Decisions

First of all....Hello everyone...lol
I will thank you all in advance for your expertise and input!!!!!

I'm sure like the rest of you I really enjoy my TV time and it is usually my escape..lol
unfortunately life and family and such has caused me to get behind a bit on the times so bear in mind this is not about a buy tomorrow type of thing as I will finally be able to ditch my 9 year old 36" flat screen JVC TV and join the HDTV revolution....but not until early to mid next year....lol

I cant tell you how much time I have spent roaming forums like this trying to catch up
which now leads me to you fine people and trying to figure out the best way to upgrade my AV gear
at this point i have survived running Tversity to my xbox 360......now the pc running this is old and when the software runs the cpu is pretty much pegged the whole time but somehow streams my movies without a hitch

but looking forward to eventually getting an hdtv i have been looking at all the options to hopefully not have to continue down the same path
so i have been thinking i would have to buy/build something new which if that is the only way then i guess it is what it is but seeing a post on here where poofyhairguy gave someone else some viable options to someone with an old amd 3200+ let me know i have some options too...lol

Now realistically I am looking at being able to stream my movie backups to my TV.....I don't think i really have a need to DVR funtionality out of my pc....just be able to stream .avi's...mkv's and such

I have 2 old pc's....one happens to be an old amd xp 3200+....the motherboard just has an AGP slot and PCI slots
the second is a P4 2.8....the motherboard has 1 pci express slot and PCI slots

I have also looked at NAS units but again if i can just make my current hardware work then that would be fantastic

so if you were in my boat and considering the boxee box may someday come out...lol
and google tv coming out (i have not found any info stating the set top box will be able to stream local content so im guessing it wont...but sure wish it would)

like anything else money is def driving this.....could/would it make sense to try and convert my old amd box to run XBMC and add storage for media to it and also add storage to my p4 box for media
or
buy/build an ION setup and add storage to both for media
or
buy a boxee box and add storage to both pc's for media

i am assuming i can just add storage to the current pc's rather than buy a NAS unit

Hopefully I did not talk in circles.....but its late and i can't think...lol

Again....thank you in advance for your help

I think one should be the NAS and one the HTPC. The P4 with the PCI Express will make a better HTPC, the Athlon will make a good FreeNAS box.

Thanks for the input!!!!

Sorry for the noobie questions..lol

for the NAS wouldi then add a card like this to be able to add more drives?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

also would you suggest freenas or unraid


For the HTPC box......does a card exist for my pci express slot that would deliver 1080p over hdmi

and what version of XBMC would you suggest?

Thanks again!

Yeah a sata card like that will work. As far as NAS software goes, my favorite is Unraid (I have two Unraid servers) but FreeNAS is good to learn the basics with.

As far as the HTPC, get a GPU like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814162041

That plus the Dharma XBMC Live equals 1080p playback over HDMI.

well that is where i am at....needing to learn he basics....lol

I checked out the p4 pc some more and i think it has a pci express x1 slot
so I hope i am not hosed...lol

this seems to be the ONLY card i think i can fins that could work maybe?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814500164

if so am I going to be limited on anything compared to the card you recommended

Hopefully I am about done bugging you...lol
i can't even tell you how much time and headaches you have saved me...lol

Thanks

That card seems just fine. The alternative is to use a PCI card and lose HDMI audio - not recommended.

Throw that card in, put on XBMC Live and you are set (as long as the P4 has at least 1GB RAM).

The good thing about not picking up a tv for 6 months is who knows what will come out in that time and i have plenty of time to upgrade memory and pick up a bd drive......and get plenty of storage for my now decided freenas box...lol

oh and since i wont have a 1080p tv to test out the xbmc box out on can i swing by and hook it up to your new samsung for a test drive....lol

Anything I can do to help, just ask...

ok ....another question....lol

been researching freenas and unraid and unraid seems like a much better option for redundancy to keep me from wanting to run out into traffic in case of a drive going down and potential data loss

I would much rather deal with maybe a less user friendly software on setup and have a much better chance at not losing data than the other way around
plus unraid seems to be way more user friendly on not just replacing a drive when one goes down but also when upgrading or adding a drive

so maybe the initial negatives seem to be outweighed by a lot

do you think my old amd box will ahndle unraid ok?

Unraid is awesome. It should work fine on your old box if you use the correct PCI cards:

http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/inde...patibility