HTPC build/compatibility

[poofyhairguy]

XBMC looks pretty interesting too.

That is my vote. It would work great on that hardware, and it simply is the best media center software on the planet if you have the hardware to run it. The only time I recommend something else is when people don't want to spend the kinda dough on a media center needed to properly run XBMC. But you already did that.

Plex rocks if you want to transcode your content to different devices (Roku, Android tablet, etc.). But you purposefully are building a box that can play anything without transcoding so why use the extra step? That hardware you bought has enough power to use the best XBMC skins (my favorite is Aeon Nox) and the best plug ins. This is a time where XBMC is a clear winner.

(and yes I know Plex has Plex Home Theater but it is the children's book version of XBMC)

XBMC does require a little setup and a small learning curve, but for that you get THE best on demand media center experience. Period.

I personally have five XBMC clients in my house that share a unified library (via the mentioned MySQL) so I am happy to help with any questions. Here is a good starting point:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Quick_Start_Guide

 

[dabuddha]

So I got my system built today finally. Had to wait until today to get the last piece delivered (the blu-ray drive). Surprisingly, it was painless. I hooked it up to my TV and it wasn't coming up. Hooked it up to my upstairs monitor and it came up fine. Reinstalled windows 7 after wiping the 60 gig ssd and it's fast as hell. Back downstairs, still didn't come up via HDMI.

Turns out the HDMI cable was bad. I used the hdmi cable from the FIOS box and it worked fine. I installed XBMC and had it scan the files off my NAS. Some things it seemed to scan/label incorrectly. Like some of the TV series episodes, it displays them all with the same title. But I was able to stream my hobbit rips without any choppiness! I'll start tweaking it tomorrow but so far I'm liking it. I'll take pics tomorrow of the whole setup. I didn't do that great a job of routing the cables since I tend to suck at it but for the most part, it's fairly clean on the inside.