My Upcoming HTPC Build - Your Comments

[adnank77]

I'm planning to build an HTPC .. Will Order the Parts next week ..

Before ordering, I wanted your opinions to see if I did the right choices..

My main (maybe only) use will be to convert ALL my DVD Library into ISO files starting with Cartoons .. this is to prevent the kids from keep scratching the disks ..

Here is the proposed build:

http://gear-up.me/coolermaster-elite-120-mini-itx-advance-usb-3-0.html
http://gear-up.me/psu-coolermaster-elite-series-460w-v2-3.html
http://gear-up.me/richland-cpu-amd-a10-6800k-4core-box-4-1-ghz-4mb.html
http://gear-up.me/msi-fm2-a75ia-e53.html
http://gear-up.me/hdd-1-5tb-wd1502faex-7200rpm-64-mb-sataiii-600-5rz.html
http://gear-up.me/logitech-wireless-touchpad-usb.html

 

[SheHateMe]

Yes.

 

[Charlie98]

That CPU is probably overkill if it's strictly an HTPC streamer. I've got a $50(US) Pentium in my HTPC and it has no problems... you could certainly downsize your CPU.

The only other thing I can see is the HDD... I would go to at least a 2TB or larger, or twin 2TB's etc (of course, based on the total amount of DVD's you plan on ripping.) I started with a 1GB HDD, bumped it up to a 2TB drive, and now had to stab in a 500GB I had laying around because the 2TB is full...

What are you using for an OS?

 

[Fallen Kell]

If you main use is to convert your DVD library, you will REALLY want to find a DVD carrousel like the Sony VAIO XL1B2 or similar, if you can find one. You absolutely don't want to be sitting around weeks on end popping in another DVD, hitting the buttons, come back 20-40 minutes later, eject DVD, rinse repeat if you have any kind of DVD collection already.

Sony stopped making them a number of years back and had a blowout sale on them at $99, which at that time was amazing considering you could barely get a DVD burner for $50, let alone a 200 disc changer/burner.

Anyway, they are not the only ones who made a DVD changer. I believe ImgBurn software supports some of them. Otherwise a person from AVS Forums who's screen name is "MediaDogg" wrote some control software which lets you run batch scripts on a range of the DVD slots. I wrote a perl program which was compatible with it that ripped DVD's to ISO files (it used AnyDVD and DVDDecrypter. Basically you then just load up 200 of your DVD's, run MediaDogg's program using batch mode on all the DVD slots and have it run the batch program I wrote and it will just go ahead and rip the movies. It auto-detects the DVD name based on DVD title stamped/burned on the disc. However, many DVD's are not correctly titled, so there can be times where you will need to simply mount the image, start playing it and then rename, but that is relatively simple. I believe mine took about 2-3 days to process a batch of 200 DVD's, but in terms of my needing to babysit, I only needed to check on it 2-3 times to resolve an issue with DVDDecrypter on a couple discs when it couldn't automatically detect the main movie and prompted for me to select. I had over 600-700 DVDs to process, and really this is the only way to do it if you don't want to spend months doing them individually.