Hey, all. I needed some guidance building a Media PC that will play hi-def movies. My TV (Samsung plasma 50'') has a PC input and I use my laptop to view movies currently. But I want a dedicated desktop. Here's where I need guidance as I've never built a micro-ATX PC before:

This is mainly for media - videos and perhaps photo slideshows (not for editing videos, gaming, etc) - so I don't need premium products and premium hardware - good enough is okay.

1) A good micro-ATX case that's small. I want to be able to access the DVD drive easily though.

2) Motherboard - any good ones that you know of, as long as it runs cool...

3) Minimum video card for HD movies

4) If you know of any remote controllers (note I'm not looking at Windows Media Center - just plain XP)

I'll be streaming movies from my main desktop or playing from a DVD drive.

Don't worry about Networking, DVD and HDD - I got that covered.

Any help appreciated.

Actually, they now have some mATX boards with some pretty good video onboard, some of which does H.264 decoding in hardware, greatly reducing CPU usage, and can be passively cooled. Some of them even have HDMI outputs.
And most of those will also have high def multichannel sound onboard (realtek codec usually), with digital outputs (toslink and/or spdif) and everything else.

On a board like that, a cheap Athlon64 will more than suffice.

Makes for a low cost, low heat and quiet PC -- perfect for the living room.

Looks at boards built on chipsets like AMD's 740G or 780G in your usual store.

Remote wise, it depends on what software you're going to use.

Alternately, you could have a look at units like the Popcorn Hour A-100. It does basically the same thing, for cheap too.

Crahak, can you point me to one so I can look at specs, then compare those with other boards so I can choose?

Also, I'll probably use like PowerDVD or Media Player Classic for viewing.

This one is pretty decent.

AM2+ socket (supports future CPUs), 4 DIMM slots (many mATX boards only have 2) that supports up to 1066MHz (DDR2), Radeon HD3200 onboard (directx 10) which does UVD (decoding of the CPU intensive codecs in hardware, reducing CPU load a LOT), a Realtek ALC889A codec that provides high definition 7.1 audio and advanced features like DTS connect (better than a X-Fi and such) and supports for all the codecs used by Blu-Ray discs, etc.

It has pretty much all the inputs/outputs you'd want for a HTPC: DVI and HDMI (with HDCP and all -- I believe sound over HDMI works fine on this board too) and even the old D-sub, a SPDIF out (digital sound output), eSATA on the back (5 SATA internal, plus a PATA just in case), firewire, plenty of USB, gigabit ethernet, etc.

And it's a quality board, with nice solid caps and everything. No need for a separate vid card, separate sound card, nor a fancy/fast/expensive CPU.

Find a nice mATX case, put a cheap athlon64 CPU, a couple GB of RAM and a Blu-Ray drive and you're set.

Wow, looks like some fast express service here! Couldn´t do it better my self. You want like to ad a TV tuner card too...

Coming from you that's a huge compliment!


Right. Being in the USA it must be worth it to get a ATSC tuner for them nice high definition/high bitrate and toally free OTA HD feeds (I wish we had some around here), they're only like $50 anyways. (optionally, add a better antenna to have more chans)

forgot about keyboard and mouse - although i wouldn't want a huge keyboard for media pc, any small compact wireless with mouse built-in (like a track ball)?

my .02... wait for the Intel g45 chipset to debut. Support for hi-def decoding, and will be available in mATX and m-ITX form factors

It's a bit pricey, but the Logitech diNovo Edge is a very sexy keyboard. It's got great feel and a surprising range. If you can afford it, it's well worth the addition to an HTPC setup.

now that's a sweet keyboard. yeah, pricey. will see if i can afford but that would be exactly what i would be looking for so i don't have to have a separate mouse.