DIY Blu-Ray HTPC For Under $350

This is a guide to picking parts and building yourself an HTPC that will manage your entire entertainment experience and function as your household storage hub and file server. You won't be spending very much money on this Home Theater PC unless you want some extra bells and whistles, but once you get the basic idea of the functionality of the machine, you can tweak it to your desire. I've picked hardware that allows for expansion - you can add more RAM and Hard Drive space, but the form factor is still reasonably sized.

There are seven essential functions that an HTPC should be able to accomplish.

1. Plays Blu-Rays at 1080p.

Anything less than 1080p is a mistake. Remember: 720p is only 80 lines more than standard def which used to be 640p

2. Plays videos stored on the hard drive or Network

(mpegs, avis, divx, itunes, etc.) This won't be too hard, but its important to remember that the higher quality compression formats such as h.264 require a sizable chunk of processing power.

3. Plays Netflix and other streaming audio/video.

No problems here.

4. Does all of this through an HDMI port, OR through D-Sub + audio cable.

5. Will act as lightweight Network storage hub.

This won't be winning any awards as a file server, but it will do the job

6. Can bittorrent in the background

and run other sharing tasks while letting you watch your shows or movies.

7. Can rip your DVDs without trouble

so you can watch them over the network if you want. [I tried watching a DVD across a network before and it is glitchy and frustrating, the only decent way is to convert.]

Other things to Consider That Aren't Currently Included in the Build:

I've chosen parts so the machine can be upgraded to higher ram + tv tuner card for recording TV to disk. This is a nice future upgrade, but its something you don't have to spend your money on right away to get functionality from your machine.

Also, I'm not making this into a gaming pc, though you could probably play civ 4 or morrowind on it with the current specs.

I get annoyed when people make lists that don't include everything you actually need. So here are some realities, which I didn't include in my price estimate because I won't be using them.

Unlisted Costs:

1. Keyboard and Mouse. A wireless keyboard/mouse is the most convenient – Logitech has a combo for $30. If you have a smart phone, you can bypass this and use the mobile mouse app(iphone or ipod touch) as a wireless track-pad and mouse, though you obviously need to be connected over the network.

2. Cables - bare drives and OEM drives may not come with cables. Find out if you need extra cables. buy online for cheap. The motherboard may have spares.

3. WiFi. Get N speeds for faster Network transfer speeds. Probably run you an extra $30. Otherwise you'll be plugged into the network directly, and that won't be a problem.

4. Operating System: There are some great Linux based HTPC operating systems which are free. Windows costs money. This motherboard/cpu combo cannot be hackintoshed, so if you want to go that route then
change your mobo-cpu combo. (add about $50-100.)

price low: $352

price high: $415

Here are the Specs