irishbloo

Thanks.

Vash the Stampede

I never used it. My torrent sites, in order of preference:

KickAssTorrents
Pirate Bay
ScrapeTorrent

The last one is great for picking up anything the others can't find.

Amazulu

I'm just about to start building an el cheapo HTPC. My budget is $400-450

I'll let you know how I get on

Amazulu

kickass is now my torrent site of choice

teza

Kickass is the best by far, however we have Apple TV and prefer downloading mp4. So far the best individual site has been yify-torrents.com (they are the top pirates for both kickass and pirate bay, just easier to get them from their site, they also do .avi format of all their movies.

At kickass the best for TV shows we like (high quality, mp4 and avi) has been "ettv", always quality torrents. Hope this helps...

Amazulu

So I've built a budget HTPC - total cost just under $410 (would have been about $450 with the RAM). I wanted to build it as cheaply as possible:

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 - the cheapest 4th gen Haswell processor but perfectly adequate for my needs. I'm using the stock CPU cooler - can always upgrade later
M/Board: Gigabyte GA-H87N-Wifi - there are cheaper 1150 Mini-ITX boards available but this has built-in wifi and B/Tooth
HDD - 120Gb Samsung EVO 840 SSD - not very big but PC will mainly be used for streaming from the internet and a NAS and I can always add more SSDs later. Windows boots in seconds
RAM: 1x4Gb Kingston DDR3 - salvaged from another PC. 4Gb is enough for my needs
PSU: Corsair CX350 - Good quality, very cheap and pretty quiet
Case: Coolmaster Elite 120 - looks great, has USB3.0 ports and is a bargain at $51
OS: Win7 Ultimate 64-bit - I was going to go for Win8.1 but had this licence available. I may upgrade later
Input: Logitech Dinovo Edge B/Tooth keyboard - which I already had lying around

I am using the onboard graphics via HDMI and have not fitted a TV tuner

No optical drive as I never watch DVDs or BRs now. Everything is downloaded, streamed or USB'ed

I have a Netgear D6300 802.11ac Router which has theoretical Gigabit WiFi. I may upgrade the WiFi with a 802.11ac USB adapter to improve streaming

MSY was the source for all the components - they really are the cheapest

SmartyDNS is my DNS service

I'm using XBMC. I've never seen it before so it's a learning curve to set-up and I am finding out new features of it all the time. It's great software and very customisable. I'm running BBC iplayer, Channel 5, ITV Catch up, Netflix, YouTube through it. There has been some buffering, especially on iplayer but there are ways to get around this, so all are working well. Film On only has some ITV channels now so is pretty useless. I may try Not Film On but to be honest, with all the catch up services, live TV seems pretty pointless. I can't get 4oD (Channel 4) to work with XBMC but can get it through Chrome. I need to see what sport channels I can get. XBMC looks great on my 46" Sony

Issues:
Some buffering (already mentioned)
The stock CPU is a bit too noisy for my liking so I will probably upgrade to a quieter one. The case is pretty small so may be limited in what I can fit
Browsing the web on a TV is not that great, and pointless if you have a tablet

So for not much money and a bit of effort, I pretty much have everything I need media-wise

renth

Sounds great Amazulu, but is it "wife friendly" ?

Can you operate it with a remote control, is it always on or do you need to boot up/login when you want to use it?

Swerv-o

Looks like a nice setup. I bought one of these:

Asus EeBox 1501

And I have found it to be excellent - Initially I installed XBMC on it, but eventually just stuck Linux on it and use it as a giant screen PC.

I particularly liked it as it has no cooling fan generating noise, but does have an Nvidia graphics card, and an integrated DVD player (I still have a few of those). It sits quietly and I can torrent directly to it too, which is great.


S

Amazulu

That does look good. How much did it cost?

Fan noise in an issue but as i was saying I'm going to try and minimise it. I went the self-build route as I want to be able to continuously upgrade

Amazulu

Wife will need training - which could be an issue as she is not good with tech. Definitely 10yo son friendly - he can be her remote

I'm using the keyboard but may look into remotes. I have an old Logitech Universal that may work with it

It will be always on (with power saving mode). I may set it up to boot straight into XBMC

With the SSD it boots in seconds

renth

My setup had to be idiot proof which is why I couldn't go the HTPC route.

It's still not quite there as it uses 4 remotes (one each for TV, amp, Roku, WDTV) I should be able to get it to 2 remotes with a Logitec Harmony but the Roku remote is wireless, which is actually pretty good as you don't have to point it at the device.

ozzieeagle

Noooooooo..... This.... Acer revo.. 6USB ports and all the connectivity you can throw at it, all in HD.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/390621374011?lpid=87

I've got one, it's totally silent and handles everything.

Swerv-o

Ooooh... i3 too...


S

Amazulu

That looks nice but not for me:
Over $600 delivered - my budget was $400
I wanted a Haswell processor it's HD performance and upgradabilty
General ability to upgrade
SSD hard drive and being able to add more
65W PSU on the Acer I've put in the lowest power PSU I could find and that's 350W....

I'll get this machine quiet. I adjusted the fan speed in BIOS and it is noticeably quieter

scrubbedexpat098

hey, you know that you're burning the future of the movie industry