Looking for recommendations on a hardware frontend for GVPVR in living room

[hexibot43]

I am totally hooked on GVPVR! Big problem - wife doesn't want my computer in the living room anymore. I've been looking at some hardware frontends for GVPVR like PopcornHour. I'm trying to find something that looks good, fitting in with my all black equipment. Now is there something that can also play dvds and vcds? I've been looking at the idea of getting a media case like the Zalman that have lcd display, and putting my pc in that too. I've got two satellite tuners. One hooked up to the hauppauge pvr-500 I just put in my computer, and the other by way of an hd pvr-1212. So the amount of equipment in the living room is getting a bit overwhelming. I was thinking of moving everything to the garage, and just have a nice simple frontend in the house. This would keep the wife happy....and if she's not happy......Im sure you know the rest.:eek:

[mkenyon2]

I too would love something like this. There are front ends... like the popcorn hour. But with an optical drive... I haven't found anything.

[pBS]

i'm putting together a nice small client machine..fairly cheap and can be a whole server if need be..
brushed black aluminum mini-itx case [$50], g41 motherboard [$74], all you'd need is cpu, mem and a drive to boot off..
[and a remote of course]
for a few bucks more you can have it all, optical outs, esata, pcie slot, 4 sata and ir built-in..[g45-fc $115]
i saw a g43 board that had 6 sata ports on it! [in an ITX case?! lol home server more like it]

i'm adding a 2 terabyte green drive[138$] and a dual pciex1 cap card for 39$..
plus a second dual usb cap card for another $39..

a basic client can be had for around 200$ [75 + 50 + 20 for mem and 40 for cpu]
plays everything hd including bluerays perfectly in win7..
[finally intel made good drivers for g4X chips!]

[hexibot43]

i'm putting together a nice small client machine..fairly cheap and can be a whole server if need be..
brushed black aluminum mini-itx case [$50], g41 motherboard [$74], all you'd need is cpu, mem and a drive to boot off..
[and a remote of course]
for a few bucks more you can have it all, optical outs, esata, pcie slot, 4 sata and ir built-in..[g45-fc $115]
i saw a g43 board that had 6 sata ports on it! [in an ITX case?! lol home server more like it]

i'm adding a 2 terabyte green drive[138$] and a dual pciex1 cap card for 39$..
plus a second dual usb cap card for another $39..

a basic client can be had for around 200$ [75 + 50 + 20 for mem and 40 for cpu]
plays everything hd including bluerays perfectly in win7..
[finally intel made good drivers for g4X chips!]

$200 Bucks! No way! That is about what one of those hardware frontends are going for these days. You can actually watch HD without an issue? Can you give me a rundown of the parts you are using? I'm thinking of spending maybe a little more and get a case that looks like stereo equipment that has one of those nice lcd displays. I think I might be able to get away with something like this if that was all there was after all that I had before. Maybe?

[snewpy]

I've been running this rig for a few months now with no issues. It's more than $200 (more like $400), but it'll do everything you need. I'm running GBPVR and Boxee on it.

[carpeVideo]

I am holding out for this from Zotac: (although it doesn't have a cd/dvd drive)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/03/zotac...thank-for/

It will probably be $300 once you add memory and a drive