if HD audio isn't considered and not a gamer, and looking just to play 1080p mkv then by all means, an RM300 media player would suffice.

any particular reason in selecting core i5 when core i3 is enough?

the core i3 paired with h55 is able to do hd audio bitstream. you don't need the ATI 5 series GC.

nope.
i'm gonna choose the lower end of the core series which could do bitstream (core i3-530) since the extra clockspeed won't improve the decoding performance (if software decoding is used) and won't affect anything if hardware decoding is used.
the lower clockspeed reduces the heat output, thus reducing the fan speed and noise.

the saved budget will be used to get the most important part in (any) HTPC (media library):
STORAGE.
RM300 saved is another 1.5TB of storage. i already have 6 and fully filled 5 of it.


then again, my requirement might not be the same as everyone.

set the default playback device to whatever that you want.
if you're on windows 7, right click on the speaker icon on that taskbar -> playback devices -> set the default device playback to something else.

^ what he said

strongly not adviced to put the HDD that close to the sub.
HDD + strong magnet = not good.

precisely.
got one of my 1.5TB stopped working on me.
HDD is cheap, but the content in it will take months to fill back.

thankfully the SMART monitoring warned me about possible failure a few days before the HDD stopped working completely. managed to copy all but 1 movie to another hdd.

good.. i need 6 of them in 1.5TB sizes.
should cost a few hundred k's

how much did you bought the hotway 4 bay casing for?

hoho.. this is the reason i prefer to go with integrated sata in the mobo.
RM350 for the case
then another RM150 for the sata card?

the gigabyte h55m-usb3 costs RM400 and it has 8 sata ports, 12 usb port, usb 3.0 and it does bitstreaming too
but even if you guys still wanna go with a sata card, you might wanna try it at the shop. i've seen a lot of adapters don't work with some particular mainboard.

i'm running an old core2 duo gigabyte board with 4 sata port. with an RM25 3 port sata card.
6 hdd all internal and 1 of those sata port converted to esata.

never bought an external casing so no testing could be done. at RM350 a piece, i'd rather get another 1.5TB HDD
i'm just saying it's not a cost effective solution to go with the 4 port bay if you have to get another RM150 sata card to go with it..

just an opinion though

---

Added on June 6, 2010, 7:24 pmlower just the centre channel volume (if you're running analog output from the soundcard to the speakers)
or if you're running a 2.1 speaker (or 2.0), tweak the centre level using klite audio decoder under the volume section

This post has been edited by paskal: Jun 6 2010, 07:24 PM

AFAIK, the HD3200 could do some hardware accelerataion. try and search around on how to enable it.
for the time being, try and use media player classic paired with corecodec coreavc decoder. that should be the fastest software decoder. try and use that and see if it still lags

i'd rather exhaust all my options before jumping for an upgrade.
try the media player classic home cinema (mpc-hc) either with or without coreavc to see whether the problem is from the mediaportal or from hardware speed.

i guess you're quoting the wrong person.
ain't me running the AMD platform

h55 mobo isn't without its' weaknesses.
for one, max on the market only has 7 SATA ports (gigabyte h55m-usb3)

some of the older c2d mobo have 10 SATA ports. lots of ports are necessary important for HTPC cum media server.

then the cost will rapidly rise taking into consideration the price for another pc for storage or another set of NAS for storage.
NAS/storage server ain't cheap. i'd rather go with one solution that caters for both media and storage. cheaper in the long run.

i'm using a silverstone htpc case that fits 6 hdd (8 hdd after a simple mod) and another 3 on the dual 5.25" bay. so a total of 11 hdd could be stacked in there. currently using an extra mini itx board with 4 sata port and a 2 port sata pci card.

now in the process of upgrading the mainboard to another model with 10 sata port for a cost of RM250.
2 port pci sata card is only RM25.
4 port pci sata card is only RM85.

whereas a 4 hdd external case is RM355.
4 port NAS i think is close to RM1k more than RM500
2 HDD could only fit in about 150 1080p movies. not enough for someone with a large collection

not necessarily. i run windows 7 on my htpc. well on all my desktops and laptops, and by default, it turns off any unused hdd after 20 minutes.
and judging from memory, it works better than the same settings on windows xp. xp have a habit of not turning off unused drive even when you tell it to. xp randomly access hdd for god knows why.

unused drive will take around 5 second to spin back to life after being turned off. happens a lot after i finish watching a movie and searching for the next to watch.
off-ed drive is only a tad warm to the touch. and that's without any fan blowing to the hdd.

for htpc use, i really suggest not going the 7200rpm route as those blazing drive generates lots of heat. all my drive are the slow, 5400rpm ones. generates considerably less heat than 7200rpm drives.

i'd blame it on the aircond, not on the htpc.
my bill is only about RM25-26 per month before this. couple of month goes below RM20 and paid by the gov.
now it's RM250 after airconditioning.

walauweh only increase 2 times. very good ekon you have

yes it is compatible. i'm using it with xbmc.
apart from a few not important buttons, everything works out of the box.

but make sure you tick 'remote sends keyboard keypress' (i think) option in the xbmc configuration page

nope. you need a 5 series ATI card. i'm using ATI 5450, the cheapest in the ATI line that could bitstream.
tested and confirmed it can do HD audio bitstreaming to my AVR.

costs RM165 from PCZone (or issit CZone) lowyat. no other shop have them.