Totally First World Dilemna

[grumpy4869]

Hello LTT community,

 

  I recently completed my first PC that I have dubbed Golaith:). This means that I have an old PC laying around that I want to repurpose and integrate into my home somehow.

 

The specs on this PC are as follows:

 

Dell Studio 540 Case

Intel Core2 Duo@2.83Ghz

4x2Gb DDR3 generic ram (probably at 1333Mhz-I didn't check before cannabalizing for new build

Nvidia GeForce 9800GT GPU

Seagate 750Gb 7200RPM HDD

Coolermaster 400w power supply (ancient)

Generic LAN card

Generic LGA775 Motherboard

 

The specs on my home are as follows:

Outside-3 zones of 2 channel audio (integrated into Control4 system)

 

Main Floor:

Main living room-65" Samsung TV, local Samsung Blu Ray player & 5.1 surround (integrated into Control4 system)

Family Room-5.1 Surround integrated with Control 4 Audio (will likely never be used but convinced the wife that she may change her mind later when we were building the house)

Office-Golaith:), WD Mycloud EX4, Networked HP 8610 printer

 

Basement:

Home theater prepped with 7.1 surround tied to Control4 system (set up for 105" projection screen), 2 additional 2 channel audio zones integrated into Control4 system), 27u Strong box containing DTV Genie (Main DVR), Xbox 360

 

Upstairs:

Loft-5.1 surround integrated with Control4, Playstation 3 (used only for blu ray capabilities)

Master bedroom-2 channel audio integrated with Control4, 55" insignia plasma (old but still great), DTV DVR (non-Genie), XboxOne (I know, I know, it was a birthday present from the wife)

 

My original plan when building this house was to have a unified system that was seamless for my wife to use while having access to some advanced features such as airplay, temperature control, & streaming media (especially movies) without having to put in discs and do slide shows for family get-togethers. But I feel like my entire system is beginning to become fragmented.  I am hoping that building either a dedicated HTPC (Code name David) or media server with Kodi will at least solve the problem of having to put in Blu Ray discs.  I am not averse to building a new HTPC to be used solely for media duties, but I don't know where to start when it comes to required specs for 1080p viewing (VERY distant plans for 4k upgrades-like 5-10 years distant).

 

My question is what to do with this old Dell Studio.  I have a substantial media library to include a ton of CD's, boxes upon boxes DVD's and shelves of Blu Rays.  I am not sure how to repurpose this old computer into either a media server or HTPC.  I am also not sure of the difference between an HTPC and media server.  I am not super concerned with noise as it will likely live in my office.  If not there then it will be relegated to my AV cabinet in the basement.  The only useable parts that I can see going forward would be the hard drive and case.  Questionable items include the video card, processor, RAM, and motherboard.  Items to definitely replace are the power supply (ungodly coil whine and age), and LAN card (I don't know what band it is rated for but it probably isn't even N band).

 

 

 

What would you all do in this situation?

[rafazafar]

snip

 

That pc is plenty to use as a htpc  maybe even a UPnP server running too.  I still need to read up on the capabilities of your home system first before being able to recommend anything in specific but i think you are on the right track alsready. So.. ill get back to you on the details.

On that note, are there any streaming issues currently in with playback on individual screens for example? or are you simply using physical media at each every station?

 

If you want to have a unified system then you need a centeralised media library which is alot of work and space required to do. I would just go ahead with something like ForgeTV for media handling as it is a means of communicating back to the htpc/media server. Becuase even if we have all set up, is controlling the server supported by Control4, I cant seem to find any info about compatilibity with PC or if they have any software support.

 

Update: ok i found out that it has a PC application. That makes things much2 easier. So i guess you dont really have much to do, just set up that htpc/server thinggy with the Control4 application, get all the media on it or the NAS. Tho you might want to add some encoding capabilities for let say streaming to phones or tablet that require it. 

[grumpy4869]

Hello all,

 

  so I dismantled the 540 and found that I am likely only going to use the case based off of the MB and CPU combo.  So here is my first attempt at a new build using this case and some research on my part.  Let me know what you think!

 

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/C2dd23

 

Let me know what you think!

[grumpy4869]

So I have been doing some more research and I am a little confused on some basic points.  To accomplish my goal of streaming my ripped blu rays, dvd's and music to any capable client in my home do I need both an HTPC AND a media server or just a media server with something like plex or Kodi installed on it?  Is there any benefit to going with one rather than the other if both a media server and an HTPC are not required?