Media Centre PC

Hi All

New to the forum and it seems helpfull and populated, which is good.

Anyway Im thinking of building a new PC do act as both a PC and TV for my livingroom as the ready made ones seem to be a fortune.

So im just looking for ideas and suggestions etc

 

You can run a TV on any computer with a TV tuner pci card. I have an ATI All-In-Wonder 9600XT video card. I have got to say that this card is dated but the tv programs look perfect, I thought there would be a lag and there isn't. Not to mention, you can make the TV transparent so you can watch it on top of all other programs while surfing the web if youw ant.

I'm curious to see what the newer TV tuners do that this card couldn't. The quality was already so good and as a plus it downloads a TV guide every week, and allows me to choose different programs to record.

Just give a look into TV tuners or the All-In-Wonder series of ATI cards. Otherwise, you can get LCD monitors that have good built in co-ax jacks so that they plug right in the wall. This is a good alternative, since your monitor is both a TV and a monitor (but I believe you can only use it as either one at a time - I don't think you can look at the computer screen and the TV at the same time).

 

Thanks for that. Another question. Can I have 2 TFT screens, one for TV and one for the PC?

 

well i suppose so, you connect your 2 tft's, then set it up so your desktop is extended, have your TV viewing application in a window, and shift it over to the monitor on say the right of left, but if you choose to have the TV viewing application in full screen, it will take up both screen.

 

Thanks

So that saves me buying a 30"+ LCD - Nice

Is there a certain type of GPU required for this?

 

lol, well in a way, i think you should still get the 30" LCD, becouse then you've got a really nice and big display, just buy the 30" LCD TV or w/e it is, connect that to your graphics card via DVi, and use one of your LCD monitors for desktop, even thought your 30" LCD would be good. What size are your 2 LCD screens?

 

Was thinking on 2 x 19" as the 30"+ is very expensive.

 

well do what you think is best, 2x 19" would be ok, but if you can afford the 30" get that and have 1 19" LCD check that the 30" can connect to the pc if its an LCD TV, some LCD TV's have DVi connectors on and come with a cable to connect the TV to the pc.

 

For your choice of TV cards, you should have a look at the Hauppauge range

As for compute specs, any graphics card will do - i've run TV on an old ATi Rage Pro 4MB

You should be looking for at least a 1.0GHz processor with 256MB of RAM. A big hard drive is required if you want to record TV. A 45 minute show can be as large as 1.5GB!

For software, you could go with Windows or Linux. On Windows you've got Windows Media Centre, Showshifter, the Hauppauge software and lots of others.

For Linux, you've got MythTV, which is a complete home PVR (personal video recorder). It's very good, but a little difficult to set up