How many here have built their own Entertainment PC?

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:40 pm

One that lived in your entertainment cabnet and plays MP3, videos, etc?
Is it intergrated with your TV and Universal remote with an easy menu?

What OS did you choose?
what PC type?
Budget?
How did you lower the Noise level of the unit?

Just curious.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:22 pm

Yeah its called an Xbox 360

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:39 pm

Xbox plays multiple formats of Video?

and is flashable and can read network drives?

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:07 pm

Marty Howard wrote:

Xbox plays multiple formats of Video?

and is flashable and can read network drives?

Im a simple man, I dont need all that stuff.

Plus my XBox and computer are 5' apart from each other

Ash Nelson · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:07 pm

Marty Howard wrote:

One that lived in your entertainment cabnet and plays MP3, videos, etc?
Is it intergrated with your TV and Universal remote with an easy menu?

What OS did you choose?
what PC type?
Budget?
How did you lower the Noise level of the unit?

Just curious.

Technically I don't have a media PC, but I do have my PC hooked up to my entertainment center. My computer lives in a separate room and is hooked up to the stereo reciever through a network hub and an HP "media reciever" unit. The media reciever has a remote that I use to choose video, music, pictures slideshow, etc. directly from the computer.

- What OS did you choose? Windows XP Pro
- what PC type? Pentium Dual Core 3.2Ghz watercooled
- Budget? I don't remember :wink:

- How did you lower the Noise level of the unit? By moving the computer into another room.

This also helps with heat and dust factors. Don't trap your media PC inside an entertainment unit, it won't live very long in there.

Todd Breakey · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:16 pm

Ryan Holton wrote:

Yeah its called an Xbox 360

+1!!!!!

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:33 pm

What about one of these cases? They are less than $120 bucks.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

I built a Media PC using an off-the-shelf Tiger Direct barebones kit. Nothing special about it. Wish I had done a component case like the one you listed. This runs the projector in our bonus room.

I'm a big fan of Windows Media Center. Try it out, you'll likely be impressed. The built-in DVR software works quite well. Recording formats are too large and not compatible with other mobile devices, but that may not matter to use. It works great "out of the box" after you answer some quesitons in setup. Integrates OTA or cable TV with any local media + DVD player. Everything controllable from one menu, one "green button" remote.

I'm using XP MCE but I have played with Vista MCE and it looks like it works great too. I've only used the PC with a TV Tuner card which is obviuously limited -- can't do 75% of cable channels with ANY non-TW hardware. But the remote includes an IR blaster thingy which allows Windows MCE to control the cable box. Biggest drawback to using the MCE interface for DVR over TWC DVR is that you effectively have one tuner. MCE can do multiple tuners, but you're always stuck with TWC hardware to tune channels over 100.

If there were a tuner card capable of doing all the TWC channels, I would have a Media PC in my living room too just to reduce the TWC cable bill.

MarekRozanski · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:36 pm

Here's my setup:

Mac Mini

RF remote

MediaCentral

I didn't "build" this per se; I just bought it. Total cost was under $600, not counting the optional bluetooth keyboard and mouse that I already had. Everything works perfectly and reliably out of the box.

The Mac is a first generation Mini, so it's PowerPC and didn't come with a remote or Front Row media center software like current Minis do, but it was cheaper by $100. It plays every format I've thrown at it (mpeg, wmv, divx, xvid, flac, ogg, VIDEO_TS, etc.), and is quiet, small and slick looking, so it fits perfectly in the audio/video cabinet.

I pump audio out through the speakers or stream it over the network with the optional Airport Express -- or both at the same time. I don't stream video, but I could if I had the need. I don't use it as a DVR (I love my Tivo!), but I could if I wanted to spend some money or hack around.

If you use Skype to video chat with friends or family (highly recommended), this is a cool idea:
I haven't done this yet, but I'm planning to hang a flat screen TV on the wall, mount a webcam on top of it, and Skype away like Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise. (Yeah, I know, "geek!" :oops:

Should have used a Kirk reference.)

One thing to note: The Apple TV may seem like a nice cheap alternative to a full blown PC, but it doesn't support all the video and audio codecs. (There are plenty of hacks, of course.) Maybe someone out there has experience with Apple TV and can comment?

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:03 pm

What about MythTV?

MarekRozanski · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:21 am

Marty Howard wrote:

What about MythTV?

Probably a good option, although I haven't tried it myself. You can download KnoppMyth Live CD to test it out and see if your hardware is compatible. If you decide to install it, you can do so from the KnoppMyth CD, although I recommend installing the MythTV package on Ubuntu if you have the right hardware.

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:10 am

Hey, this might be an option:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318

MarekRozanski · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:02 am

Marty Howard wrote:

Hey, this might be an option:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318

The specs sound good, although I'd check if there is an 802.11n version coming soon.

Seems to get mediocre user ratings on Amazon, though. Personally, I'd be wary of something that has the potential to be a nightmare to set up. I just don't have the patience for that like I used to, but that's just me... :banghead:

David Teague · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:17 am

I have a XP Media Center PC I built, AMD Sempron 1.8 1 gig of ram 375 gb hard drive, 2 Tuners, 1 Nvida, and 1 PVR-150 and a Microsoft Remote and IR Blaster. IT works awesome, I acutally tunred in my TW Dvr becuase I was really not watching much digital tv and we were trying to save some money. I have another computer that I have in the back with medie cetner also no tuners that I can use to watch my recorded stuff from the other pc.

I have not upgraded to vista because I am not sure the box can hadle it. I am probably going to wait until my wife is done with school and employeed to build an new one and run Vista Media center, with Vista media center you can get a digital Tunder card tha will recive Digital Cable Signals. I use this site as a great Reasource http://www.thegreenbutton.com

Keith Strassel · **Posted:** Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:15 pm

MarekRozanski wrote:

One thing to note: The Apple TV may seem like a nice cheap alternative to a full blown PC, but it doesn't support all the video and audio codecs. (There are plenty of hacks, of course.) Maybe someone out there has experience with Apple TV and can comment?

Yeah, I've got the AppleTV. It's a cool but limited little box. Once some of the hacks are better implemented it will be alot more useful.

The Bad:
No DVR function. Apple wants you to buy your TV shows.

No 5.1 audio from purchased or rip'd media.

No Steaming Internet Radio.

Won't play VideoTS files. (Big negative here as everything must be compressed using H.264 codec which is painfully slow on my 800MHz G4.(ouch)

Media streams, ie music, TV, Movies must go through iTunes. In other words you can't stream files directly from a network drive. They have to come from a computer running the iTunes app. (This one sucks)

The Good:
I've got it connected to a G wireless network and streaming is flawless.
no hiccups, dropouts, etc. This is with music and video.

YouTube, for the most, part looks great. (This is dependent on the source file of course, but the H.264 codec does a great job.)

It will pass through 5.1 audio (using iTunes, I streamed a DD encoded WAV file.... I tunes won't play it but AppleTV will pass it though to my HT Processor.
There is promise herre as the chip in the AppleTV has the capability of handling 7.1 or 8 channels of audio.
But no program I have found will encode 5.1 to the video file so you are stuck with Pro-Logic II.(a multi-plexed format)

Overall, I'm impressed with the video. I've got it projecting to 106" screen and my rips look really good. Quicktime HD trailers look phenomenal. Movies from iTunes store are... meh. And Youtube goes varies from acceptable to impressive for what it is.

For the moment MacMini is a better option.

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