[Boudicca21]

Although I'm a fairly competent pc user, much digital technology has passed me by. Whne looking to buy a new desktop I saw several pcs described as media centres. Clearly not the sort of thing I need for everyday home office use; but I do wonder what I'm missing. I have a tv, a dvd player and a freeview box; thinking about replacing CD player with an ipod. Sorry to display my ignorance but what would be the advantage of having a media centre pc?

[captainkremmen]

The main advantages are everything on the one machine, and one remote, one TV connection etc.

Media Centre systems can be used to store all your music, photos, films and videos, play DVDs, CDs and BluRay films from disc, watch TV and online video streaming sites as well as surfing the web, all from the comfort of your own sofa.

[Boudicca21]

Thanks. So I still need a TV with freeview reception (rather than a pc monitor) and an aerial connection? Does it act as a freeview recorder? And could I network it to, say, a TV in my bedroom?

[chrisjr]

Originally Posted by Boudicca21

Thanks. So I still need a TV with freeview reception (rather than a pc monitor) and an aerial connection? Does it act as a freeview recorder? And could I network it to, say, a TV in my bedroom?

You don't necessarily need a TV as the Media Centre PC can be fitted with it's own tuner card(s). So it could work perfectly well with a normal PC monitor. Depending on how big a screen you want though a TV may be easier and cheaper.

It would need at least one TV tuner to record TV broadcasts independently of the TV.

[niall campbell]

I would say that you need a wireless hard drive and you could store all your media files on that. Look for NAS

A laptop nowadays is really the way forward

[RobAnt]

To add to ChrisJ's post, modern LCD and Plasma TVs make excellent computer monitors and TVs, and that you can choose to turn your PC into something much more flexible than a web surfer and word processor, using your TV in this way.

Windows Vista and, better, Windows 7 Home premium and upwards have excellent Media Centre software built in at no extra cost, which is great for acting as a TV receiver and personal video recorder (PVR).

You can use a laptop in this way if you wish, and it has the right kind of outputs to a monitor/TV. But many prefer to use a PC because of it's great flexibility and the ability to swap out faulty components relatively easily - without needing to go back to the retailers who might just want to keep it for a month or two. Laptops can be damaged by having to release all those nasty plastic clips.

Incidentally, many prefer the term HTPC or Home Theatre PC, which more accurately describes it's nature.

There's a lot of great stuff on-line too, so you can find programmes you might want to watch on the BBC's iPlayer and similar offerings from other broadcasters, including "radio" stations.

[Boudicca21]

Many thanks to everyone - I'm beginning to get the idea. But does this sort of set up connect to a tv point or the router (or perhaps both?). I currently watch iplayer stuff on my little net book, so it would certainly be good to be able to put it on a decent screen.

[chrisjr]

At it's most basic a Media Centre is just a PC running bit of software. So at the minimum you would plug it into your router to stream content off the internet.

And many will have at least a DVD drive and possibly a Blu-Ray drive for playing movies.

What else you connect to it depends on what hardware add-ons it has. You can get various flavours of card to receive TV broadcasts, either terrestrial via the aerial on the roof or satellite via a dish.

Oh and if you have a AV system with amp and surround sound speakers with some form of digital audio input you ought to be able to plug an output from the Media Centre's soundcard to the amp. So you can then enjoy the full surround sound experience from disks you play or any other content with suitable sound tracks.

[banbury_oddball]

People do get confused about "Media Centre" pc's. In essence they are standard pc's but in a more fashionable case or small form factor cases.

I have two of them at home (one in the lounge, and the other in the bedroom) and based on a barebones Scaleo E machine. I upgraded the motherboard and processor, put in a blu-ray drive and 1tb hard drive and a 1gb ATI 4550 graphics card which is more than capable of handling HD content and also has a Hauppage HVR 4000 tv card for handling Freeview and Freesat which will also allow the HD channels. The one upstairs is a little more basic, but can still access all my music and films via the server wirelessly.

It sits nicely where the DVD used to be under the tv.

It runs Windows 7 and the new Media Centre is excellent. Via this Windows based program, you can view live tv, has it's own EPG, video, DVD's, pictures etc. Sky Player also sits within WMC7 as does MSN so online streaming is there and easy to configure. There are also add-on programs for WMC7 so you can customise the look and feel of WMC7 - for example Media Browser. I ripped most of my DVD's and Blu Rays directly to the server I use and stream via the Media PC and works a treat. Has it's own cover art and one click of the mouse or remote for the pc and you are watching a film. With the ripping process all trailers and ads are removed, so straight into the film.

It's got a wireless dongle to connect to the server pc that hides under the stairs which has all my media on it and connected to the wireless router/modem so also get internet connection, and all goes through the amp sat underneath it to get full 5.1 surround sound. So it's done away with a DVD player, VCR, Freeview box etc etc.

It's connected to my 37" HDtv via HDMI which can carry the sound also but prefer to use the amp. With adjusting the size of the fonts to 150%, you can see the menus clearly from a distance at a resolution of 1920x1080p. The media pc upstairs is connected to a 22" Samsung hdtv as worked out cheaper than a computer monitor but again can ouput 1920x1080p so future proof if I decide to play Blu-ray on the pc upstairs. So with that we can also watch Freeview channels as that media pc doesn't have a tv card.

I may at some point change the tv cards around and connect another cable from the satellite dish to get Freesat upstairs as also have Sky HD downstairs so the tuner in the pc downstairs is rarely used. Handy though when I swing the dish around for boxing via Astra 1 as the tv card is already been set up by myself for the FTA channels on Astra 1