Media PC

cerebus said:
Well these days HD is what a media centre must do.
Click to expand...

there are PCI cards that can do VDPAU/PureVideo and are able to decode HD on the GPU. That would mean a P4 would be sufficient. Probably the bare minimum and not somethign i would do.
 
Below is the current Media Server I am building, as stated before rather go the PC route than the stand alone units, many more options. I run Windows 7, MCE and Media Browser on top (with a theme called Chocolate, which is by a local guru!) It does the trick for my movies, series, music etc and if I want I can play a game on it, browse the web etc, all via my SONY Bravia LCD.

Thermaltake DH101 with remote
AOpen 500Watt PSU
Gigabyte EP43-UDL3 LGA755 MB
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 3.06Ghz 3Mb 1066FSB
Corsair Desktop Memory 2Gb DDR2 800 (x2 for a total of 4Gb)
Seagate 500Gb SATA 7200Rpm 16Mb Cache (x2 for total of 1Tb)
Samsung 22X DVD RW
MSI 9800GT PCI-Ex16 1Gb GDDR3
 
I have to go with the guys that mentioned MediaBrowser. It is awesome and growing fast.

As for PC, don't buy crap, spend the money and you wont regret it.
 
Yeah, MediaBrowser with that awesome chocolate theme is the way to go ;) :p
 
mediabrowser is awesome, been using it for awhile now and will never look back :)
 
Is mediabrwoser better than Media portal..


I enjoy media portal for the mere fact that it remembers where you were on any episode and it greys out the already viewed episodes that you watched.
 
Actually wait.. no..

You are MORE than welcome to post here about Chocolate... we can be the envy of other forums :D
 
mythtv wipes the floor to be honest when it comes to software. it also has the advantage of being able to run on low key hardware very well.
 
milomak said:
mythtv wipes the floor to be honest when it comes to software. it also has the advantage of being able to run on low key hardware very well.
Click to expand...

Only if the floor managed to install linux and get his screen card drivers installed! ...
 
cerebus said:
P4 isn't really capable of doing the media centre thing.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ, but it depends on which one you are running. I have a P4 3.8 with 2GB of ram and a 8800GT running in mine... plays everything perfectly :p
 
I ran Mediaportal for a couple of years but recently i have switched over to XBMC. Their windows version is rock solid stable now and the skins and options for cusomisation are incredible. I run the Alaska skin at the moment.
 
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