Client Hardware Suggestions

[wvpolekat]

I am using a pair of MVPs right now and a headless Sage server. I am debating losing one of the MVPs in favor of a PC.

I have always said that I would never have a PC hooked to the TV, but I may give on that.

What kind of horsepower would I need for a client?

CPU?
Video Card? I can do HDMI, RGB, Component and Composite to the TV.

Sound? Would prefer optical/TOSLINK.
Remote Control? USB-UIRT?
License?

It MUST be able to pass 5.1 since that is the primary reason for doing this.

This will ONLY be a client, it will not have any tuners and very little local storage.

EDIT: This does NOT have to be a silent PC, the TV backs up to a closet and I can put the PC in there and route the cables through the wall.

[wvpolekat]

Could you guys at least tell someone when you move their thread? I almost reposted this because I thought it had disappeared.

[Djc208]

Well just to get this out of the way, the HD extenders are going to be the best way to get this. Unless you need PC capabilities or have a lot of spare parts around it's going to be cheaper and easier to buy an extender than to build a client PC.

If you do want a PC we need a little more info. Do you want it to be HD capable? Are you going to want to do H.264 files (from HD PVR or BD/HD DVD)?

Most motherboards offer Toslink outputs nowdays. The software just passes the digital audio through the PC.

If you're buying hardware a current gen itegrated graphics motherboard will probably give you as close to a client form factor with PC capabilities.

[SWKerr]

You can get a build a AMD 780G machine the will have HDMI and optical sound for less than $300 excluding software. (4GB Ram\160GB HD\AMD X2 45W) Should be fairly quite but not dead silent. A lot of people have an extra XP license at this point but add $100 for windows if you don't. Sage Client is $30 and add another $50 for the USB-UIRT. You'll probably want a good wireless keyboard also so add another $50. At this point you have a pretty good rig that will play any HD content but you are just about double the cost of an extender.

The question between the above setup and the extender is do you want to do online stuff like Hulu and Netflix. Blu-Ray is a another limitation of the extender. If you care about those things then you should build a client but if you just want good quality TV and music then the extender should work.

I have tow clients and I use HDMI for all the hookups at this point. One is a Onkio Receiver with HDMI pass-thru to the TV and other goes directly to the TV and the TV has a optical sound out to the stereo. They both sound great. Before that I had optical sound out to the stereo and VGA for video and it sounded just as good. I went to may dads over thanksgiving and noticed how much a difference the 5.1 surround sound makes and it is worth the extra $ and effort.