Hi and advice needed please

[landog]

I am in the position of being torn between 4 or 5 different options and would appreciate advice / feedback.

Currently I have the following Hardware:
- 32 Inch plasma (Hitachi)
- XBOX 360 that I havent even turned on for 6 months
- Apple Mac g4 PB 1GB ram 1.67 with a Apple Cinema Display
- iiNet DSL2 8 MB up 16 MB down
- Bose soround sound system (only does 5.1 not thx and ony digital not optical)
- Topfeild 5000 PVRT with auto 7 day epg via the PB g4

So what I want to do:
- Consolidate all this stuff into a single attractive machine sitting under the plasma.
- Record TV x 2 tuners, EPG, play movies, music, pictures, DVD etc etc
- Retain 5.1 DD output to my bose (doesnt accept optical only digital)
- A sh*t hot UI on the TV that does heaps of stuff
- Stream my TV to the web (including remote access to PVR functionality) as I am in europe 5 times a year for about a month at a time.

So Im perplexed..

Do I:
a) Buy a Mac Mini
b) Buy a Slingbox and connect it to my current solution
c) Work on the XBOX
d) Build a MS media centre
e) Build a linux media centre MythTV

Frankly Im keen to stay mac since leaving the PC world but thats mainly becuase I got so tired of the entire weekends spent getting PC's to run perfectly / consistently. Linux would be ok, ive run linux servers but I always find i get way out of my depth in detailed trouleshooting. MS media centre sounds like the most comprehensive solution, and I could use my XBOX 360 I guess? But at the end of the day as I said at the beginning of this paragraph.. i would love to stay with mac. The Slingbox option was just to enable the streaming side.. and would mean another piece of hardware to add to my array of stuff.

Thoughts / Advice / Direction

My single most important criteria is to not sacrafice my current quality of picture (1080i and sound 5.1 DD SS given I want to use the investment in the TV 4K and Bose 4K)

Cheers really looking forward to your thoughts.. should i get over my mac obsession, if so why?

Matt

[vlad]

Matt,
Look at my config, I have 42" Hitachi Plasma and far superior sound system(no offense) and it looks and sounds terrific with my HTPC. So to answer your question - HTPC will provide you with best picture/sound

By (digital/not optical) I guess you mean coaxial. I am connected via coaxial cable from MCE to amp and this is the best way to connect - forget about optical - it is overrated.

Apple and Linux are only talking about HTPC - Microsoft actually does it.

[mattwalker]

Hey Landog,

Vlad is spot on! (rep ponts to you)

MCE does all of the above and you get an extender to another area with the 360!!

Question though? You have a 32" hitachi running true 1080i?? This is impossible at this stage. The best resolution you can hope to acheive would be 768p. Hitachi dont make a 1080 panel yet.

Matt

[landog]

thanks guys..no offense taken.. im over the Bose a little anyway.. might try and sell it with the house if I can.

is that true re 1080i??? i can select it in the menus..?

Im in europe at the moment so I cant remember what model I have ill send an email home to the housesitters to get the model.

What about streaming the video to the web.. any thoughts

Next question is what parts to go with for the MCE, but Ill start a seperate thread on that

-----------

update:

i think I have the 37PD7800TA

and in the spec pdf it says: Component Signal 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p(60), 1080i, (50/60), 1035i (60)

What am i missing.. excuse the newbness

[GlenR]

Originally Posted by landog

is that true re 1080i??? i can select it in the menus..?

It may well accept a 1080i input, but it will scale it down. The most any panel will give you is it's number of pixels, so if your panel's vertical resolution is 768, that's it's maximum - it cant put in pixels that aren't there.