Do I want a Media Centre, and where from?

diable

damianjmcgrath wrote: »

What does HTPC stand for?

HTPC

buglawton

I put an old laptop on top of the set top box stack, connected the simple VGA and 3.5mm sound cables and now have a media centre that will play anything that a computer can, online or not.

ITV & C4 catchup, iPlayer, Youtube, and so on.... (only iPlayer has the annoyance of vertically somewhat squashing the image, all other sites are perfect).

Combined with a compact remote trackpad/keyboard - £20-ish off Ebay like:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200505628005
it becomes very convenient to use.

also, can use http://player.tuberadio.fm/ to play Youtube music videos in a constant stream, like a video Spotify.

AlwaysSomething

I've got an HTPC. It's over 5 years old now, but it's still powerful enough to play HD content with no skipping. It has a Freeview card, and can record two channels at once. I am very happy with it. It will play anything. I have also used it to edit recorded video, then burn the result to a DVD. You may be able to get 90% of what you want out of a custom media streamer or similar, but a PC will always be able to play every format. If it can't someone will come up with a hack so that it can.
I had 600Gb of storage for a long time, but I recently put in an extra 2Gb.
Downsides: It's a PC. You need to keep it secure (run a virus checker), and do occasional maintenance just like any other PC that's online. Power consumption is high because I leave it running all the time.
It is possible to put them into standby, and have them wake up to record, but I like to access mine over the web when I'm away from home, so I leave it on all the time. I can set it to record something, or I can watch a show, from anywhere with a decent internet connection.

Iconic

AlwaysSomething wrote: »

I've got an HTPC. It's over 5 years old now, but it's still powerful enough to play HD content with no skipping.

Can you play Blu-Ray films and AVCHD?

I have got a media center about the same age as yours that connects to my TV using DVI. I have thought about upgrading with a new graphic card and Blu-Ray drive but I didn't want to spend £100 and then find out the processor or another part was not up to playing full HD.

buglawton

I won't be touching blu-ray for another few years, having noticed how good ordinary upscaled DVDs are on my HD set, and I would want inbuilt recording to DVD also, making blu-ray too expensive to play with right now. Plenty of interesting free content via streaming anyway.

Iconic

buglawton wrote: »

I won't be touching blu-ray for another few years, having noticed how good ordinary upscaled DVDs are on my HD set, and I would want inbuilt recording to DVD also, making blu-ray too expensive to play with right now. Plenty of interesting free content via streaming anyway.

Interesting. Do you think full HD (1080p) is over-hyped?

I thought there was a big difference between 1080p and 1080i but I suppose it's all down to how good your TV is.

buglawton

I watch a 42" screen at a distance of say, 11 feet. HD (which I have via one inbuilt Satellite tuner) does appear higher quality than SD. However, watching SD from the PVR or upscaled DVDs, after a few minutes of watching one adjusts and the picture is perfectly acceptable. If I wanted to be a HD freak I'd have to upgrade PVR and get a Blu-Ray DVD recorder and frankly there are more important things to spend money on.

It all depends on your patience to wait for price drops and your priorities.