Anyone has a media center PC?

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• platelet Posts: 26,382

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  31/05/12 - 11:07 #2

  I use two. A Sony Vaio TP3 which I’ve had for years attached to my living room set and an ASUS eeebox EB1501P which is attached to the one in the bedroom. A neat feature of this box is it is designed to connect to the VESA mounting holes on the back of a flat screen TV, so if you haven’t mounted the TV on the wall you can use this to completely hide the PC.
  
  The ASUS is little more than a netbook minus the keyboard/screen plus blueray, and the Sony is obsolete so neither would be a good choice for you, but in respect to Media Centre PCs in general I’d say:
  
  If it wasn’t for the obvious legal / ethical issues it would be very easy to set up software such as utorrent to down load TV programs in a similar fashion as a sky+ box. Using rss to monitor feeds from various trackers for all your favourite programs and simply have them appear in your media library. This could in theory be a lot simpler than recording from the TV tuner.
  
  In respect to the kit itself - quiet is the key. Any fan or drive noise can be very noticeable so I’d look for one with (or consider fitting) a SSD.
  
  Windows Media Center remotes are extremely limted, I rarely used one for any thing other than powering on / off. In my lounge I use a Bluetooth mouse and wireless keyboard. If you go that route make sure you get them with a decent range as they’ll be operating a lot further away than in your typical office environment. In the bedroom I use one of these:
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cideko-Air-Wireless-Mouse-Keyboard/dp/B005KQ9ADM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338458416&sr=8-1
  It takes a little getting used to as the mouse is operated by tilting the keyboard but once you do get used to it you can reach the point where you can operate it with one hand most of the time. Unless you plan to do a lot of typing (or use the F1 – F12 keys with it lacks) I’d consider one rather than a full wireless keyboard.

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• [Deleted User] Posts: 12,190

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  31/05/12 - 12:16 #3

  I use an HTPC in my living room...as the previous poster has said noise (or lack of it) is the key.
  I also have a wireless k/b mouse combo together with a wireless remote.
  
  Being able to switch seemlessly between, live TV / Music / Video / DVD is great.
  There are some excellent addins available too
  
  I use one called MediaBrowser that integrates into the WMC menu's and another called "Tunerfree" that gives me access to catchup TV services for all the channels.
  My base PC is much more powerful than it really needs to be because I also use the PC for other "media related" tasks,

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