What do I need to make a cheap Media centre/server?

[FuturDreamz]

Basically I'm looking to turn a cheap Netbook or a old laptop into a media center/server that would do the following:

connect to the TV at minimum 720p
Be able to play video's on my laptop's drive at full rez (720p)
Possibly synchronize videos to it`s hd
Be able to act as a printer server for all computers in the house
act as a file server that the computers in the house can use as a backup drive
can access the internet for web browsing, youtube, eta.
be able to play dvd`s even if from an external drive.
be able to be run by a remote for most stuff

following this, what would you say would be the minimum specs needed and would This one work?
Model Eee PC 1001P
Microsoft Windows 7 Starter
Intel Atom N450 Processor (1.66GHz)
1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM
WLAN 802.11 b/g
160GB
Audio Hi-Definition Audio CODEC
Stereo speaker
Digital Mic
1 x Mini VGA Connector
3 x USB 2.0
1 x LAN RJ-45
2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in)

 

[Tepid]

You can try it but the Atom I don't think is suited for a DVR

Depending on how much serving you are planning on doing.....

If trying to do all those things at once? Probably not.

The Atom is a low end purpose driven processor.
Mainly along the lines of a low end Netbook for surfing and word processing/email.

Here is an article on the Atom....
Intel N400 Pine Trail Atom technical documents released | Netbook Choice

 

[Zepher]

that eepc doesn't have the power to do all that.
The best thing is to build a small AMD based nvida 8300 system, Entire machine will cost at least $250 with no OS and a small Hard drive.
I have an Intel based machine but with Intel, but you pay a bit more for the mobo and processor.
My HTPC media machine consists of the following,
Intel E5200 processor
Asus Nvidia 9300 based mobo with Gigabit Ethernet (try to get Gigabit and upgrade your network since this will make large file transfers much faster)
4GB DDR2 ram (bought when Ram was really cheap), 2GB is enough.
Silverstone SG-02 case
Antec 380watt PSU
500GB and 400GB Seagate Drives
LG Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD-RW Drive
HP Media Center IR Receiver
MS Wireless Keyboard
Logitech MX1000 wireless mouse
Logitech 670 Media Remote
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Image before I bought the LG Blu-Ray drive,

 

[Tepid]

yes,, agree with zepher. That is more to what you are looking for.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Entire machine will cost at least $250 with no OS and a small Hard drive.

I can get a dedicated system for under $300?


That'll work


Truth be told I never built a system. Is there a specific build to order site or does one just pick up parts at newegg eta?

 

[FuturDreamz]

And technically I'm not looking for something that does DVR but will act as a light duty intranet server, and also will be connected to a tv so I can watch shows on other computer's hard drives via homegroup (or a workaround if it's running XP)

 

[z3r010]

Basically I'm looking to turn a cheap Netbook or a old laptop into a media center/server that would do the following:

connect to the TV at minimum 720p
Be able to play video's on my laptop's drive at full rez (720p)
Possibly synchronize videos to it`s hd
Be able to act as a printer server for all computers in the house
act as a file server that the computers in the house can use as a backup drive
can access the internet for web browsing, youtube, eta.
be able to play dvd`s even if from an external drive.
be able to be run by a remote for most stuff

following this, what would you say would be the minimum specs needed and would This one work?
Model Eee PC 1001P
Microsoft Windows 7 Starter
Intel Atom N450 Processor (1.66GHz)
1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM
WLAN 802.11 b/g
160GB
Audio Hi-Definition Audio CODEC
Stereo speaker
Digital Mic
1 x Mini VGA Connector
3 x USB 2.0
1 x LAN RJ-45
2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in)

I have a Samsung N210 which is an atom N450 of a similar spec to the one above and it just doesn't have the power to be used as a media center.

 

[pwhooftman]

Try Asrock ION 330

Asrock 330 ION highly recommended !
- low power
- great graphics performance (1080p) thanks to Cuda technology
- built in DVD drive , even BD if you wish
- $350 ish


See ASRock ION 330 as Media Center for a review

 

[Tepid]

Again,, he is wanting more than a Media Center.

The Atom will not work for what he wants to do.

The 330 might be a hyperthreading dual-core atom,, but it's still only 1.6Ghz and I do not recommend overclocking it.

He needs a full C2D or dare I say an AMD processor to handle the load of serving video, printers and storage sharing at the same time.

However,,, if all you want to do is serve video and that's pretty much it. Then this ASRock ION 330 will probably work. Might get away with a bit more,, because of the dedicated video card

 

[AngelProcesser]

My solution to above is a Windows Home Server. With Windows 7 you can configure WMC to archive your recorded TV to it, and your other home PC's and extenders can stream that content. It does backup quite well inluding full images of XP Pro, and Vista and W7 pro/Ultimate.

The system requirements are not extreme and hard drive prices have dropped significantly. Before proceeding with this or any of the above make ure all technologies involved are licensed and available for your region.

My first WHS was a Compaq 5012US, added a SATA/IDE card and two 320GB HDD's. The PC was leftover after upgrades and unused. I have since upgraded my WHS as I do more with it now. The WHS OS can be purchased from MS. My net cost using my oldest PC was less than $200. Also WHS is a headless system so all you need is a decent mobo in a case and some large Hard Drives. Why everyone does not have one is beyond me...It was easy to install and configure and did not break the bank.

There are also many OEM's who make WHS's.

 

[FuturDreamz]

How about this computer running Windows 7 (with Media Centre always running) or Kubuntu with LinuxMCE?

 

[xrdguy]

I bought cheap desktop computer for $170 on Kiji and how it is connected with my samsung 52 inch TV and I use home networking to stream movies from my study computer to home computer and it works awesome.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Yeah a friend is giving me her old tower which i was planning to convert into a server box.
I just wanted to not have a BIG HONKING BLOCK (the size of a PS3 or smaller), but I guess that's too hard of a compromise with power and price.

 

[FuturDreamz]

OK, I think I'm confused.
It will be acting as a (I presume) a light duty printer server, with maybe one document printed a day max.
It will share a hard drive which the other computers in the house will access for their backups. that may be a bit more heavy, but my Mac handles this with <5% total CPU usage when idle (iMac Core Duo).
it will also use a TV as a monitor, and will play movies on other computer's hard drives (or more likely play movies on it's HD, then syncronize with the other computers)

Seperate DVD player, and DVR is provided by my cable company.
My X320 is able to do this pretty well, and it's is technically just a big netbook. (see my specs)

And overhead should be minimal with LinuxMCE/Ubuntu (problably Jolicloud or UNR for better 10" UI)

 

[FuturDreamz]

Oh, sorry. figured it out.
Even though the GMA 500 is crippled by it's drivers, it still whoops the 950 and other netbook gma's in terms of encoding/decoding - Do the WEI Aero score cover encoding/decoding video?

 

[Tepid]

I don't know about WEI,, I doubt it.

Second,, just keep in mind,, what will be the heavist load on the server and any one given time,, you need to plan for that,, and only that as being the heaviest load it will see 24/7.. if you don't, you will be shorting your specs, and you will have problems.

 

[pwhooftman]

Again,, he is wanting more than a Media Center.



The 330 might be a hyperthreading dual-core atom,, but it's still only 1.6Ghz and I do not recommend overclocking it.


However,,, if all you want to do is serve video and that's pretty much it. Then this ASRock ION 330 will probably work. Might get away with a bit more,, because of the dedicated video card

I own a ASrock ION 330. You get away with a lot more. I can watch & record Full HD DVB-C TV channels via an Anysee E30TC DVB-T/C receiver. Even scrambled ones, which are software-descramled. Still, cpu goes to max 50-60%. This is because all work for 1080 playback is done by the 16 GPU cores of the on-board Geforce 9400 (which are overclockable as well). Atom CPU is only used for descrambling & disk i/o. I admit, watching & recording HD is about the limit, but SD channels are easily delt with. Several benchmarks have run test for over hours overclocked to 2.1 GHZ without a hitch, altough i keep it at 1.7 GHZ. Still, you can set treshold values for CPU temperature if you're not sure.
The system generates so little heat that the system can be placed in a virtually sealed cabinet (40W max, an AMD processor alone would require more).

File and printserving is such a low-demanding task, thats not a factor. In fact, the ION 330 will be way overkill for just file and printserving because then the graphics Cuda technology won't be used. The ION 330 comes to justice when directly connected to a big screen TV (via VGA or better, HDMI), playing digital content.

One thing to keep in mind: the ION doesn't have PCI-e slots, so expansion has to be done via USB, Or buy the -Pro version, it has an external e-Sata connection so you can use disks in Raid!

Beware, the Geforce GPU cores are only used properly by using correct drivers (native in Windows 7 & some Linux versions )

 

[FuturDreamz]

yeah I believe that the only video files it will be descrambling are .avi files at 720p. I don't know the codec, but it's one of the fastest encoders that HandBrake (for mac) could do, so it problably wouldn't be too hard to decode.