[CentralLine]

I'd thoroughly recommend one of the Sony media centre PCs. I've had the XL100 for over 2 years - used it as the DVD player for my home theater set-up. They have since upgraded this and have a really smart round shaped PC which comes with a wireless keyboard and media centre remote. Only issue is what TV tuner it will come.

[banang]

I saw a shop at the top of WCC with some liquid cooled offerings. Looked $pricey$ and complicated

Yea, that's the speciality shop at 3/F of WCC and they carry silent PC components but they're expensive!

Have you checked out SPCR's website? I bought a few quiet 12cm fans to silent my PC after reading some interesting silent PC articles. If you don't want to build your own HTPC, then you have to shop around to see whether there's one that suit your specs.

Motherboard based on the new AMD 780G is popular right now as it got hardware decode built-in and every multi-media thingy onboard.

Also, if you want it to looks the part, you'd probably need to choose a good looking HTPC case to go with your AV equipment.

[buckshot]

Originally Posted by banang

Also, if you want it to looks the part, you'd probably need to choose a good looking HTPC case to go with your AV equipment.

Which are pretty hard to find in HK at a decent price.

I would also add a vote for an AMD 780G solution. It really is the way to go, until maybe the Intel G45 is out.

[banang]

Yea, the good looking ones are overpriced and I wouldn't want to put an ugly box that looks like a desktop in the living room

The 780G seems to get alot of good reviews but I haven't seen any AMD 4850e low voltage on sale in Sham Shui Po yet.

[tofufever]

I would think of a mac mini also. Depends on if you plan on streaming stuff. There a lot of ways to do this. If you have a 360 you can stream your stuff to your 360. However mac mini doesn't have HDMI so you would have to think about that. Using OSX is much more stable. The other option is to build a small linux box. But at that point it comes to hardware because you want something quiet. Or the last option is to get a network harddrive and server stuff over the network using mac mini. I wouldn't use APPLE TV because you get locked into the itunes thing. Building a PC is too much work unless you think it's fun and nerdy which i agree it could be fun. But if you're going all the way to building something, linux and open source would be fun. Or even better put OSX on x86.

[explorer]

hi Guys

How about an AOpen Mini PC? It has the power to display standard definition movies and probably not Blu Ray or HD. I saw that selling in SSP and it comes with Vista Home Premium with MCE and remote. Pretty cool.

I also like Antec Fusion.

CHeers