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are htpc even worth it anymore?

applesuxD
By applesuxD
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with new streaming consoles and even steam machines stepping up...

are htpc even relevant anymore?

lets say we dont count torrent :3

discussion*

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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What do torrents have to do with HTPCs? Yes, they're still relevant, and yes, Linux game support still sucks in contrast.

freee movies

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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with new streaming consoles and even steam machines stepping up...

are htpc even relevant anymore?

lets say we dont count torrent :3

 

Yes. They are relevant. And that is not even accounting for torrents; some people just take the video content straight from the discs.

 

And Steam Machines are shit. I wish I could word it differently, but they're less useful than any HTPC. Also, NVIDIA Shield exists for little over a third of the price of the cheapest Steam Machine.

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I have my PC connected to a 55" tv and home theater sound system

Does that not make it a HTPC that I also use for web browsing and gaming?

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raspberry pi 2 is good enough for an htpc so yes it's worth it :)

i meant like literally building one .

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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freee movies

That still has literally nothing to do with the latter point you brought up; steam machines.

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Personally I'd say no... I think a central Plex server with Chromecasts makes more sense. With a single Plex server in our home office we're able to access our content on both of our TVs, both of our tablets, our phones, and so on. For content like YouTube/Crunchyroll/Netflix/etc we use Chromecast support directly inside their apps. Having a single computer directly attached to a single TV seems silly with all of the streaming media devices on the market and mobile devices in the average home. 

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Between my home, work, and cabin I'm using 3 HTPC's, 4 Chromecasts, and 2 smart TVs with a Plex server that has 2 TV tuner cards in my home office.  The HTPCs are faster than the Chromecasts and running a game locally is nice but the only real reason I still have them is the cablecard tuner in my server only works with Windows Media Center or a extender like a Xbox 360 which is painfully slow.

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I think a HTPC is still a good option. Streaming device are an awesome alternative if you don't want to spend a money and time on purchasing components you might not have laying around. I have 1 HTPC in my living room and 2 chromecasts. I purhcased an NVIDIA Shield to replace my HTPC but I wasn't impressed and I felt that I already have that experience with my Xbox One minus the steam streaming ability. Plus I could not bitstream my HD audio from my plex server yet so I returned it. My HTPC can do what the shield does but better, and I can browse the internet, etc. if I choose. I think it is all personal choice to be honest and no matter which side you choose, you will have a great multimedia experience. 

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I wouldn't have bought the hardware personally for one, but I recently upgraded my main rig and the old components went towards a HTPC.  Just had to buy a case, sfx psu, and itx motherboard for my cpu and I've got a great HTPC that can do pretty much everything including couch 1080p/60fps gaming (i7 2700k, 8gb ram, GTX 680 4GB version, 250GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD).  I installed WIndows 8.1 with a program called XBStart that lets me control the Modern Start menu with a wireless 360 controller that I can open Kodi, Steam Big Picture, or any desktop application I want (Emulation Station, after getting properly configured, works really well too).  I have no need for a console or streaming box or Android TV box because I made my own containing the best parts of all of those things.

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Depends on the person or people's needs. For me yes an htpc is very much worth it. Not only for convenience but also for power savings. My htpc uses less power then a console and I have no use for a server. 

 

Point is, each person and or house hold has different needs. Get what will work best for those needs 

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I'm an american but, want to watch my football team live.  I subscribed to nfl gamepass international using a vpn and it's much cheaper. Rather than figure out how to sideload a compatable app and vpn something like the fire tv (would probably require vpning the entire network which i don't want) i just use a pc. Also it's nice to have a full pc to browse the web on on your tv.   Also a blu ray drive is like $40 and you can get a couple terabytes of data for relatively cheap and make backups.   I still say they are relevant. Of course i could just chromecast from my pc

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Still makes sense because of Windows.
Windows actually makes a pretty decent HTPC operating system. Not to mention the functionality.

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Steam machines suck and consoles are weak sauce for organizing and streaming libraries. As far as plex servers and hooking a hard drive to your router...lame. They don't have the CPU power or flexibility that a HTPC does, even a mini ITX system with an I7 or APU will murder these ARM based weaklings. Plus you can do other things with it if you get and idea.

 

EDIT - I was thinking of NAS instead when you said plex server...duh. I like some things about Plex but UMS plays more formats, especially with bubbleupnp if android is client. Consoles are too picky about what they play even if you follow published specs when you convert media sometimes. *Brain was in sleep mode i guess*

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That still has literally nothing to do with the latter point you brought up; steam machines.

i dont own one,but i would assume its possibly a contender..?

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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Between my home, work, and cabin I'm using 3 HTPC's, 4 Chromecasts, and 2 smart TVs with a Plex server that has 2 TV tuner cards in my home office. The HTPCs are faster than the Chromecasts and running a game locally is nice but the only real reason I still have them is the cablecard tuner in my server only works with Windows Media Center or a extender like a Xbox 360 which is painfully slow.

i like ur workplace

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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I wouldn't have bought the hardware personally for one, but I recently upgraded my main rig and the old components went towards a HTPC. Just had to buy a case, sfx psu, and itx motherboard for my cpu and I've got a great HTPC that can do pretty much everything including couch 1080p/60fps gaming (i7 2700k, 8gb ram, GTX 680 4GB version, 250GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD). I installed WIndows 8.1 with a program called XBStart that lets me control the Modern Start menu with a wireless 360 controller that I can open Kodi, Steam Big Picture, or any desktop application I want (Emulation Station, after getting properly configured, works really well too). I have no need for a console or streaming box or Android TV box because I made my own containing the best parts of all of those things.

thats one seriously powerful htpc lol

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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I tried to make my employees the ultimate breakroom.

nice! Lovely boss :3

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”


 


―  C.S. Lewis  :)

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i dont own one,but i would assume its possibly a contender..?

But.... that still has literally nothing to do with free movies or piracy--and only a little to do with HTPCs?

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I use older computers as HTPCs. They don't really need powerful processors and graphics unless you are planning on using them to game on. Even then you can still use Steam streaming to account for the low processor power assuming that you don't mind a bit of lag.

 

I usually put a fairly large hard drive in them and rip the DVD library to it. I set it up so that I can stream the videos to other computers on the network (still need to get that working). It also allows me to use a proper internet browser and (in the case of windows 8 or 10) allows me to download video streaming apps that integrate with the system quite well.

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I dont know how relevant this is to the post but its possible to build a completely silent passive pc, and personnaly i like having a fully capable machine instead of having to rely on streaming

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