After my original planning I ordered all my parts from scan and the case from ebuyer I proceeded to build my HTPC without much hassle.
The only thing I was worried about was my scythe mini ninja not fitting into my case. That thing is huge. But it did fit in, just and it seems to be doing a good job of keeping the PC running very cool. Also the size of it meant that it was over the first RAM slot so I couldn’t run my 2GB (2×1GB) of RAM in dual channel mode which I’m sure is impacting performance some and is one of the reasons I haven’t attempted to overclock the HTPC.
I connected the HTPC up to my HDTV using scan’s own brand DVI-HDMI cable. The first thing that suprised me was that sound was working through the DVI-HDMI cable. Good if you want it but I’ve got a set of Creative speakers with a subwoofer that I’ve attached to my HTPC giving me much better sound. I felt like DVI was the safer bet over the motherboards built in HDMI. I wasn’t sure how the resoutions for my tv would work.
First I tried my TV’s max resolution of 1382×764 but that left a red line at the bottom of the screen that was clearly visible so I scaled it back to 1280×720 which removed the line but still gave me 720p quality.
I installed the same software as the chap from projecthtpc.org and thats about it. I met all my objectives from my planning stage and more. I find that the PC can actually play 1080p MKV files without too much hassle and I’m sure if at a later stage I want to add a BlueRay drive it will be able to cope with that too no problem.
Since the Logitech DiNovo Mini is still on pre-order I got a cheap wireless keyboard and mouse from Morrisons which works great for the media center PC.
Overall I’ve very pleased with my media center PC and I definetely think it was worth the money. You could probably do it cheaper if you compromised on the case, the LCD isn’t anywhere near as useful as I though (I’ve actually got it turned off) and the case is actually huge. People say “Just to warn you, it is rather large” but you don’t actually realise how large it is but it fits in well in my room. Hopefully it will last a good while without an upgrade. Check out the pictures on my flickr page.