Legit Reviews

I can't decide whether to go with easy old WinXP, or put Win7 on my HTPC. What do you suggest?

in the long run i would say 7 for compatibility

I like using the built in Media Center UI for couch viewing. Do you have a good 7 foot UI for XP, or want one?

See I would say XP for compatibility. XP uses less resources, the applications for it just work, and you don't need a beefier PC to run it. What frontend are you planning on running or is this just for watching movies on your TV?

This HTPC will be a 785 mobo with a Phenom X2 550BE in it and cooled by a X4 955BE heatsink/fan. Case will be an MicroFly cube case, so I have to worry about temps. I will try to unlock the other cores just to see if I can, but I may have to underclock whatever I do to keep the temps down.

I don't know what I will use. Right now i just have a Remote Wonder to make it easier to pause/play while I'm watching files on the TV. Hopefully that will work with newer OS than WixXP. I will have the finished product hooked up to a 47" Sony that is about 12-13 feet line of site from the screen to my eyes. Is that what you meant?

This box will not even be hooked up to internet for now, just to TV for playing files so all I plan on installing is the OS of choice updated to today's date and the MPC-HC and perhaps VLC and the Klite mega codecs pack.

Yesterday I did come across a mobo and Athlon X2 5400+ I was hoping would be strong enough to run the files and let me use the above rig for more intensive apps but it didn't seem to want to play the 1080 mkv files either, so I'll go with my original plan of the 785 with the X2 550BE

Frontend is an app to record TV (WMC, SageTV, BeyondTV, ChrisTV, etc...). If you are using it to watch movies, play music, etc... then XP, Vista, 7 will all work I imagine.

This should help too, http://forums.legitreviews.com/forum-64.html and http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdis ... forumid=26.

Ahhh I see. I won't have my TV/cable hooked in to record from, only hooked to so I can watch ripped files--right now it will just be a high-octane file player. I will want to add a HD tuner card sometime in the future to do that but right now I have other needs to fill first as I can find/scavenge the good deals. I only have Charter Cable, even though it is HD the box sucks. Simple things like subtitles have to be hardcoded in by changing a setting every time in the admin section of the box, whereas in a file all I have to do is pick the sub I want and can turn them on and off from my chair, so much easier. Plus I can only record what I'm watching, which sucks if I want to record one thing but watch another. Just about anything that I could want to record off of Charters' service has already been posted over the internet anyway so it is easier to just download from that and watch the files I want when I want.


I am not even considering Vista at all, it will be either WinXP or Win7 whichever will be better for file playing

Get Win 7 and use the Media Center with MyMovies. Since MC is already built-in to most Win 7 builds you don't have buy anything else.
Link to MyMovies.
www.mymovies.dk/

Does the MC in Win7 play BR ripped .mkv files? I know that WMP standard that comes with WinXP won't, so does that mean M$ supports the .mkv container in Win7?

Yes it does. Don't know if it does natively but it works with K-Lite Codec Pack installed.

Cool. After looking at the MyMovies site that may be more work than I want to deal with at the moment, but maybe later--especially since I won't have the HTPC hooked up to the internet now anyway. However the Win7 suggestion is looking better and better. Thanks all for the suggestions!

Another recommendation for Windows 7 OS. I personally use WMC+Media Browser but if you don't want TV recording, you might want to consider XBMC.

XBMC? Is that Xbox Media Center? Does that work with a PC?

Kaos Kid wrote:XBMC? Is that Xbox Media Center? Does that work with a PC?

Yep. They actually cut off support for the original Xbox recently.