http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/ Engadget HD Comments for Poll: What's the most you'd pay for the ultimate HTPC? http://hd.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://hd.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 12:36PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/1) To have complete control over the codecs that yours system can play.
2) Browse the web and watch TV at the same time on the same screen. I do this all the time.

I could add more, but those two are enough for me.]]>Sep 23rd 2008 2:38PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 3:34PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 8:37PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 12:41PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/
Where's my Blackbird Media Center, darnit?]]>Sep 23rd 2008 12:57PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/
My HTPC cost me $575. It has Blu-ray and an HDTV tuner. I upgraded it with a Gigabit Ethernet card and an old analog USB tuner I had laying around from when I bought my laptop, and a sound card that would do SPDIF out.

I also slapped in a 1TB drive and a 320GB drive (the latter I already had).

]]>Sep 23rd 2008 12:57PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 1:48PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/
]]>Sep 23rd 2008 2:16PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 2:20PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 2:47PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 23rd 2008 3:44PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/Sep 24th 2008 5:36AMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/ $500 machine? we're talking purely dedicated hardware here so you can leave off the Xeon processors, people

surely you're not using your HTPC as a transcoding workstation right?]]>Sep 23rd 2008 3:45PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/
So I am never doing that again. I also have a VGA port but however when I had my PC connected via that I got a humbar.]]>Sep 24th 2008 9:30AMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/09/23/poll-whats-the-most-youd-pay-for-the-ultimate-htpc/
As for thermals and noise, there are cheap and good ways around this. I mounted my HTPC and AV equipment in a wall with access under the stairs to the back of the components. I use 36" SATA II cables and have all the drives outside of the HTPC case in a hard drive condo (CFI-B3053BB). This eliminates audible drive noise and significantly minimizes heat.

The only draw back for HTPCs is this total inability to pass a 7.1 Digital (not analog) signal to the receiver for decoding HD audio. However, the ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 and TMT have apparently solved that issue. The only problem is the ASUS card is not out in the US. When it does drop, it will probably be OOS everywhere for weeks as this is the only functional advantage that stand alone players have on HTPCs. Of course, that's assuming price, thermals and noise are not important or are resolved. ]]>Sep 24th 2008 6:18PM