Building a HTPC

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum but after browsing around here this seems like the perfect place to get advice. I think it might be helpful to tell you guys about myself first, so that you can better gage what I want to do. I am 25 years old, I just graduated law school in may, passed the bar and will be sworn in on November 6th. I am getting married in May. To save money while going to law school to moved back home with my parents - so I haven't had a place to call my own since my fraternity house back in college. Needless to say I am pretty excited about moving out come April. I am also tech head who loves movies so needless to say I want to build a great home theater set-up for our first place together (hopefully something that can be upgraded as the years go by). Being the incredible girl that she, I have been approved to do whatever I want within reason.

So hear is what I want to do - I want to build a HTPC that can also game, but it will mostly be used for watching movies/playing music, etc. I also want to be able to reduce all my DVD's (about 200 or so) to hard disks and be able to access them as if they were on demand movies. In other words, what sort of programs exist that let one navigate through their stored titles easily. I already have a stand alone blu-ray, but if I could move that to the bedroom and keep this all in one, that would great. It will be hooked up to either a 50 inch or 52 inch 1080p 120hz LCD TV.

Basically I am out of touch with the latest and greatest and really need help in finding the right components to make this all work out. I built all of my computers until Law School required me to use a laptop and since that time I have mostly been using a Macbook Pro (also using XP on bootcamp), save for the 8 months or so I used a Dell that I paid too much money for. I have been able to research online a bit, but some of the articles are way to old or designed for building one on the cheap - I am not so much concerned with being cheap and just paying the right amount for the best performance.

thats a good question and something I have been thinking a lot about - I normal pc case may be a better option - especially since I am going to need several hard drives by my estimates...plus I do want to keep it as possible. Obviously noise is a factor too - i just think the full case will probably give me more options - besides I have looked at a lot of the HTPC cases and none of them really appeal to me enough to lose out on better cooler and more expandability.

Yes a normal pc case will give you more options. I just bought me a Zalman GT1000-b case very nice but very expencive. I just like these sleak cases. But it is persional what kind of case you would like just make sure it is a decent case with good quality I would recommend zalman and Lian Li cases.

What software did you use to do those dvd rips?

for you, I dont think there is much difference between AMD and Intel.
I would get a p45 based chipset for Intel and a790gx for AMD. (assuming a full ATX case, for microATX get a G31,33 or 35 for Intel and a 780G for AMD)
Intel is coming out with a new socket very quickly, so an intel will have less upgradability.
you will want a low power CPU no matter witch route you go. I would suggest a 45nm Intel or a 45 watt 4850e or a quicker 65 watt AMD. a dual core is more than enough for your needs. I say low power because more power = more heat = noisier fans, and you don't need the extra performance.

I would suggest an ATI 4670 if you plan on just light gaming, 4850 for a bit more or a 1 gig 4870 if you plan on heavier gaming. the onboard graphics of the 790gx is enough to play 1080p movies (and older games), but the cards touch up the DVDs and give a better picture.

you are going to want at least 1TB of HDD space, more.

the real problem you are going to run into is all the antipiracy crap on your DVDs, there is at least 1 program out there that can remove all that garbage, don't recall the name.

I'm not sure witch direction to point you for a TV tunner to record shows, but you'll want one

Yeah i,m going to try it out, I just took a quick look at it, do you rip your own movies or are you connected to the my movies2 network and watch them that way?

Thanks cardio - that sounds like an incredible system in the direction of what I was thinking (but maybe a bit more than I was anticipating on doing myself - of course now I want one too!) - to answer some of the previous questions - 1) I think my budget is around $2500 but that is more of a get an running cost, I am willing to spend more but maybe a few months down the road. 2) I play first person shooters/rpgs a bit but mostly its command and conquer type games.

I actually have already started archiving my DVDs - a putting them on a external drive I had (just to test things out). I just a program called mac the ripper and it works great - these are all my movies that I bought btw - just in case the FBI is listening. The program lets you pick what components you want to rip, which is nice - for most movies I do everything to get a full dvd experience, but there are a few that I have done just the movie. I figure I am going to need about 3 TB to be comfortable and I saw 1.5TB drives on newegg for about 180 a piece.

Now with blu-ray playback - can yo get all the same features as a standalone through the pc - is that dependent on the video card/software. Also are there any cards that send HD audio over HDMI?

Cardio answered my question operating systems - thank you

@ col-p-tod - I have a core 2 duo now in my macbook pro and it flies - but do you think it is worth it to spend the money on the quad?

the ATI send Audio over the HDMI from what I've ready. the top of the line nVidias do not.

pcorrado
-If you plan to encode video at all then definitely go quad-core.
-For a gaming HTPC, I'd suggest any of the HIS IceQ HD4670/HD4850 cards. The IceQ cooling is quiet and pushes the hot air out of the case.
-Vista media center is great for an HTPC front-end.
-I've used mac the ripper on my wife's macbook before... a comparable program for windows that I use is called DVDFab HD Decrypter. It's free for your basic ripping needs.
-Consider getting a true HTPC case. Many of them have a built in IR receiver for a remote which comes in handy! Also, many come with the power supply extension cable that lets you power on the system from a completely off state using a remote. Plus, it adds the 'cool-factor' to the build when your computer looks like a high-end A/V receiver.
-And finally, read up some of the stickies at www.avsforum.com and www.thegreenbutton.com for more HTPC ideas.


cardio
-When I installed TV Pack, it kind of broke the MyMovies2 plugin. By that, I mean when I stop video playback in MyMovies it sort of pauses the video instead of bringing up the Done-Delete-Restart menu that is supposed to appear when video is stopped. Only way to completely stop video playback is to exit VMC. Other than that, MyMovies seems to work fine. Do you have this problem? Anyone else?