Havn't seen many HTPCs running OSX. thought about using a MDD g4, gutting it and adding about 8 Hard drives via a fire wire bridge, with a slot loading super drive and good graphics card... i'm making some design ideas in Illustrator. i'll post them when i can...

any input for features or parts would be appreciated

so far the design is simply a black box the size of an average A/V reciever

Hmm. Some more information would be good too.:)
-maestro

hmm lets see here

some things i'm looking for are:

at least 2 terabytes
dual 1.6 ghz cpu
two slot loading super drives (for media to media copying)
at least 1.5 gig of ram
Svideo and dvi out
some sort of on board display
onboard sound (just something small. similar to an imac/emac)
and oh yeah... lights

still no sure on the case design, maybe i'll jst use an ATX case for now build a scratch one later

anyone know of a firewire 800 pci card with an internal port...?

I would consider a machine that has gigabit Ethernet and setup a file server in another room to serve the media. The server would be dedicated, and run any OS (pref. OS X or FreeBSD). The HTPC would be more like a client than anything else.

Also, a machine like a G4 tower would work perfectly for a Home Theatre machine if it was atleast 1gb. The video does not have to be at the highest resolution, and even 640x480 (native TV resolution) is acceptable. Hopefully the video card has the DVI out so you can plug it into any TV, or use an adaptor. This machine would have one drive to have most common media on it, and another one stripped down for the OS and the media software.

That sounds pretty serious. I dont think you need so much power though. I will warn you thoug,
most HDTVs will not work well with a computer signal. My Toshiba 51" inch HDTV has the input
but the instructions say dont do it. I dont know if it is a burn in problem or what. The only
HD's that dont get burn in are LCD's and a big one will cost you a ton-they look like sh!t anyway.
Good luck with it and keep us informed on how it goes.
-maestro

i thought long and hard about the media server idea.... but i would rather it be a kind of all-in-one unit... so the only thing i would need to hook it up to would be a reciver for the sound, and video out put.. i'll take the gigabit lan into consideration... need to look into the last genn MDD mobo... i think it is gb and its also airport extreme capable

In terms of HDTVs, here's my take (for what it is worth) as a former big screen TV sales guy (where I get my extra holiday cash every Xmas)

It isn't a good idea tot hook up a computer to any 3-gun CRT rear projection TV. Especially older rear projection TV units are not meant for the the intensity, gamma and contrast levels output by a computer video card. Plus they will burn-in the image of your desktop/toolbars over time

Plasmas are okay if it has VGA or DVI inputs, but just beware of burn-in too. Unless you get a professional model at big bucks, most plasmas only do up to 640x480 or 848x480 resolution.

Large LCD HDTVS are fine too, and no burn-in. And many of the newer models support up to 1280x768 resolution.

The newer rear projection LCD and DLP projection units are also good - and like LCD screens will not burn-in an image. These units are probably the best deal of screen-size to cost ratio.

The MDD is gb ethernet but only suppports Airport, not Airport Ex.:(
-maesto

thanks for the info about the tv's...

maestro:
there were two revisions of the MDD the, the second came out right before the G5 (Q1 of 2003), the most rare, it had gigabit ethernet, onboard firewire 800 and airport extreme and internal bluetooth capabilities.

http://apple-history.com/frames/?

You are correct. I haven't seen any FW800 boards as of late though. I have the June 2003 model (the newest) and it deleted FW800, bluetooth, and AP ext. It does have 2mb of cache though. Oh well. You know you could just put in a fast PCI wireless card for less. The airport is just more convenient and doesn't use a PCI slot.
-maestro