New to HTPC and building first one. Need advice!

[Kalmado]

My wife and I decided to invest in a HTPC rather than paying for cable/dish as we really do not watch tv that much. I've got my build mostly rounded out but had a few questions.

I went with an AMD A6-5400k with integrated graphics. I read in some reviews that chipset is good for HTPC and a dedicated graphics card isn't a must at all. I have a gaming rig so I wouldn't do gaming on this at all, but maybe a pinch. I do have an older ATI Sapphire 4830 512mb I could use. Which would be better?

I do not quite understand TV tuner cards. If we are not going to have any tv service is therre a point to getting one? Right now Newegg has one for $10 after MIR. Should we get it?

 

[legokill101]

well then you dont need a tv tuner you need somthing with a lot of sotrage space and built for quiet

 

[videobear]

We have a HTPC, but we kept the cable. The HTPC contains a four-tuner Ceton card, as well as a pair of 3TB hard drives for media storage. It uses Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, and no discreted graphics card. (I started out with one, but pulled it to keep power consumption and heat in the small case down.) It also has a Blu-ray player.

Because it has a tuner, the HTPC replaces a number of other components in our entertainment center. We got rid of the CD changer, the cable box, and the Blu-ray/DVD player.

Picture quality and access to/storage of media is great, but there are some drawbacks.

1. Wife is not a fan of computers. She wants to just push a button and have something work, and I can't say that I blame her!
2. Display can be a problem. Even with a 42" TV, it's hard to read type in windows, menus, and web sites from the couch across the room. And you DO need to work with the computer, as a computer, now and then...you can't do everything from within Windows Media Center.
3. Control can be a problem. I mostly use a small Logitech DiNovo handheld keyboard, and I also have a Galaxy Tab set up with apps to control the system as a "universal remote". However, both of these devices have some frustrations.
4. All media center applications suck. At least the ones I have tried (Plex, and Windows Media Center, and PowerDVD 13) Setting up libraries is clumsy and time consuming, and even when set up, changes are not always incorporated for some time.
5. All media player applications suck. This is more the fault of the myriad of video formats out there, as well as the copy protection media mafias. Ripping a DVD or a Blu-ray movie to your hard drive for later instant access can be a time consuming process, and may involve a lot of trial and error before you find a format that your players will handle, and that doesn't produce issues like no audio, audio played back in the wrong language, unwanted subtitles, no subtitles, or playback errors/freezes.
6. It's a computer. Computers crash. I have to re-boot ours every other week or so. I don't think our cable box went down more than once a year, and when it did, it recovered itself automatically.

So, think carefully before you jump in!

 

[Kalmado]

Thank you for the responses! I won't bother with the tuner card beacuse it will serve no purpose for us. My wife and I aren't really tv people. I tend to watch movies more so and she watches the same shows. We've had DirecTV for the last two years and while convenient, it's a waste of money for us.

I use a 50" LG LED for my gaming monitor in the upstairs and I can see where reading can be problematic. I'll have to take some time with the downstairs HTPC setup once I get it finished. We have a 50" LG plasma downstairs we'll be using.