Here is a list of what I was aiming for:

1. Be able to play backed up DVD, Blu-ray & HDDVD videos in either .avi, .mkv (H.264) or WMV
2. Central bit of software to cover everything
3. Able to play off network shares
4. Be able to play back Blu-ray and HDDVD easily

For my software I am using the following:

• Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate Edition
• MediaPortal v1.0 (with TVSeries 2.0 plugin and Monochrome 2.2 skin)
• iMon 7.2

I did try using Ubuntu over Vista but found that Blu-ray support was a bit limited in the way you basically had to manually dump each film on to the harddrive stripping out the DRM.

So I ended up using Vista which has been very reliable. I have turned off Aero to give a small performance increase in playing 1080p MKV files and have disabled UAC for the obvious reason; it’s annoying.

Although the integrated Windows Media Centre that comes with Windows Vista is good, it can be a bit of a chore to get set up correctly to play any video format. So I am using MediaPortal which is a free bit of software which is simply fantastic.

I followed this guide from ProjectHTPC on setting up MediaPortal which is an easy to understand guide and tells you exactly what you need to know.

I then followed this guide on getting the Monochrome skin on Media Portal and getting the sound through to my sound system playing proper DTS. Following on from that guide, I came across a plugin for MediaPortal called TVSeries. It’s fantasic. I followed this guide and have all my TV series on my computer set up with fan art, which has now given me an excuse to get all my box sets on to the harddrive to have them as easy to access as possible.

Media Portal plays off network shares which has ticked off number 3 and allows me to continue on my search to get a NAS set up with a lot of storage to store all my DVDs etc on.

The only problem I still have to overcome is getting Blu-ray and HDDVD to play through MediaPortal properly, which should be OK once I get around to getting PowerDVD 7 or hacking PowerDVD 8 which removed any trace of HDDVD.

iMon has been a pain though, my case came with a CD with it on which I have now misplaced while moving house and have found myself downloading the latest version off the SoundGraph website extremely slowly.

Hardware wise it is identical to a normal PC with CPU, RAM, motherboard etc etc but generally put in to more stylish cases specially built to fit in most TV stands.

Case

I opted for an Antec Fusion Black HTPC case which is a fairly nice case, although it can be seen as quite costly at around £100 without a PSU. The case is steal with an aluminium front but even so it doesn’t weigh alot. There is space for 2 hard drives which are secured with rubber grommets to stop vibration and 2 5.25″ slots with one of these slots being used for the LCD display that comes built with the case, but can be taken out. The case has a few ventilation holes around to keep components cool but only has 2 120mm fans which are located on the side of the case near where the CPU will be. Both of these fans are Antec Tri-Cools and as such have the 3 way setting for fan speed, low, medium, high. I have mine set to low which gives off a little bit of noise and gives more than adequate cooling for the rest of the components.

Motherboard

After reading many good reviews I bought the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G Micro-ATX. The GA-MA78GM-S2H uses the AMD 780G chipset which has onboard audio and graphics. The onboard audio is a Realtek chip with your standard analogue in and outs but also has a digital out. The onboard graphics is called the Radeon HD 3200 which is said to be equal in performance to the Radeon HD 3450. The HD 3200 has AVIVO and allows for full hardware acceleration if the software supports it. The HD 3200 gives you VGA, DVI and HDMI which also carries sound. The motherboard also has a feature called Hybrid Graphics Technology. This allows you to put in another graphics card in to the PCI-e 2.0 slot which will be used in a crossfire like situation although AMD refuses to call it crossfire due to the performance levels not being the same. Unfortunately you can just shove any card in there and get this performance. It is obviously limited to AMD/ATi cards only and even then it will only use the power equivalent to the onboard graphics. In this case the best card to put in would be the HD 3450.

CPU

Keeping to an all AMD affair, I got the AMD Athlon X2 4850e which is a low power CPU said to consume only 45W. This also reduces heat which is a top priority in an HTPC as it means you don’t need a noisy fan on it, and this CPU is more than capable of processing any HD media or x264 rips.

RAM

RAM isn’t used that much in an HTPC compared to a gaming PC so I just got 2GB (2x 1GB sticks) of Corsair DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX. Of course you can easily change this to 4GB if you want.

PSU

As I was happy with my current Corsair PSU in my gaming PC I chose to keep my loyalty and got the Corsair CX400W which is more than capable of powering the HTPC with room to spare if I ever wanted to add a new sound card or new graphics card.

Hard drive

Being a Samsung fan due to the low noise from their Spinpoint harddrives, I bought another Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB to join my growing collection of them. This drive isn’t particularly slow, but obviously won’t keep up with a Western Digital Raptor but is a hell of a lot quieter. This only used up 1 slot, so I still have another slot spare to add another drive in the future if I wanted to.

DVD Drive

Originally I was just going to buy a £20 DVD drive. But then I saw the LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM. For only £45 more I now have the ability to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Although HD-DVD has been beaten by Blu-Ray there is still a lot of HD-DVD stock out there with stores trying to get rid of it. So when you have the choice of getting HD films for as little as £3 it seemed obvious to get a dual player. The only thing I forgot to check about this drive before purchasing was the noise, but I was gladly surprised with in once it was installed. Although not quiet, it wasn’t too noticeable, so when you have a film on you are unlikely to hear it.

Software

At the moment, I don’t have any dedicated software for my HTPC but I have got Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit to install, then I can test with further software to expand the HTPC to be the optimum it can be.

The film starts with Wade and Laura Porter with their son Michael.  A noise is heard and Wade investigates to find his house being burgalled.  He follows the burglar out the house and see’s him reach in to his pocket, Wade hits the burglar with a baseball on the head and kills him resulting in him being sent to prison where he must befriend some of societies worst criminals.

Trailer:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr0zDhqfOVo

The new Aston Martin DBS as driven by James Bond in Casino Royale and the next film out at the end of the year.

It will set you back £165,000.

The Hottie and the Nottie has dropped to #2 beaten by The Maize: The Movie.  Which also has a score of 1.2 as well as recent new comer Kis Vuk, described by a user comment as:

Deserves being among the worst animations ever

Now Paris is #2, we can reflect on the South Park episode More Crap.

With a rating of 1.2 from over 10,000 votes, the film has hit #1 spot for worst film on IMDB.

You can tell that there have been a lot of crap films coming out recently by looking at the bottom 250 films.

Out of the bottom 30, 25 have been made in the last 8 years.  This is most likely down to reduced costs of creating films and a hope from a lot of writers and directors that they are the next big thing when they are nothing but shit.  A lot of them will make Uwe Boll look great, although his films are no way near as bad as people say.  Such as Seed which was released in 2007. Given a rating of 2.0 I am sure that this was mostly in part to the fact that Uwe directed the film.  I am sure most of the 1837 voters haven’t even seen the film.

What the fuck is the point of banning it? All they have done is give the game more of a public highlight than it would of without.

The adult rating is a joke. I believe they said kids should not be playing this game. Well it is adult rated so they can’t play it unless someone such as their parents buy it for them. If the parents buy and adult only gave for someone under the age of 18 then that kid is probably already fucked in the head after watching many gorey films and their dads Jenna Jameson porn videos.

Video games do not make killers. The release of Manhunt 2 will not make people run around with tweezers trying to rip each others bollocks off because they did it in Manhunt 2. If anything banning the game is going to cause more violence. I am sure the majority of the gaming community and Manhunt fans now want to get some tweezers and rip off Jack Thompsons nuts, but it isn’t going to happen because gamers have a brain.

Why not ban the SIMS? People get addicted to it and don’t go outside, but rather make a character of themselves in the game go outside and play on the computer. How fucking sad and pathetic is that? Is that worse than Manhunt 2? Yes.

At least if you played Manhunt 2 and went out to kill someone you would get some exercise. Perhaps if the game is too gorey we better get people to stop watching the news and seeing the fucked up stories about paedofiles and rapists or even WW2 documentaries. Manhunt 2 is an unrealistic game made for fun. If you come home from work after a stressful day you will want to pretend the AI in the game are your colleges that have pissed you off all day, but you won’t go in to work the next day and kill them all like you would in the game. If you do go in to work and kill them all it will not be because you played the game, it will be because you are fucked in the head.

Violent games and films are just scapegoats for parents who don’t know how to be a parent. Go and fuck yourselves in the arse for raising a shitty little child and not games for supposingly making your child a killer.