i have recently built a media center too, but i went with windows vista home premium, which comes with vista media center edition.
i have an add-in called my movies, so i can call up all my dvd rips.
had some issues with the built in tv guide. had to learn heaps about media center.
start with www.thegreenbutton.com and www.xpmediacentre.com.au

if you’re getting a dvd writer, try to get one thats sata instead of ide. it makes cable management easier.

get a bigger harddrive. 80gb is not really enough. get 800gb at least, they’re pretty cheap and the rest of your system is specced mean so why should this be?

think about networking it too. there are add-ins for media center for looking up the weather, and other goodies you dont want to miss. either wireless, pull some cables under floor / through walls.
motherboards come with an ethernet port, so you should be good.

get two tv tuners. record one channel, watch the other.
be careful about your tv source. is it satellite dvb-s, or is it digital via aerial dvb-t? or is it analog tv? make sure your tv tuner is capable. dont go overboard with combo cards, just get what you need. hauppauge make good cards, and are pretty compatible.

9400gt is a good all round card, and should handle the decoding of HD and lighten the load of your CPU.
your plasma tv is not Full HD (1080 pixels high), its only 768 pixels high. so you’ll get limited high def experience. that said, the picture will still be amazing.
read here for more info on HD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_HD

get a media center compatible remote control. dont settle for that hauppauge remote, you miss on some features like being about to use sms (txt) style typing for searching for programs and movies. i got a phillips 5100 and am really happy with it. logitech also make some good ones, but watch battery consumption.

fans are an issue. the more fans, the louder the box is. that said, you got to get rid of heat some how.
with games computers, its all about the speed. more cpu, more gpu, more ram, so noise isn’t an issue.
with htpc (home theatre pc) the noise can be distracting, so it’s all about minimising fans, minimising power but still fitting your requirements, and some future proofing. it’s a tricky problem.

cheers -g

For the burner never go Asus, theyre crap, go for Pioneer(SATA) or Samsung(SATA) ones and try to stay clear of lightscribe ones since they’re pretty much useless unless your willing to spend the extra $$$ on blank Lightscribe DVDs compared to using sharpie to mark burned discs.

As for your ram try to go for a better brand such as Corsair, Geil and such. A-Data sounds like one of those cheap ones that’ll overheat on hot days.

Your audio card, go for creatives Xi-Fi range, Audigy range is like budget and the 7.1 wont do much for your 5.1 speakers right?

Finally your wireless option, your better off buying a new modem with integrated wireless. The costs are about the same and you’ll end up saving desk space.

lol, harvey normans bankrupt they will be closing down soon, or alot of shops

Alrighty, picked the LG Blu-Ray Reader ([url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 363&page=1[/url])

Then picked a 1TB Western Digital HD ([url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 735&page=2[/url])

Found a wireless card and router – router for study as it needed to have LAN ports for 3 compies already, wireless card for computer.

I think my TV source is analog TV. Don’t have a satellite, and I think we only have the basic antenna.
Two TV cards (one had to be PCIe and the other PCI due to motherboard limitations ([url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 338&page=2[/url] and either [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 558&page=2[/url] or [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 338&page=2[/url] – don’t know which of the last two is better))

Check on the remote. The one that came with my compy looks pretty awesome, and should be compatible with it.

1080p screens cost like, a few k more. So I think I’ll settle for this one, and not bother trying to convince Mum to spend even more money.

The extra fan was just incase. I’ll probably run it with it at first, then if the noise is bad pull it out. Or if the box then gets too hot go for a smaller fan. Do smaller fans make less noise?

Found a 2GB stick of Corsair for $1 more, ftw.
Check, got a Creative Xi-Fi sound card. ([url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 354&page=2[/url]).

Thanks heaps guys for all your help 😀

xoxo Admiral

Do smaller fans make less noise?l

im not an expert. ive heard smaller fans make more noise.

fan’s are all about the bearing’s 🙂

$0028 – Wireless card: Asus WL-138G V2 54Mbps Wireless LAN PCI Adaptor – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 496&page=1[/url]
$0031 – Keyboard and mouse – Logitech Deluxe 660 Cordless Desktop (BLK) (920-000492) – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 443&page=1[/url]
$0039 – RAM: Corsair 2G PC5300 DDR2 667 Value Select RAM – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 432&page=1[/url]
$0058 – Wireless Router: Asus WL-520GC 125Mbps Wireless Router w/Wan/4xLan – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 636&page=1[/url]
$0065 – Video Card: ECS GeForce 9400GT 512MB PCIe Video Card – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 408&page=1[/url]
$0078 – Mobo: Asus P5KPL-CM G31 MB FSB1600 D2 PCI-e x16 SATA2 GBLAN (775) – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 395&page=1[/url]
$0085 – Sound card:Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI SB790 (OEM) – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 354&page=2[/url]
$0089 – TV Tuner: Leadtek PxDVR3200H PCIe TV Turner w/ Hardware MPEG2 – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 338&page=2[/url]
$0099 – Surround Sound: Logitech X-530 5.1 speaker set 7.4W RMS (Black) – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 464&page=1[/url]
$0128 – CPU: INTEL Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.5GHz 2M Cache 800FSB (775) CPU – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 278&page=1[/url]
$0138 – DVD Drive:LG GGC-H20N/L Blu-Ray Retail SATA Player Combo Blu-Ray Reader – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 363&page=1[/url]
$0143 – Case: Antec NSK2480 Desktop w/ 380W PSU (Silver) – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 342&page=4[/url]
$0160 – HD: Western Digital 1TB 16M SATA II Green Hard Disk Drive – [url] http://pcshopper.com.au/product.php?pro … 735&page=2[/url]

$1141 – Total

Updated. Price went up. Increased HD size and got a horizontal case. It’s actually pretty sweet looking IMO. Got a better TV Tuner so that I don’t need two. This was because I realised I was using 3 PCI slots, and only had 2 (mATX mobo), so it was either remove sound, wireless, or remove the unnecessary TV Tuner as the PCIe one can record and play at the same time. And because we only have 1 S-Video cable from the wall.

Might have to change graphics card. Forgot to check if it had HDMI output (/noob). Thanks again guys, love you all. Apart from the non-sexy ones. xoxo.

*EDIT*
HDMI* Via adapter
…
Help please? HDMI adapter didn’t spit out any great results for me when searching.

www.harveynorman.com.au could not be found. Please check the name and try again.

woot 😛 well it looks good for it 🙂

😀

Can get it for 2.1k with a nice as cabinet from JB Hifi, still looking for the TV. Need to find out if I need male or female HDMI though. :S I think male.

😀

Can get it for 2.1k with a nice as cabinet from JB Hifi, still looking for the TV. Need to find out if I need male or female HDMI though. :S I think male.

2.1G lol ggz … but you go boi … hehe 🙂 🙂

😉

Now, to be lazy, I’ll just paste all the links here so that I can highlight and then click “Open all links” instead of copying and pasting from notebook individually into the browser bar :D:D

*EDIT*
Bah, 5 items need to be pre-ordered as they’re out of stock. Sigh.

Well i did have a massive post for here, but since you’re already buying stuff, I guess you just go ahead with it now. 🙂

Haven’t bought or ordered anything yet. Input is lovely. 😀

dont buy any thing from harvey norman the mark up is insane buy bits from different places jb has good prices on things and wow sight and sound better on othersjust look around you can save alot more money for like 5 mins extra time