Hey duders.

So I was recently considering getting or building an HTPC. I have an old 32" 720p TV I seemingly cannot get rid of and was thinking about mounting it on my wall and just have the DirectTV thing running through it. I only really watch a few channels ever, though, so I then thought about building a PC entirely dedicated to just watching shit on. I've got quite a pretty decent collection of DVDs laying around I could just rip and then I could pack them away (which would be great). I've heard you can have Windows play certain files at certain times so I could theoretically set everything up (and I understand this will be a huge pain) so that I have my own custom channel with shit I'd actually like to watch! (Should also mention I have that tinnitus condition where I always hear a high pitched noise so having some light noise in the background helps me sleep better. I usually leave my little TV on and I'm not gonna lie it's getting kind of annoying hearing the same shows all the time)

I'm going to upgrade my CPU at some point, and I've got a pretty okay 500gb hard drive that's practically brand new laying around somewhere, so I thought I could just salvage those parts into the build. I'd like the PC box to on the small the side so I was thinking mini-itx might be the way to go. (Micro ATX wouldn't be the end of the world if it still looks nice and ends up being cheaper or much better) I'm sort of digging this case right now, but any ones with the box like shape would probably be cool.

This is what I have on PCPartpicker right now. The only things I'm pretty sure on keeping are the CPU and hard drive since I'll already have those. The rest is subject to change. I don't really think I need a GPU (Pentium has integrated graphics) though I am considering upgrading my 750ti so I could throw that in there at some point. Ideally, I'd like to spend as little as possible while still getting fairly nice components. Let's say max budget (for everything that's not the CPU and hard drive) for now is $200. I've got a gajillion and one things to buy before I would do this though, so I won't likely actually get this for a little while yet.

I guess my second question is, for people that have actually owned/built an HTPC... do you find it to be a useful and worthwhile machine? Are there any particular programs and things I should download? (Besides codecs) Is Windows 7 the way to go?

Oh, and what about a Raspberry Pi? I don't really know a lot about them but I do know they're wicked cheap. With an external hard drive, could that potentially be a smarter choice while I just keep or sell my old components?

Thanks in advance for any advice! Sorry if my grammar is shitty or messed up in any way, I'm really tired and my mind is kind of pooped, likely from lack of sleep and being stressed recently.

My HTPC i built is a core i3 4130 and nvidia 640GT. What i use for the OS is OpenELEC which is a linux OS with the KODI frontend installed on it.

Honestly if you are building a box just for watching video you do not need high specs at all. The only reason I'd even consider the 750ti for the gfx card is future proofing for HEVC decoding.

For the Raspberry I don't know much about them but I know OpenELEC group has a ton of support it.

I've never built a HTPC, and I'm not sure I ever will, but I do regret not building a Micro ATX box for my latest PC. I went with full-sized ATX and mid-tower. However, I don't need all the space. Also, when I build new PC's, my previous PC gets attached to my TV, and I'd like to finally get a smaller PC next to the TV without having to build a new HTPC.

I wish this case was out when I was building my HTPC.

http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-202

I have an htpc that I built into an older computer case that was roughly the same size as my receiver, but I'm using a wide entertainment console that the tv is mounted to, so space wasn't much of a concern. I bought a simple Hauppage usb tv tuner since my new house had an antenna on the roof and coax cable coming in, so it's nice to get local news and/or sports when they're available. Other parts are just whatever hand-me-downs come along from my main rig go into it, so I think I've got a mATX in there and could probably upgrade to a smaller case.

As for the idea of channels, I had multiple user accounts with VLC set to autorun a playlist from user specific folders when the OS booted.