Whats your "HTPC" device of choice?

Device of choice for your TV?

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valve1138

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As the poll states.

Just curious.

I use a full HTPC and an AppleTV (mostly for Netflix).
 
I use a dedicated HTPC but I think once ATV goes 1080p I'll probably switch to those for power and noise reduction.
 
Even though they got bought by Google, dedicated box = SageTV extenders for me! I cring at the thought of going back to full PC's or having to run XBOX360's on 4 TVs in the house :(
 
valve1138 said:
A full on computer you hook up to your TV.
Click to expand...

HTPC = home theater PC, PC=personal computer. Any HTPC is a full-on computer (one could question that that means since those other boxes are computers too, just not general purpose).

I thought you were trying to draw a distinction between what the HTPC was intended to do, like play hard-core games or just stream movies. Those have very different requirements and thus the HTPC will have different components.
 
farscapesg1 said:
Even though they got bought by Google, dedicated box = SageTV extenders for me! I cring at the thought of going back to full PC's or having to run XBOX360's on 4 TVs in the house :(
Click to expand...

Both my HD100's popped and I don't care to fix them right now. They were never that good to begin with. The HD200 was decent, but that got struck by lightning. :p
 
AQ_OC said:
HTPC = home theater PC, PC=personal computer. Any HTPC is a full-on computer (one could question that that means since those other boxes are computers too, just not general purpose).

I thought you were trying to draw a distinction between what the HTPC was intended to do, like play hard-core games or just stream movies. Those have very different requirements and thus the HTPC will have different components.
Click to expand...

What exactly are you nitpicking? Option one is for people who have hooked up a computer to their TV. I don't give a shit how it's configured.
 
HTPC.

My PC is right next to my TV. This means I can play anything without conversion and I don't have to deal with streaming.

But it isn't just my HTPC it is also my desktop, I run cable to a desk with monitor/kb/mouse also in my living room.

I like simplicity. No networking, no streaming, not shuffling files between devices.

Just a PC that plays everything and has my whole collection online.
 
valve1138 said:
What exactly are you nitpicking? Option one is for people who have hooked up a computer to their TV. I don't give a shit how it's configured.
Click to expand...

Dude....almost every post in the subforum is on HTPCs ==> full on computers. That's what HTPCs are. So you can expect that almost all of the responses are going to be the first option.
 
yeah, an htpc by definition is a "full on computer."

the other things are just media players.
 
demografik said:
yeah, an htpc by definition is a "full on computer."

the other things are just toys for children.
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Fixed. :D

BTW, Farscapesg1, using Sage plus an extender still counts since Sage's extenders were pretty damn awesome (HD 2000, 3000).
 
CrimandEvil said:
Fixed. :D

BTW, Farscapesg1, using Sage plus an extender still counts since Sage's extenders were pretty damn awesome (HD 2000, 3000).
Click to expand...

Haha... yeah, the HD100's had their issues, but I've still got one chugging along in my daughter's room. I'm sad that Google bought them out, but still holding onto some shred of hope that they will find a way to continue.

I did the whole "PC connected to TV" and it worked... just never as seamless as the extenders. Between codec issues, driver issues, resolution issues, etc. it was always a challenge to keep it working properly for the non-technical family members ;) Granted, I never got into using Media Center because I started back in the XP-version days, SageTV had a better product, and by the time I invested the money into SageTV I wasn't going to switch to Media Center :p

With 4 TV's in the house (Living room, game room, kids bedroom, and master bedroom) curently, I just don't see myselft building and managing 4 new computer systems for TV. Throw in the fact I've been thinking about adding a TV to the spare room and using it as a home gym, and my youngest daughter will probably want a TV in couple years.. that could be as many as 6 computers chugging along to supply TV :eek:
 
I used a WDTV live but I had so many issues with file shares not being recognized or taking forever to show up. I switched over to XBMC on one of my old gaming rigs, and now I really doubt I'll be able to go back to anything else.
 
Roku is my preference; however, I may go back to an HTPC when I get a bigger house with a dedicated "media room".
 
I use a Win7 Media Center PC with a Ceton Cablecard tuner. The PC actually sits in the kitchen as the household general use PC (and TV) and I stream all media content to the TV using a 360 (slim) as an extender.
 
farscapesg1 said:
Even though they got bought by Google, dedicated box = SageTV extenders for me! I cring at the thought of going back to full PC's or having to run XBOX360's on 4 TVs in the house :(
Click to expand...

While I don't expect to use Sage TV, Does it fully support Cablecard yet? And if so, can I use the SageTV extenders to stream live TV using Cablecard?

I'm honestly curious as I haven't paid much attention to competing products over the past year, and last I heard only Windows Media Center supported Cablecard.
 
Same as griffinhart - Ceton with WMC using 360 (and HP) extenders as primary tv viewing in bedrooms/livingroom with the HTPC in my media room. Very happy with this setup.

In regards to Sage and CableCard - last I heard that it does support it now but only if the stream isn't copy protected. This may have changed though - but I thought some form of WMC was still needed to do the actual recording... bah, I really don't know.
 
We have an Xbox 360 as well as a Playstation 3 in the living room, but we are still constantly frustrated by having to convert files or guess what plays on what. Since we use Netflix and Hulu and a PlayOn server for yet more Hulu a lot, my plan is just to get a simple Apple TV2 and jailbreak it to stream whatever random formats we need from the PC in the office.
 
I have a full on HTPC. I gave up even trying to pretend it looks like a regular audio component. My g/f is an engineer so she doesn't care. It doesn't make much noise - or use much electricity but runs cool and you can play games on it.

Sometimes bigger is better.. When you have a 60 inch TV - I got to question how much 'space" you are saving with some little box.. That space is already accounted for so to speak..
 
I have 2 HTPCS :) one watercooled. 30 GB SSD's as boot drives... all media stored on win7 server. Also have a hacked apple TV 2 with XBMC, but when you have a large library, nothing beats, WMC with Mediabrowser plug in.
 
Zotac D525 ZBOX running XBMC Live. The one with the BluRay drive. It was an impulse buy, wish I'd have waited for the AMD Fusion models to come out, but that said it seems to handle everything I've thrown at it.
 
TiVo Premieres at two TVs along with my main PC having a Ceton InfiniTV 4 and 360s at every TV.

All my recordings for the most part get played back on the TiVos. Media Center shows just get converted to Mpg2 and pushed to the TiVos. The IR on the 360 is just so crappy I hate using it unless I have to. I also find I greatly prefer how TiVo plays back content compared to the streaming on the 360. I just find because of the streaming it isn't as accurate when trying to jump around a show.
 
love my htpc. I don't think you can get the most out of an HTPC without having the flexibility of a computer.
 
cooter said:
love my htpc. I don't think you can get the most out of an HTPC without having the flexibility of a computer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree.

I just switched from SageTV to XBMC on my HTPC. Couldn't really do that otherwise.

But I may switch to something else down the road, I'm really just looking at Sage alternatives (minus the DVR stuff).
 
I just put together a full blown HTPC with some spare sparts (X2 550, 4GBram, 785G board and a cheap 25$ Asus sound card for DD and DTS content. Used a nice Silverstone case with a Alu front and steel for the rest. 120mm fans and its silent. Blu-Ray reader, Cable card with a centon 4 tuner card reader, WMC. I even watch Netflix on it with 0 issues. Once you build a HTPC you never want to go back.
 
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