Please help me spec a home media PC

[BMDUBS]

Hi guys, my home PC just shit the bed. I am looking to build a new PC and dont know much about PC stuff anymore. I need a complete system with the following requirements:

-Needs to play all formats of video as I have it hooked up to my HDTV
-Sound card is not terribly important but one with DD 5.1 would be a bonus
-Snappy processor performance mainly for video playback and browsing online
-Case as small as possible and quite too as it sits behind my tv
-No gaming will be done on this pc
-Windows OS required
-minimum 1tb of storage


Have SSD drives come down in price? worth having for the operating system?


Thanks for the help!

[revelations]

SOmething like this could be an idea - its a bit smaller than your typical PC box.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX38850

However it would need a bit of customization:

No HMDI out - DVI only
More RAM (8GB)
BD player added
SSD - def a good idea for the OS
1TB drive added - changed


I have an old Vista HTPC at home with integrated graphics and its been great.

[BMDUBS]

Thanks for the reply, that one looks sweet and the price is right too. I have an HP at work and my peeve with them is all that shit HP software they load onto them. But I will look into this one.

[msommers]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/241978/how_to_build_your_own_network_attached_storage_system.html

[chibwack]

Highly, highly, highly recommend heading over to forum.xbmc.org, media computers are exactly what the forums about (built for xbmc, but good for whatever software you prefer of course)

[codetrap]

Or buy a boxee and put an external 1TB drive on it.

[DENZILDON]

If you can you may want to hold on and wait till Xmas. Word is all pc stuffs is going down in price bec of the Samsung windows 8 platform.

[Xtrema]

I don't do browsing on htpc any more. Tablet is more natural.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6235/syabas-launches-popcorn-hour-a400

I have my eyes on this now. Looks simple and the tablet app for control sounds awesome.