SSDDX and I may disagree on the issue of copying DVDs for home usage (as I said, it's still at issue), however, the verbiage of the FBI warning has changed over the years:
Verbiage from an older DVD (Alien)
Any use or exhibition of this video other than non-commercial home viewing is prohibited.
Verbiage from a newer DVD (The Avengers)
This product(including it's soundtrack) it authorized for private use only. All other rights are reserved. Unless expressly authorized by law or in writing, by the copyright owner, any copying, public performance, or other use of this product or any part of it is strictly prohibited.
I think the relevant point is that as long as you're not sharing the content, neither the MPAA nor FBI will be busting down your doors.
Regardless, I would point out that in addition to SSDDx's recommendation to build your own HTPC (which I would also recommend), there are HTPC cases that will house full ATX motherboards as well (
NMediaPC Black Aluminum 6000B for example). This particular case has five internal hard disk drive bays: one for your OS drive and four for a hefty storage array. The extra expansion slots would easily allow for multiple TV Tuner cards (multiple room streaming) as well as a RAID card for your storage array
For any system in which you intend to store massive amounts of data, I must recommend going with some form of redundancy. Trust me, the last thing you want to happen is to have a 500GB drive full of movies fail on you without a backup. Four 3TB drives in a RAID5 array would give you about 9TB of redundant drive space. The average DVD (minus special features) runs around 4GB, uncompressed. I've never looked at a blu-ray disc, but I've heard it runs around 20GB for just the movie. That comes to about 2250 DVDs or 450 Blu-Rays.
Understand that four 3TB drives (and spares), a RAID controller card, multiple TV tuner cards and media extenders for multiple rooms isn't exactly going to be cheap, but if I were building for a whole home solution, this is what I'd look at:
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant /
Benchmarks
CPU: AMD FX-8120 3.1GHz 8-Core Processor ($139.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($74.98 @ Outlet PC)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($109.00 @ B&H)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6670 1GB Video Card ($74.98 @ Outlet PC)
Case: nMEDIAPC HTPC 6000B HTPC Case ($86.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG UH12NS29 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Other: StarTech PEXSAT34 PCI-Express 2.0 x4 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0Gb/s) 4-Port SATA and 1-Port eSATA Controller Card ($115.99)
Other: Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad TV Tuner ($199.00)
Other: Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad TV Tuner ($199.00)
Total: $1786.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-18 13:45 EST-0500)
Also add a
Ceton Echo @ $179.00 each for each room you want connected.
Not exactly a budget build, but the one single media center device I would look at for a whole home solution. In truth, I'd probably be looking at a much larger external storage array, but this is what I came up with for a single device. This build (and four Ceton Echos) could easily handle streaming AND recording for up to four separate rooms in your home (two tuners assigned to each room).
-Wolf sends
P.S. Yeah, I went a little nuts.