[sternyy]

So i've been browsing around the forums lately. I recently tried to install xbmc on my old dell e1505 laptop but the resolution and video quality wasnt all that great watching on my Samsung HDTV. Tried installing linux on it, some drivers could not be found so again my resolution and video quality lacked. Then i tried installing linux on my macbook pro and once again had some problems with drivers and resolution. So i realized maybe i should go with a clean install on a new desktop instead of a laptop.

Im a linux NOOB so we shall see how it goes. Worst comes to worst, ill stick the blu ray drive in my vista desktop for ripping and swap out a smaller drive i have in my current desktop with new 1tb.

I got it all for just shy of $500. I could shave off some $$ with the HD and blu ray down to $350, but i think the extra $150 is a pretty good deal for 1tb GREEN HD and blu ray.

I pretty much followed this guide: Five Best Linux HTPC Motherboardsl

Here is what I just ordered:

MOBO:
Asus P5N7A-VM

Processor:
Intel Pentium Processor E5300

Drive:
Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 32 MB Cache

Optical:
LG Electronics CH08LS10 LightScribe SATA Blu-ray Combo Drive

Case:
Antec NSK2480 w/ 380W PS

RAM:
Did not order; 4GB leftover from another PC

[ccMatrix]

Welcome to the forum. Nice HTPC setup. This is even powerful enough for a Windows setup if you don't get Linux running at all. I hope you know that you currently cannot play Blu-Ray disks on Linux.

[sternyy]

linux and blu ray a no go... that i did not know. So if i want to encode blu ray i would have to install the drive on my vista pc?

This might change my setup a bit.

Also, I got the impression encoded HD playback would not be powerful enough on windows. Should i upgrade my processor?

[ccMatrix]

If you want to play blu-ray disks with all of its features you would have to install Windows on your HTPC and use a separate player such as PowerDVD or WinDVD (since XBMC doesn't have support for Blu-Ray playback).

With some Blu-Ray disks with older encryption it can be possible to decrypt and copy them on the machine and then play the movie but this will lose all special Blu-Ray features and will mean that you can't just pop in a Blu-Ray on movie night. Therefore I would suggest going the Windows + Blu-Ray software route.

The processor is capable of playing HD content. I have the a bit smaller E5200 and I didn't have any issues so far (even with 1080p content 13GB mkv files). If you go with an external application such as PowerDVD or WinDVD these applications will usually take advantage of the GPU and will not stress your CPU at all.

Since you have plenty of RAM installing Windows (e.g. Windows 7) would be no issue at all. The downside of course is that you would need a license for Windows and the Blu-Ray playback software if none was bundled with your Blu-Ray drive.

[sternyy]

Ok that eases my mind a bit. Looks like i might stay with the windows installation like i originally planned on my old dell laptop and macbook pro laptop.

I currently don't own and blu ray disks, just a bunch of my backed up dvds (ISO). Ill check out what software comes with LG and report back in case there is anyone else curious.

[ion_man]

Backing up Blurays with Linux is perfectly doable as DVDFab works in Linux with Wine (full disk backup).

In addition to that MakeMKV has a native Linux version available and works well too.

Both will be supporting BD+ decryption very soon so that all BDs can be backed-up.

for playback of BDs under Linux 'mplayer' works, but you won't get menus and extras for now, you can only playback the movie stream.

So I'd say go for the HTPC parts you listed as they will work fine both with Linux and Windows, so you have flexibility in what OS to use (you could do a dual-boot install, so you can test both).

[sternyy]

cool! I am pretty much looking for just playback of bd and dvd streams. I am excitedly waiting for my shipment to come in on tuesday and will share my results as soon as I build it. Should be fun.

[sternyy]

so far everything is looking good. got vista x64 installed. installed xbmc. so far my regular dvds (iso) run great on my network. played 2 hd shows that i recorded with mce ota and they played great. no problems. tomorrow i will try my bluray.

the only problem i do have is with my hdmi out and my samsung tv. i see a halo effect around all my text and windows with vista. nothing is crisp at any resolution i try. my tv is 1080p so i set the vista res at 1920 x 1080 and it looks real bad. really weird huh? i will try a dvi to hdmi adapter and regular vga to see if it is my tv or mobo (integrated nvidia graphics).