build suggestions
#1
Hi, I'd like to build a rig to run XBMC and windows media center. Before I get into the requirements and look for your input, let me tell you about my setup, future plans, other considerations, and my own thoughts

Setup
1 50" LCD in living room connected to a receiver pushing 5.1 surround.

The receiver gets input from my cable box (on demand/premium tv) and xbox 360 (games + netflix + last.fm) - all through hdmi. What is lacking in my setup is the ability to download video and torrents, play non standard formats and easily sling media between the TV and my mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, Android Phone).

Upgrade Plans
Eventually I would like to get a new TV and put the LCD in the bedroom. In this case, I want to be able to access all the content I'm getting in the living room on the bedroom TV without a lot more boxes and things. I will also likely pickup an android tablet or windows 8 tablet later this year and will want that to play nice with the iOS devices, the android devices, and the xbox 360.

Other Considerations
Whatever is added to the home theater must score high on WAF (wife approval factor) and will ideally not add complexity to the end user interaction with the setup. Because I plan on buying other consumer electronics I want the solution to be low cost. I am comfortable building this myself but while I have built desktop pcs in the past, I have not built an htpc/mini itx. By the way, does the fact that mini itx is smaller than micro atx confuse anyone else sometimes (because mini usb is larger than micro usb)?

Requirements and Initial Thoughts
There are two ways to go here - cut out the xbox completely (except for dvds and games) - and have the htpc run the media center. Or, have the htpc run the processes to download, transcode, and serve data to the xbox 360 through media center extender and have the rest of the show running through xbmc. I'm leaning toward the latter because of the need to serve two screens through the same box.

I am thinking of running the amd a6 triple core SoC on the most minimal unassuming mini itx or micro atx mobo + case. 2 x 4GB sticks of ram for a total of 8 GB and Windows 7 Home Premium with XBMC running on top. Maybe throw in a 7200 rpm 1 TB hdd for media storage. Would connect the primary TV to this box using windows media extender on the xbox and access it using hdmi to run xbmc or windows media center on the secondary tv. The only thing I'd lose out on is live TV and gaming in the bedroom - but I can live without that.

I think i could do this build for $400 but I'd like to bring that down further. Given my requirements, what do you think? Could I do it with an atom or a lower spec AMD fusion chip?

Thanks!
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#2
Welcome

The first thing you are going to want to do is read this thread and the attached one about what group your in
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=94199

Also look at the AMD A6 3500. Its hot set up right now

4 Gb for ram is plenty with W7. I don't know about this media extender but you don't want to run your HTPC threw the X box. Just run the HDMI to your receiver bit stream the audio for 5.1 XBMC will also act as a network server for your media to your bedroom
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