Hackintosh Media Center

TimothyMilla · October 29, 2009

Hello, I am new to this forum, but I consider myself an expert at hackintoshing. I have visited this site many times to find help for my other projects, but now I have a question that I could not find anywhere on the forum.

Recently, I decided I'm going to build a home media center for my basement. Naturally, I wanted it to be the Hackintosh flavor

As I started the project, I made a list of the things that I want the media center computer to be able to do.

1. HD video through the projector (Blu-ray disk playback)

2. Netflix Streaming

3. TV tuner card to be able to record live TV

4.(7.1) Surround Sound, so I believe I will need a 7.1 capable surround sound card for this one (I'm still open to ideas for the speaker system as well, I don't know where to start on that)

5. Game Console- I don't mean ALL OUT gaming, I just want something that you could get out the Wireless Controllers, and fire up a game just likes its an actual game console. Mac compatible controllers might be a problem as well.....Yes I know its a mac, so the games wont be as good as windows, but dual boot is always an option

6. No lag (have to prove to people that a media center computer is way better than any TiVo)

7. perfect Hackintosh

8. >$500 or is it even possible?

So far i've gathered a list of some of the components that I thought might work for this project:

Processor- Core 2 quad $190 OR would a core 2 duo work better for this job? (cheaper) OR even core i5?

Ram- 2x2 Kingston ram $25

Motherboard- P5K pro $90

Case- iCute $35

Graphics- EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) $135

HD- 500GB (idk about manufacturer) $60

Blu-ray Drive- From what i've seen, they are about $200

PSU- I'm open for input on this part as well $ ?

Total---------------------------------------------------------------------- $735 ----DANG IT!! See, I went over, this is the main part I need help on. If i got rid of the blu-ray, it would be at an acceptable $535, but I would like to keep that if all necessary, and I haven't even added a TV-Tuner Card yet!

Mushishi · October 29, 2009

Can say the first place osx86 wort do it for you...

Osx86 only support unencrypted BluRay discs meaning movies you rent or buy wont play.

Nick14 · October 30, 2009

And you won't have HDMI output working as far as i know and if it works without sound output

TimothyMilla · October 30, 2009

yea I was worrying about the blu-ray support...maybe a dual boot with windows could be arranged?

What do you mean about the HDMI-Sound output?

iGO M.D · October 30, 2009

Buy a mac mini and forget the blue ray

shoarthing · October 30, 2009

What do you mean about the HDMI-Sound output?

. . .. Apple don't use HDMI, so while it may work [works for me on 2x ION-platform mobos], the interface works as a special case of DVI & does not carry sound.

TimothyMilla · November 2, 2009

okay. ive given all of the input into consideration, and ive decided im going to build a primarily windows media center computer, except osx86 is going to exist as a dual boot, so in the case i do want to boot into leopard, then i could do so, its just that the media center parts, such as the tv tuner and blu ray wont work, but the main computer parts will, such as mobo, video, and sound will.

i wasnt planning on carrying the audio over with the video on the HDMI cable, but hmm? is there another way to get 7.1 surround sound with just a sound card? ive seen those really expensive sound boxes that come with surround sound systems, but i was wondering, are those really necessary? couldn't you plug the speakers directly into the sound card itself?