Media Center PC for Living Room - Components

Factual Questions
1

Hi folks.

The little woman and I are considering dumping a cable service that’s costing us about $60 a month for TV. Our list of TV shows we actually really watch are…

Lost
Ugly Betty
Office
My Name Is Earl
Battlestar Galactica
Family Guy
American Dad
24

And that’s it. Assuming four new episodes a month (hah!) and we’re paying about $2.50 an hour for TV that we want to watch. Which is kind of ridiculous.

So, I’ve been considering just watching TV I’ve downloaded off the Internet. I’m not looking for help on that, because that would violate board rules.

What I’m looking for is a PC that would be good for this. Specifically, I’m looking to find something that will be good for outputting video and audio to my receiver. My receiver runs component video and can do digital optical audio. I’ll want a remote control for controlling my programs from the couch, and I’d also like the possibility of switching over to HDTV and (probably) HDMI once I’ve decided to make that upgrade.

Does anyone have recommendations for or against any hardware or software in particular? I’ve got on my current desktop and AIW 9700 that came with a remote control, but the general experience with that kinda sucked. A lot.

-Joe

2

For a quick, cheap solution, just get an Xbox, install a softmod, and install XBMC. You can Google for all of these. (I got my Xbox’s refurb, so they were extra cheap.)

You’ll also want an official Microsoft DVD kit. The remote is crap, but you’ll need the photoreceiver to use a good remote. These are also dirt cheap on eBay these days. Make sure it’s an original Microsoft, though, because the crappy fake ones only work with their crappy control, i.e., universal remotes just won’t work with them (experience speaking, here!).

If you want to upgrade to HDTV (but not HDMI), then component HD cables for the Xbox are also dirt cheap. The Xbox isn’t powerful enough to display true 1080 HDTV, but depending on codec it can sometimes handle 720i. The Xbox will very nicely upsample to your HD range, though, and for my particular, non-top-of-the-line TV, the Xbox does a better upsampling job than the TV does.

You can probably do this for about $100, so if you decided you want true HD later, get an AppleTV. I think it’s stuck at 720p, but most of what you’d be watching (given its source) won’t be at 1080 anyway. But for $100 today, you can’t go wrong.

Oh, of course the Xbox has 10/100 Ethernet, so if you run some cat5e to your computer room, your Xbox won’t have any problems whatsoever getting your media files from there.

Finally, if you keep the cable or satellite dish, there’s always MythTV you can install an a spare computer and throw in a closet. That’s what I do. Then on the Xbox you can run either XMBCMythTV in XBMC (my choice), or run a full fledged Linux with the real Xbox front end (given the low memory, though, I find it rather slow). With the MythTV backend, you’ll soon find yourself archiving TV shows and DVD’s for instant, random-access use anywhere you want. If you have multiple TV’s, then an Xbox at every one (instead of a cable box and satellite receiver and DVD player and CD head unit) will all work with the same back end.

Have fun!

3

I recommend a MacMini with maybe an external hard drive if you don’t mind spending the money. It’s a full-blown PC with a fantastic front-end for being a media center (it comes with the same software installed on AppleTV). It’s the route I plan on going when I have the cash.

I haven’t touched Linux in a while, but even though I’m pretty good with computers (I administrated my school’s network and repaired the district’s computers), the last time I used Linux, it was a pain in the ass and a lot of “aaaaah i just want to surf the damned internet” hassle. Hooking it up to my TV sounds like suicide to me.

4

Check out http://www.byopvr.com/ for a message board devoted to discussing how to do just the kind of thing you’re asking about with FAQs and several forum groups.

5

I recently built my own media center PC and it’s come out rather good and for under $700. You can certainly pull it off for less than that by modifying the specs. Here’s what I ended up building:

Mobo: Asus micro atx (I’d recommend going full ATX for exandabilities sake unless a small footprint is a priority).

CPU: AMD X2 4200

RAM: 2 Gigs 533 Mhz

PSU: 400 Watt micro atx

Case: Media center micro ATX case. Find an affordable one that you like and fits your entertainment system/area

HD: 2x 400 gig SATA 3.0 Gb.

Tuners: 2x Hauppauge 1600 Digital/Analog tuners.

OS: Vista Premium OEM version (it comes with Media center - as does the home premium version which is cheaper).

What it does for me is make the whole TV watching experience way cooler. I can pause and record live TV, I can record up to three different channels and be able watch a different fourth channel at the same time (not that I do that very often :wink: ). I get free over the air HD TV and I have a basic cable (analog) subscription where I get stuff like the Sci-Fi channel, the hitler channel, etc.

It’s also my DVD player. It plays and stores my favorite DVD’s in the hardrive so I can watch them at my leisure without going hunting for the discs, My SO can watch her online broadcast of her favorite german show, as well as downloaded episodes. And I can watch video podcasts though my TV as well.

It’s a thing of beauty when I can start watching lost 15 minutes into it while I get a snack, and finish watching the show at the normal ending time minus a good 15 minutes+ worth of commercials. Vista Media center also provides a searchable programming guide for you as well.

My main suggestion is with the video card. You want one with a passive cooling solution. No fans! And you want one that can deal with HD video. I went with a Radeon x1300 with a fan cooler first, and ended up switching to an 8000 Nvidia series (one of the lower end models for $100) passively cooled card.

For peripherals you want a wireless keyboard and remote. There are cheap alternatives, but I decided to splurge and go for the Media Center based Keyboard and remote/mouse from Gyration. I can control both the PC and the TV and the remote acts as a mouse tool.