omgsoemo Posted May 10, 2007 Share Posted May 10, 2007 Last episode was pretty damn informative about this idea that I have had for a while, but I still have some questions. I want to have a home media server, just for playing music and ripped/ backed up movies. A micro tower would be nice, or at least something like it. The Flex-ATX looked pretty damn sweet, but I know for sure I will not need that much power for just music and movies. What is the cheapest/ smallest system I can buy or build that will have enough just for music and media? The ATX mobo that I checked out at Newegg was way faster than my own damn laptop, and I definitely do not need to pay for that much. Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Gerling Posted May 10, 2007 Share Posted May 10, 2007 If you have a spare 200GB+ HD laying around you're almost better off hacking an Apple TV. It's extremely hard to build anything useful for under $300 without skimping heavily. From looking on Newegg you're looking at roughly 230-240 for a 1GHz VIA setup with their cheapest case, that's before buying 1GB of ram, which is what most seem to support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omgsoemo Posted May 10, 2007 Author Share Posted May 10, 2007 If I were to throw together a few older parts, get an old tower and the like, what kinda specs do you think I would need for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 I was under the impression that if you want to display HD content the VIAs simply can't cope and you need to look for something that will take a decent video card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omgsoemo Posted May 11, 2007 Author Share Posted May 11, 2007 But would I need that powerful a video card if all I did was view media through a network? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 But would I need that powerful a video card if all I did was view media through a network? If you are viewing HD video encoded with a modern codec like MPEG-4 you'll need a decent processor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted May 12, 2007 Share Posted May 12, 2007 http://www.liantec.com/Product/SBC/ITX-6900.htm This puppy takes an Intel Pentium M CPU and has a proprietary expansion module into which you can plug laptop PCI-e graphics card modules. Only thing is that in order to cool this stuff you'll likely need a few fans on this puppy. Better yet, try one of these: http://www.acrosser.com/Product/Embedded%2...M_ar-b1892.html It's got a PCI-e 16x slot on it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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