reasonably priced HTPC

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

many thanks for the XP / Vista summary.

The reason I asked about your receiver is that there can't be that many "old" 7.1 Sony ES receivers. I immediately thought of the DA7100ES and DA9000ES, which are both 7 channel, and came out a few years ago. They also have i-Link inputs, which are great for (SA)CD / DVD players with iLink outputs.

I mention this is because iLink is just an IEEE1394 interface with the A&M protocol. Considering your interest in HTPCs, I wondered if you had heard of the i-Link driver that someone on AVS had developed recently, that enabled a PC to act as the transport to those amps. It's a fascinating opportunity because the flow control protocol effectively renders the source and interface jitterless. There is still jitter within the amp, but not much, and the result is quite wonderful.

best regards, Nick

Actually it's an STR-DA3000ES (from around 2003 I think) and no iLink input if I remember correctly... or lossless audio . I had read about that driver some time ago, but at the time it was still being worked on and had a number of bugs. Have you had a chance to use it? How well does it work at this point? It's definitely cool to see the consumers taking it into their own hands to make things work that manufacturer's don't seem willing to work on.

Originally Posted by saljr

I'm waiting for PC sound card to support DTS-HD(Master) and Dolby TrueDH. I think by the begin of 2008 we might see a card that supports DTS-HD(Master)and Dolby TrueDH.

Have you heard of one coming that soon? Everything I keep hearing is that none of the soundcard manufacturers feel that the HTPC crowd with BD/HD DVD drives is a big enough market to warrant the cost of development at this point.

Originally Posted by davowavo

Hi all,

I decided to look at what the cost would be for a home-built pc. I've built several in the past, and figured it would at least be worth looking into. I thought I'd start by looking into cases, and after lots of research, I've yet to find one that doesn't have some sort of significant flaw.

Anyways, getting to my point, what components do y'all recommend for a lower-end, yet tried-and-true blu-ray HTPC? All supporting info that you are willing to provide for your choice of components will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

I'll try to put together a lower-cost build on Newegg for you to look at. Are there going to be any other uses for this PC? Gaming, etc? Also do you want BD-R/RE burning or just playback?