Easy go, easy come

[Fat Bob]

I've got a new pc arriving soon! YAY me!

Gone for the Dell Studio Hydrid. Went for the basic one with upgrade of processor to the T6500, OS to Vista Home Premium (with Win7 upgrade for free) and they nicely added on Wireless (not required at the mo) for free and took off the monitor for $100 reduction. It's got 4GB RAM and 320GB HD.

Plan is to have this nice looking thing sit under my TV and act as a seed box and media pc that I can play music and videos through, and will also use it as my DVD player (nice slot loader on the front....was tempted to go for the Bluray option but decided against it in the end). As the old laptop was performing this rather well, and this pc has slightly better specs than my current laptop, then think it'll work quite well.

Looked for other mini or hybrid pcs and the only thing I found that came near to it was a mac mini. Acer and HP both have small pcs but they are still pc's and not something nice to look at. There were a few more availble, including WinXP machines, but this one seemed the most stylish.

So, if I'm using it as a media centre, what do I need to add? I don't need to add TV recording capabilities, as my Hubstation does that, so was thinking remote controls and the like. Thoughts?

Cheers

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Remote control was the first question that popped into my mind. We're using a PC notebook at the moment, but at some point will invest in something like what you've got, FB.

Then again, we have turntable, etc, so not sure how to integrate that. Right now it just seems like our AV setup is just cobbled problem-solver after problem-solver.

[Scrummy Mummy]

On a related (I think) note, what do you actually need to buy for a home theatre set up?

[BoD]

We know that we are really just waiting for the god of media centres.. Jedi.

I have a mac mini that I use to play tv/movies and that are streamed from my other mac. Comes with a remote and nice simple FrontRow software

[Jedi]

I'm feeling really lazy to comment on this at the moment, but i will say, all you really need is a wireless keyboard and perhaps (depending on how many components are in your entertainment system), a decent universal remote. I'm sure you already know which remote I would recommend. As for keyboard, as much as I'd love to recommend it, the Logitech Dinovo mini is a great keyboard in principle but is FULL of issues. I'm still using mine until something better comes along.

As for media center software, if you're planning on using WMC, you should get: My Movies, Media Browser, Media Control, k-lite codec pack (standard edition).

[Fat Bob]

On a related (I think) note, what do you actually need to buy for a home theatre set up?

Home theatre set up? Or home theatre pc set up?

Home theatre set up is everything that you want or might need: DVD or Bluray player, big TV, sound system, the works. Then it depends what you actually want in there. If you will never watch TV in there, you don't need cable put in. etc etc.

For a home theatre pc, again, it depends what you want to do. I know some have put their cable box through the system, and it looks good (and it's possible to record the cable TV onto the pc for viewing later). This needs a good quality set up with lots of HDD space, good processor etc as there's a lot of work going from analog signal in to digital signal on your PC. You also need to download TV schedules from the internet and get them into a format that the PC can understand.

I've decided against this (as I have a hubstation that does that anyhow) so am just planning to use the PC as a way to watch DVDs and/or things that I've downloaded. Also to play music though the speaker system is useful.

Thanks Jedi, I did think all I needed was a combined keyboard/trackball as this very quickly allows things to be started stoped. I might have a play with a few things, see what I can do with them, and see if I can reduce what's required (or even better put it in my current universal remote: the Logitech 880 or 885...the one with the craddle problems!) I'm thinking having something to do basic functions on the player (start it up, choose a movie, pause it whilst I go for a beer etc) and then a keyboard (or go thru remote desktop from coffee table laptop) to go for anything more advanced.

Will also look at Windows Media Centre and see how what I've got can be configured in. Would prefer to stay with VLC but if that just stands along then I might switch over. Would also prefer to stay with iTunes as that links in with my Airport Express for music around the house.

Will report back when I start playing!

[Scrummy Mummy]

Just thinking ahead for when we eventually move to Oz. So if you use the PC to watch movies etc then you don't bother with a DVD player in set up? Do you use special software rather than windows media player? Do you save your DVDs onto hard drive and sell on?

[Jedi]

VLC is just a media player, it's not a media libray manager, which is what WMC + Media Browser (for TV shows) & My Movies gives you. Plus WMC is fully remote control compatible.

Edit: oh and if you like shoutcast, then you must get mcShoutcast. It's not free, but well worth it.

[Burbage]

But if you're just going to watch movies why bother with a PC at all? DVD player, or Blu ray if that is your bag, projector and surround sound system would cover all your needs. I'm thinking that the garage in my house is the perfect place for a home theatre and that would be all I'd need in there.

If you're pushed for space and you want to play computer games, play music, listen to the radio, watch TV and Watch movies and do it all in the same place in your home then the media centre would be a good idea.

[Jedi]

You're forgetting non-disc movies.

[Fat Bob]

burbage, and I thought it was you that suggested Bluray will be gone in months/years and we'll all be on downloadable content from either a local store or even the 'net. Your thinking patterns aren't consolidated!

Scummy, yes, you can use one of many players to play movies off DVD inside your computer. You have the choice of putting them on your hard drive, I know some people who have, whereas I probably won't myself. you can also sell on the disc: I probably wouldn't.

Also, if you have several rooms that require this sort of set up, you might be better getting a central server set up on your network and streaming from there (again, I know people who do this). Means you keep a single copy of everything rather than a copy of everything on every computer (and you don't need super HDD on every computer). There are many configs possible.

Jedi, will give WMC and everything a go as you suggest.

[Burbage]

FB, I'm merely allowing that some people have a blu ray player, not suggesting for a moment that I waste my own money on one. I'm happy with DVDs until the downloadable thing works. Then I presume I'll need some kind of player, but it probably won't be much bigger than an iPod. So that'll save a bit of space. In fact we may get to the point where the remote is bigger than the player, or the player might even be the remote!

Wii sells computer games quite successfully through download. Movies may not be far behind on that system. Presume xbox and playstation are similar.

[Lichtgestalt]

WMC = Weapons of Mass Control = Remote Control

[Burbage]

WMC = Weapons of Mass Control = Remote Control

Don't give up your day job.

[Fat Bob]

WOHOOOO!!! New pc arrives today! YAY!!!!!

Had a play with Windows Media Centre, nice, would be nicer if it hooked up to my Airport Express. Not sure if that's the fault of Microsoft or Apple or both.

Also managed to set up the web-browser UI of uTorrent....does most of whay I want as well......

[Burbage]

You can always stick iTunes on as well to hook up to the Airport. With these big hard drives and loads of processing power, you won't have any problems. After all Airport just sends audio, and if you want to send audio to a different room while someone else watches somehting on media centre on the TV then two applications would be handier anyway.

Now all you need is a proper video card and you'll be set.

[Fat Bob]

yeah, I know I could do that (and probably will) but it's just a nice to have one piece of software doing one thing. Oh, well, dream on!!

[Jedi]

WMC is fully integrated with a remote, not sure about iTunes.

[Morrolan]

i was pretty miffed recently to find that a new Nvdia 250GT card i was buying only had 2 DVI ports, whereas my old 8600GS already has one DVMI port.

[Burbage]

i was pretty miffed recently to find that a new Nvdia 250GT card i was buying only had 2 DVI ports, whereas my old 8600GS already has one DVMI port.

What's a DVMI port?

What about the ATI 4890? Or 4870?

[Morrolan]

i was pretty miffed recently to find that a new Nvdia 250GT card i was buying only had 2 DVI ports, whereas my old 8600GS already has one DVMI port.

What's a DVMI port?

What about the ATI 4890? Or 4870?

sorry: HDMI... blurred brain.

anyway: i don't like ATI cards.

[Burbage]

Fair enough.

Have to say that the 4890 is pretty funky.

[Fat Bob]

PC arrived. Looks cute. Bugger, at work til 6 so can't tell you how good it looks under the TV.....

[Morrolan]

Fair enough.

Have to say that the 4890 is pretty funky.

probably. i've read some good reviews and it's pretty well priced.

i'm certain my computers are jinxed in some way, as i always seem to have problems when putting in ATI based cards (crashes, freezes and whatnot) and never experience anything like that with NVdia. just had the same thing again when i bought an old 9550 AGP for one of our older machines (just about the only AGP-based cards left), and only got it stable after i swapped it into another machine than i intended and don't update the drivers.

[Burbage]

They've had a couple of bad driver version releases. I've been lucky enough to skip them. Current drivers are stable in both XP (E8400 core 2 duo and a 4670) and Vista 64 (i7 920 and 4890). If that's any help.