It's Time For a Proper HTPC! (Post 1of3: Planning)

The time has come. I am tired of bouncing around between 4-5 different devices when it comes to watching content in the living room. We have an AppleTV, Boxee Box, Mac Mini w/Drobo, Xbox 360, Over The Air TV, and of course AirPlay from iPads and iPhones.

It's time for living room content unification!

The plan is to build a custom "Home Theater PC" that will handle all content in the living room / home theater. Here is the list of parts that will go into this build.

Hardware

Case: Silverstone TekGD08B

Motherboard: MSI MB-Z68A-43 LGA1155

Processor: Intel Core i5-3450 Quad-Core Processor 3.1 GHz 6 MB Cache LGA 1155

Heatsink: SilverStone NT01-E CPU Cooler

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB

Main Hard Drive: Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB SATA 2.5-Inch SATA III Solid State Drive

Storage: (6) Western Digital 2 TB WD Green SATA III

Disc Drives: Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal

Power Supply: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2

Tuner: Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2250

Control: Logitech Mini PC Entertainment Dinovo Keyboard

Software

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional

Media Front End: XBMC

The "Must Have" List

• Netflix Playback
• Amazon Video Playback
• iTunes Playback
• OTA TV Playback w/ Recording
• AirPlay Capability
• 10+TB RAID 5 NAS for File Storage
• 2+TB Storage for DVR
• All functionality accessible from single interface
• Single remote control
• SMB / FTP / AFP file access
• Very quiet!

Check back for "Post 2of3: The Build!" in the coming weeks!