PC for TV streaming

stayathomedad_2

I want to buy a PC that will sit next to my sky box and dvd player and be connected to my main TV.

I have cancelled sky contract so no longer have ability to record on sky box so use iplayer, 4od, demandfive a lot on my laptop to catch up with tv programmes. I want the pc to be able to stream in reasonable quality to my 42" tv probably through a hdmi cable.

I also want to use it for network storage so that anyone on the home network can access the stuff on the hard disk and it can be used to stream music etc round the house with relevant other devices accessing it.

There seem to be a couple of specific products targeting this market in the Mac Mini, Acer Revo, Eee Box and Dell Zino HD.

Don't really fancy the Mac Mini and the Acer and Eee Box don't look up to the job so considering the Dell.

The basic price is £299 plus £70 for hard disk upgrade to 1TB and £20 for a wireless network card although my router is currently right where the PC would sit.

The other options possibly worth upgrading are:-
a) £61.30 for upgrade from integrated 3200 HD graphics card to ATI Radeon HD 4330 512Mb
b) It comes with 2Gb Ram and it's an extra £40 per GB up to 4Gb.
c) AMD A64 2650E 1.6Ghz processer is standard but you can get Dual core AMD X2 3250E 1.5Ghz for £40 or 6850E 1.8Ghz for £80.

Was thinking of going for the graphics card upgrade and the lower priced dual core processer which gives a total price of £490 but there are currently 10% off vouchers going around with 10% also from quidco giving a total price of about £397.

So my questions are:-
Will a Dell Zino HD fulfil my needs?
Would I be better off getting a standard desktop PC even though it would look out of place next to the dvd player?
Are the upgrade options worth going for to improve quality of streaming?

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

Lokolo

The quality of the 4od and iplayer sites won't make it look good on a 42" tele. HD streaming is coming, slowly. But you would also need a decent internet connection to stream. Unless you download.

stayathomedad_2

Lokolo wrote: »

The quality of the 4od and iplayer sites won't make it look good on a 42" tele. HD streaming is coming, slowly. But you would also need a decent internet connection to stream. Unless you download.

I have connected the laptop to the tv using the cable for a projector and some programmes are pretty good quality while others aren't. 4od seems to be good and I have seen iplayer on a ps3 that looks good but demandfive doesn't seem to be such high quality when I've hooked it up to the tv.

I don't know how much of this is due to the quality of the video and how much due to the pc used. I hooked up an old desktop I had to see if it would do the job but it just wasn't up to it, screen not updating quick enough and very pixelated where as it seems fine with my 3 year old budget sony vaio laptop.

althas

Other option is to get a PC with a tv tuner card in it, then you can use it the same way you use a Sky+ box, watch, record, pause live TV etc

Only suggestion is get a TWIN tuner card with built in freeview so you would have the ability to watch one channel and record another (or record two and watch a recorded prog already already). This is my TV set up and works a treat

I must admit I have not seen the picture on anything bigger than a 26" TV, so I could not say how it would look on a 42", but I guess it would be as good as the normal TV

Chimpofdoom

I've seen a few people rave about:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-Nettop-ION-330HT-RET/dp/B002WP4AZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=computers&qid=1285773516&sr=8-1