Media Center PC’s
I had a look at the new Windows Media Center PC’s while I was in PC World yesterday.
HP have a selection of 4 Media Centre PC’s to choose from, with the top of the range featuring 1GB of memory, 200GB Hard Disk, a 3GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, 6 USB ports, a Firewire port, an 8-in-1 memory card reader, DVD writer, TV & FM radio card, HP Digital Camera dock, wireless keyboard and remote control.
The new OS from Microsoft is pretty neat, as the label says it’s an all in one media centre enabling the home user to watch and record TV, play DVD’s, store home movies and pictures, listen to the radio, CDs and stored MP3s. Best of this this can all be contolled from the comfort of your sofa with a remote control!
The interface is pretty snazzy, based on Windows XP, with a nice menu system that fades in and out to the different menu levels. Overall it is extremely easy to use and easy on the eyes!
I’ve been looking for one of these as well and it is worth looking around the web for information on making your own!
You can create your own tivo with mythtv http://www.mythtv.org/
or you can go for just a network media server by hacking an xbox using Xbox Media player
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbplayer