Windows Vista Ultimate w/Media Center is it stable?

[PeleLTU]

I have a client that wants me to build him a machine that would only be used to play Blu-ray movies from the hard drive. It would be just tucked away in a corner somewhere.

He orginally was going to use a PS3 to stream the movies into his movie room, but after I told him about Media Center he was excited. I told him to find a spot nearby and we can HDMI or DVI into his projector. I went off to spec the machine and then I got a phone call. He spoke to his friend which uses a PS3 to watch his blu-rays from his computer and he indicated that Vista Media Edition sounds great on paper but is too unstable. On top of that, he indicated that he is a close follower of the issues with the unstablness of Media Edition.

Is he correct, what is everyones opinon?

 

[14049752]

I have an HP Vista Media Center that I use for recording TV, watching movies (only DVD, doesn't have bluray), and games. I've had it for over a year and it's never crashed. I keep it on all the time.

 

[PeleLTU]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate the feedback.

 

[purple_minion]

I have been using mythtv for quite a while now. Mythbuntu is pretty easy to install, still a hiccup or two on my new frontend, had to manually remove an AGP module that wanted to load... however there is no AGP port on the damn thing. Anyway I've found with linux that once it's all setup nicely if you don't touch it she'll run forever. I have learned that if it ain't broke don't fix it. I have tried BeyondTV and SageTV and both let me down... not so much the programs though they had issues, but in the random windows problems that would come up after a while when I literally haven't touched the computer since setup. You can play anything that mplayer or linux can play, which is pretty much anything. Also once you get one backend setup you can stick more computers anywhere else in the house and stream tv shows, video's, music, movies, etc to them and they don't need much in the way of hardware. I just finally setup another frontend with a Firefly remote and it's pretty great. Ideally you could sell him a whole house solution, especially once you get the hardware and myth install down it's easy.

Also, speaking from experience playing blu-ray from a HD is difficult... I know I tried. It takes a lot of reading and hunting and sometimes it still isn't perfect. I assume you could transcode them into say an mkv and lose some issues, but I figure if I'm going to save blu ray I might as well have full quality. Frankly from just my hellish experience, if he can rip a blu-ray and get it to output himself he doesn't need you. If he got you to setup this including ripping and playing blu-ray I would say he's either gonna pay through the nose or it's not worth your time. I spent two weeks I think ironing out everything.

 

[Blues]

I think I saw where a major tech site did a media center build using Vista Ultimate or one flavor of Vista. It works well and he uses it to watch Blu-Ray rips and it works nicely oh btw not sure what CPU you are using but what I have seen the bottle neck for HD playback is in the L2 or L3 Cache.

 

[PeleLTU]

Thanks for the L2/L3 cache tip.

 

[PeleLTU]

I just checked my planned cpu. I was going to use an AMD 5600+ 2.9GHz dual core chip. It has 128 MB L1 per core and 512 L2 per core. It has the 3DNow! technology as well. Do I need more?

 

[Blues]

I have used similar CPU I would say look at the new AMD 64 X2 7750 it is a black edition so needs aftermarket cooler but has unlocked multiplier to overclock with ease and it I think around $60-$80 and sports a 2MB L3

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103300

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103234

The only real downside to the new one is the 95W vs 65W but I don't know how much CPU load it will mostly be memory

 

[dhrandy]

I just checked my planned cpu. I was going to use an AMD 5600+ 2.9GHz dual core chip. It has 128 MB L1 per core and 512 L2 per core. It has the 3DNow! technology as well. Do I need more?

That's way more power than you need for a htpc. I would go with the 4850 and would use either the 780G or the new 790 motherboard. The advantage of the 4850 is that it's a 45 watt processor and with the 780 and 790 boards, you can use the onboard graphics for 1080P output through HDMI. Anything more is just an overkill for a htpc.