Home Theater PC's?

[Wick]

I am looking at getting a new PC, and saw the option of getting one geared towards a Media Center PC. I saw a nice looking one from Alienware that is the size of a dvd player and fits in a rack with the rest of your ht equipment. I'd then use my Sony SXRD 60" for the screen. Do you think this would be a good way to go? I'm not sure what typing word documents would be like. Might seem a little big... but I mostly just use my computer for music, media, and surfing the internet. Anyone have any experience with media center pc's?

[Hdale85]

Well that TV runs 1080i so reading anything on a webpage isnt going to look very good. I use my laptop as a media center PC right now it works great. Great for playing dvd's and what not. You just have to ask your self if your going to use the media center options?

[---k---]

I've had what would be considered a Media Center PC for probably 6 years now. Originally it just sat under the TV and ran WinAmp and Netscape. It was great for parties. Plenty of music with cool visualizations. And, when it was still hip, we would bring up HotorNot.com and have everyone be real shallow. A little over three years ago, I added a TV tuner. I'm now up to three tv tuners, and will never go back to regular TV or a DVR with a single tuner.

Having a Media Center type PC under the TV storing all your music, movies, and doing DVR duties is really life changing. Mine will also bring up the weather, news headlines, my netflicks cue, whatever at at touch of a button.

BUT, that all said, I find the compture USSLESS for anything but Media Center/HTPC type stuff. I don't know if you're going to be using this in a dorm room, where you're always sitting 1' away, or in a big family room where you are going to be sitting 8' away. If it is the latter, I would never ever consider doing all my websurfing/word processing/etc. whatever on a TV. I don't care if it is a HDTV. At 8' away, it isn't a good solution. I have a laptop that sits on my lap all the time for computer jobs. The HTPC takes cares of TV/Music.

Also, there are lots of good Media Center software solutions out there that you can add to any computer. Don't limit yourself to just the Microsoft solution that ships from Dell and Alienware.

I run MythTV on Linux.

[Hdale85]

Dont forget that MythTV is very complicated for the average joe to setup I've conciderd building a Myth box i might give it a try somtime. If i do that then I'd need to get hardware that works well with linux and is easy to setup and what not. Things I've had problems with linux before are like running DTS or DD which if i could'nt get that stuff to work i wouldnt want to use MythTV. Is there anything MythTV is lacking that you wish it had?

[---k---]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to push Myth. It has had me swearing a lot recently.

I still think that Myth is the most complete solution, and probably the best for most people, once it gets set up. But output to HD TVs, output over the SPDF, DD and DTS, and overall picture quality can be challanging. Scalers are not present at all. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Windows solutions to anyone who is not familar with Linux or who wants to run fancy scalers and such.

[Hdale85]

Well i just run my LCD tv at its native resoultion and my sound card and everything and the codecs take care of everything else. Dvd's look great scaled through my pc though.