Media Centre PCs

Neil · 02-04-2004, 10:02

Ok-here's the thing!

I have been curious about these so called Media Centre PCs for a while now, & having actually have a play with an Evesham one yesterday, I have to confess to being totally blown away.

I know the concept of pausing live TV is not that new etc, but I was really impressed with the whole idea of 'home network integration' etc.

So.....now I'm thinking of treating myself to one of these bad boys, & also wondering if I could build one myself.

Any thoughts/advice/recommendations etc are welcome as always.

N.

Stuartbe · 02-04-2004, 10:08

Looks rather tasty

I think it would need to be connected to a gigabit lan to take advantage of it over the network ext....

MSI allso do a range of barebone systems that you can build up for this.

Neil · 02-04-2004, 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuartbe

Looks rather tasty

I think it would need to be connected to a gigabit lan to take advantage of it over the network ext....

MSI allso do a range of barebone systems that you can build up for this.

I was just thinking more about the convenience of it TBH Stu. I wouldn't stream films etc over my wireless network (having said that it was a poor when I had 802.11 B, but now Ihave 802.11 G

)

What I would do is to transfer stuff from my PC to the Media Centre one, & watch it directly from there.

I wonder how much it would cost to build etc?-prob not cheap enough to justify the aggro I would suspect.

imback · 02-04-2004, 12:31

I have been thinking about this lately.

But how convenient is it? I don't get the logistics of it to be honest, I have seen people who use a barebones system with no monitor, but how do they controll it so to speak?

Neil · 02-04-2004, 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by imback

I have been thinking about this lately.

But how convenient is it? I don't get the logistics of it to be honest, I have seen people who use a barebones system with no monitor, but how do they controll it so to speak?

It sits under your TV, like a regular STB, & you control the on screen Windows menu with a remote that is supplied with it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/

altis · 02-04-2004, 12:43

Hava a look at:
http://www.showshifter.com/

and
http://www.mini-itx.com/

SOSAGES · 02-04-2004, 13:09

i may be wrong but as far as i know u cant actually buy wmce on its own it comes with mcpc's ..

unless they changed the rules

Neil · 02-04-2004, 14:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOSAGES

i may be wrong but as far as i know u cant actually buy wmce on its own it comes with mcpc's ..

unless they changed the rules

That is correct.

MrSums · 02-04-2004, 14:30

If you want to roll your own:

Myth TV

MrSums

imback · 02-04-2004, 15:03

So what kind of spec would be needed to make this a usable bit of kit, for streaming movies via a network onto TV etc etc

SOSAGES · 02-04-2004, 15:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neil

That is correct.

how do u propose to build your own? or will it be simply a small (shuttle like) quiet pc to play mp3s and stream dvds/divx movies from ?

i know a few people with mcpc's and they are pretty smart good luck with it all

Neil · 02-04-2004, 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOSAGES

how do u propose to build your own? or will it be simply a small (shuttle like) quiet pc to play mp3s and stream dvds/divx movies from ?

i know a few people with mcpc's and they are pretty smart good luck with it all

Exactly as you describe.

imback · 02-04-2004, 15:26

Nice one Neil, I'm going to get shouted at by misses for adding to my credit card bill now since I have seen this thread

The OS bit seems to be the downfall since you can't buy XPMC

SOSAGES · 02-04-2004, 15:27

good thinking - did u consider buying a modded xbox? (or modding an xbox u have)

it can do pretty much what u need and play games .

http://www.premodded.com is a good example but there are others.
the xbox can run a special version of MC as well called xbox media center but u may alreayd know all this

i looked at both routes and went for a xbox with 250 gig hard drive and will install the MC software as soon as it comes out of alpha

altis · 02-04-2004, 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by imback

So what kind of spec would be needed to make this a usable bit of kit, for streaming movies via a network onto TV etc etc

Take a look at:
http://www.videolan.org/

The switch/router is going to be the bottleneck in most home-lans. Mine claims to support only 1000-1500 packets per second. But at least it gives a figure - most don't! That works out at just over 2 megabytes per second tops (assuming max ethernet packet sizes) which is only just fast enough for one video stream.

Having struggled with peeps connection probs for some time (scart - aargh!), I can't help feeling that something like this is the way to go. Imagine if your TV had an embeded web browser with a fixed home address of 192.168.X.X. Then imagine a DHCP server with a jazzed-up 'clients' page at that address. Click on the client of your choice, be it DVD, PVR or whatever, and you would go directly to the control panel of that device. There would be no need for lots of different remote controls (all you would need is a single infra-red mouse), every device would have a similar HTML interface and they would all connect together simply by plugging them into an ethernet switch/router. I believe the technology is ready and capable - we just need a standard and away we go!