Home Theater PC Building - A HotHardware How-To

Building a Home Theater PC is often times a much better option for enabling your entertainment center for various forms of digital media playback capability.  Rather than stepping up to additional discrete components, like a stand-alone Blu-ray, DVD or CD player, why not infuse your living room entertainment center with real intelligence and multimedia muscle and build an HTPC (Home Theater PC)?  In this video, we'll give you some suggestions on a few component selection options for building an HTPC, as well as a high-level overview of its assembly and a few key design points to look out for.  We'll then of course demo our systems for you to show you what you can do with an HTPC.  Stacking up discrete components is out and convergence, integration and the New Media Center are in!  

Thermaltake's Element Q Mini ITX Case - Click for full res


         
 OCZ ModXSteam Pro 500W PSU, WD Caviar Black 1TB, Intel Core i5 661 Processor


   
VidaBox vCase3 HTPC Micro ATX Chassis - Click for full res

 

Total Build Cost: VidaBox vCase 3 = $899	Total Build Cost: Thermaltake Element Q = $750
Core i5 661: $199 Intel DH55TC: $99 OCZ DDR3-1333: $80 WD Caviar Black 1TB: $99 Radeon HD 5570: $85 Lite-On BD Drive: $69 OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W: $69 VidaBox vCase3: $199	Core i5 661: $199 Intel DH57GJ: $135 OCZ DDR3-1333: $80 WD Caviar Black 1TB: $99 Radeon HD 5670: $99 Lite-On BD Drive: $69 Thermaltake Element Q w/ 250W PSU: $69

Editor's Note:  Vidabox has informed us that a $50 discount coupon code is available for the vCase 3. Just drop "vCase3-HotHardware" into the order at check out.