First HTPC Build - Need Advice

[trek78]

Hi,

I read through a bunch of other posts, but each poster has their own needs so I am looking for some help with building a HTPC. Here is what I am looking for:

Want to watch my movies and TV shows, listen to music and have some emulators for NES, SNES, Genesis games. I'd also love to have access to Netflix and Amazon Instant Video but have read that this is not really possible through Kodi. Right now video and music comes to about 500 GB and I would want room to grow.

Initially I was going to have 1 HTPC in the basement but now I am thinking I want to be able to access the movies/music/games on any TV throughout the house. As of now that means 3 TVs with more as the family grows.

It sounds like having a dedicated PC as a media server would be my best option. But what options are there for watching the content on multiple TVs? Do I need to have a small PC at every TV? Can I use Amazon Fire Stick? Apple TV? And do I use Kodi or Plex? I think Plex since Kodi cannot be used in multiple rooms. This is where I get lost.

I'm looking to keep costs reasonable but at the same time, have everything be simple enough so my wife can understand how to access everything. Hope you guys can point me in the right direction.

Thanks!!

 

[hang-the-9]

Roku would be able to do what you want, has a Netflix and I think Amazon app, and can connect to a home media center.

On the PC side, really anything connected to a good router and wireless/wired setup would work, don't need too much CPU to run a media server. You may want to get a decent amount of RAM for several devices, 8 gig minimum I'd say. A dedicated router for the media player and TVs may be good also to keep things like laptop web streams and gaming from causing glitches in HD video if used wireless. Setup a wireless network SSID only for the Roku connections to use, or even better, wire them with eithernet.

 

[drockinwv]

Im going to sub to this thread, Im looking basically the exact same thing, but more so want to build my own HTPC not buy a Roku etc...

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

An A10 or FX + GPU HTPC, then a player of some sort on the TV. AMD chips are good at transcoding , and that is probably necessary. I personally like Plex as a client. And perhaps a pair of WD Green drives in RAID for storage, and 8GB of RAM.