what is a Media Center PC
A Media Center PC is a Home Theater PC (HTPC) that provides home theater function like CD Player, DVD Player, Blue-ray, TV, Photo Album, ebook, Weather, E-mail, Internet Browser, Game Console, Telephone, voicemail and more. HTPC can be designed to navigate menus easily with a remote, wireless keyboard or touch screen.
why a HTPC
HPTC expands your digital experience into your living room providing instant access to the things you normally do with your computer on the internet, it open new ways to experiencing media.
Building a Media PC
The first step in building a Media Center PC is selecting the Operating System. we choose Linux simply because we want to try Freevo media centre and ubuntu because of it's stability and cost of ownership.
- Media PC Guide
- Project Media PC
- Useful Links
- Media PC Gallery
- Freevo Installation guide in Ubuntu
Media Center Software : we look at a number of Media Center PC software for Windows, Linux and Mac
CPU : There are few CPU in the market these days, which one is best for this task?
Case and Enclosures : what makes a good enclosure for a Home entertainment PC and what to look for?
Cooling : I like my HTPC to be Quiet, so here im going to look at technologies that allows fanless operations
Media : CD, DVD, Blu-ray, DVR, etc.
Storage : SCSI, Raid, SATA-IDE, which one is best for the job?
Video : Our media center PC won't be running anything that requires intense graphics such as games
Audio : High End Sound to rock your world
TV Tuner : here we look at the number of different TV cards
Remotes : every household has more than one of these laying around, we'll show you how you can get connected.
network : setting up the network connecting to it all.