Please help me to build my first HTPC!

[cornelius]

Hi,

I am going to build my first HTPC. I am programmer and I am familiar with the normal PC but I do not know anything about Home Theatre PC. Now I am looking for help what kind of hardware and software I would need.
I have a Sony KV32FX60 TV and a Sony DVP-S725D desktop DVD player, and a Philips VCR. The TV is still OK, but the DVD player and the VCR are older than 4 years and both of them have serious problems. So, I would like to replace my old desktop DVD player, old VCR and even my current PC as well with this new HTPC. (I use my current PC to play DivX only.)

Tha main goals are the followings:
1. Apperance:
It should be small, beautiful and quiet device. My current PC is very noisy when I play DivX and I would like to avoid this problem.

2. Playing:
It should play every known video (DVD, VCD, SVCD, DivX, XVid, Wmv, etc.) and audio (wav, mp3) files from HD, CD and DVD disk, and even from other PC of the home network.

3. Recording:
It should record external analog video signal from satelite receiver or VCR or camcorder into mpeg2 files. If recording TV channels was possible than I would need it as weel, but this function is not indispensable right now. About 3 years ago I bought Dazzle DVC II. It is an external device which is able to record analog signals to mpeg1 or mpeg2, but when I recorded longer stream (e.g. more than 20 minutes) it started having serious lips-sync problem which I could never get rid of it. Now I would like to buy a perfect solution without any problem. Is it prossible?

4. Remote and display:
It should have remote control and similar display like the desktop DVD player has. The controlling of the PC should be very simple, menu driven.

5. Peripherials:
It should not have monitor, mouse and keyboard. The main display would be the TV and the main input device the remote control, otherwise I can imagine only wireless mouse and keyboard, which can be hide somewhere. But no monitor at all!

6. Quality:
Finally, the most important thing is the quality of the video. In my current PC I have nVidia video card with 128 MB memory and video output possibility. Unfortunately, the quality of the picture produced by my PC in the TV is very poor even I watch DVD movie. Far, far away from the quality of the picture of my desktop DVD player. I would like to have a good HTPC which can produce the same or almost the same quality as my DVD player.

My questions:
1. Hardware:
What kind of hardware I should buy? I mean everything starting with PC case, power supply, motherboard, processor, memory, video card, HD, DVD drive, and others.
I am thinking about to buy some kind of memory card (like Compact Flash) where I can install the operating system on it. Can the bootup time be shorter from Compact Flash than HD?

2. Software:
Which operating system I should choose. I am familiar with the windows, but I do not really know e.g. the XP is good enough for HTPC or I should choose a Linux distribution? Another interesting question is the multimedia application. Which software should I use to control this PC easily?


That's all. I know there are a lot of solutions for this but now I am absolutely adviceless. I would like to have a system which is valid "forever", I mean if any changes happen in the future I should change only some of the components and I can get an up-to-date system again. Unfortunately. my wallet is not endless.
I am looking for the best possible solution up to 2000 euro, no more.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Cornelius

PS: I am sorry for my bad English and the long text, but being newbie I could not explain my whishes shortly.

[gshelley61]

You might want to visit the AVS Forum HTPC section, too

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=bc2c3d9ab74a407caf1c66863d3ba872&forumid=26

[tjbecht]

try htpcnews.com

[BJ_M]

http://www.htpcnews.com/
http://www.sllug.org/how-to/linux-htpc/introduction.html
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26

http://www.hivizone.com/ <-- prebuilt very nice units at very good prices ..