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  1. Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
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    Canada
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    Looking for a good MPC that will play everything you threw at it and was hoping to have a internal hard drive.
    I was looking at the Seagate Freeagent theater HD but it in the $250 CAD mark and looking for something a little lower in price.
    I have seen that some forums are talking about making your own MPC for around $200. Are there any spec's around anywhere?
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  2. The only thing I know that will play anything you throw at it is an HTPC. As for specs, just about any recent hardware can be used in an HTPC. The key is a rig that generates as little noise as possible, isn't too big and can hook-up to your entertainment system. No sense in using a high price CPU with a thermal design power (TDP) of 125W, since most of the time it would sit idle and run at reduced speed anyway (forget quad cores). There are energy efficient CPUs that have TDP around 45W, they are a little more expensive than the standard ones at the same speed, but they run cooler (so the fan runs slower). You have to watch the speed (GHz) though, if you get too slow the CPU will work harder and generate more heat and the fan will run faster making more noise. It's a question of balance, but a video card that has hardware acceleration for video playback can offload the CPU and reduce the noise. Only thing is the price of the card, once you start adding it all up, you already exceed the price of the Free Agent. If you're gonna spend on an HTPC, might as well go one step further and make it a PVR by adding an Hauppage TV card and running MythTV (Linux based). The major benefit of this approach is that the CODECs are upgradeable. Many PC stores have PC configuration helpers to simplify things a bit.

    To keep it simpler and cheaper, take a look at the Markus 800. BTE also sells on ebay; hard to tell which is cheaper with their site pricing not working right. This other place is in Montreal, might be good for saving on sales tax. The Markus 700 can record to MPEG2, but is more limited in playback CODECs.
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