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PC multimedia newbie - advice needed to enter this magic multimedia world!

bgscotty
Posts: 159 Forumite

in Techie Stuff
Hello!
I would be grateful for any advice/ comments:
(I have a 1GB RAM Dell desktop pc; Operating System XP Home; 8mb internet connection via Orange Livebox)
Up to now, I've completely underused my pc (basically just using Word and surfing the internet!) and almost totally neglected the world of multimedia.
I'm keen to do much more e.g.
I have very little or no interest in gaming.
Does anyone have any pointers as to how to turn my pc into a multimedia mean machine e.g.
any good applications to use to get the multimedia features above (and more)
and / or
any good integrated applications which will give me all the multimedia features I might want?
I'm willing to upgrade any necessary parts of my pc's specifications to achieve good end results.
Any comments gratefully received.
Thank you in advance.
Scotty
I would be grateful for any advice/ comments:
(I have a 1GB RAM Dell desktop pc; Operating System XP Home; 8mb internet connection via Orange Livebox)
Up to now, I've completely underused my pc (basically just using Word and surfing the internet!) and almost totally neglected the world of multimedia.
I'm keen to do much more e.g.
- photos, digital images
- downloading movies, video content
- downloading music
I have very little or no interest in gaming.
Does anyone have any pointers as to how to turn my pc into a multimedia mean machine e.g.
any good applications to use to get the multimedia features above (and more)
and / or
any good integrated applications which will give me all the multimedia features I might want?
I'm willing to upgrade any necessary parts of my pc's specifications to achieve good end results.
Any comments gratefully received.
Thank you in advance.
Scotty
"Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here, we might as well DANCE !!!"
:j
0
Comments
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Most of the things you mention are already largely built into Windows in the form of Windows Media Player, though you may need to hunt around for codecs for some audio and video encoding formats.
If you're going to try music downloads, my personal advice would be to avoid services like itunes, which use DRM to place unfair constraints (IMHO) on what you can do with what you've bought. There are several legal download services out there now that do not apply DRM.
Something else to try (if you don't already have a separate piece of hardware that does this) is to use your PC as a PVR. Freeview PC cards are quite cheap now (£30 will get you a good one), and you can use free software such as GB-PVR to set it all up. However, your PC will need to exceed a minimum spec in order to do the CPU-intensive encoding and decoding involved.0
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