Media PC

[Mephisto_Helix]

Ok, I'm sure what I'm asking has been answered here somewhere but too lazy to search so here I go -


What would be the best and cheapest option to have an old PC turned into a media center that can supply a few rooms? I have the Case, 400W PSU, 1TB HDD and a Gigabyte G41 (I think) motherboard. If it turns out to be a mission or just meh to do I can always start looking at media players. Just an idea I'm toying with so any suggestions and advice is most welcome.

 

[Jar-man]

I have my Media Server wired into my router and all other devices stream videos via wifi from there.

My HP server is running Windows 7 (I know alot of the guys would vote against Windows) and XBMC. I use my server for watching and streaming videos.
My Raspberry Pi (Raspbc), PS3, laptop, tablet and phone stream videos flawlessly.

If you vote against Windows go for XBMCbuntu.

 

[Tim the Techxpert]

Hi there,
I have an old PC doing the media server role. connected to the router and access via wireless through the house and via a cable in the TV room itself. It does work very well on Windows. Not had any experience in running a non Windows OS for the media server.

Let us know how you get on.

Regards

Tim

 

[donal]

Hi
Am looking at doing the same with an old PC running XP. Already tried out running movies from iTunes (on the PC) connected to the TV(Samsung) via HDMI cable and it was pretty awesome quality(but then I'm used to sabc only!). Now I need to go the whole hog and either install something like XBMC or Moovida, and see how it goes.
I already connect to the router (Netgear DG384) wirelessly from this PC - question is would a cable connection be better.
I'm also a bit clueless re how to set up the router so that my other devices (ipod) can see and access content on the attached HDD.

So far the only downsides of using the old PC as a media centre is the size, the noise from the fan, and the occasional lag as the 512mb GPU tries to keep up with the HD content from iTunes.

Any suggestions to fine-tune this are welcomed. I did briefly consider getting apple tv, but don;t want all the restrictions on file formats it can play. I have a range of stuff on the HDD - everything from mp3, mp4 to mkv and avi.