  I don't really have a budget in mind but let's keep it as far under $1000 as possible.

It will be hooked up to a 62", 1080i DLP that has HDMI and VGA inputs (as well as the standard component).  I'm planning on running the sound through a 7.1 receiver (though I'm on using 5.1 of it).

Thanks!

Crax:
Don't know if you have been here already, but pcalchemy has a large selection for HTPC stuff and generally seems to have good prices too

http://pcalchemy.com/

I'm no expert, but I do know that you need to buy certain cards depending on what you are hooking up to it(antenna/cable/satellite), so keep that in mind.  Also, do you know if you are going to use something like MythTV or were you going to do it windows based?

somunny:
Nice site.  Thanks for the link.

I was planning on using Windows Media Center as my OS.

lcddream:
I would do the research as to what is compatible and not compatible with MCE. Certain hardware won't work.

For instance, when I attempted to try out MCE on my HTPC, I found that I was unable to use my usbuirt(infrared receiver/transponder) with MCE.

Also, you might want to check out some of the other software solutions before you commit to MCE:

gbpvr - free
Mediaportal - free
SageTV - not free but It's what I settled on after many many hours of tinkering

each of the above are FAR more customizable than MCE, and have huge community support respectively.

boykster:
AVS Forum is a great resource on HTPC's....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Be warned though, LOTS of information, and a lot of noise.  there are some good sticky threads with MCE info, hardware recommendations, etc.

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