Media PCs are the most powerful and flexible entertainment systems around.
They'll record and time shift TV shows, play DVDs or high definition video, manage your entire music collection, put on slideshows of digital photos and wirelessly stream just about any of it around your home. With the launch of the Xbox 360 later this year, home networking should become even easier.
Today there are many decent Media PCs for sale, but for the ultimate system you should consider building your own. This way you'll get exactly the specification you've always wanted, without compromise. Totally silent operation? No problem. Huge hard disk? It's yours. Twin TV tuners? Consider it done.
Depending on the components you choose, an uncompromised DIY system may work out more expensive than a pre-built one, but you'll end up with a unique system built to your exact specifications. It's easier than you think too.
In this, the first part of our Media Center special, we'll explain our choice of components. In part two next week, we'll show you how to put it all together, install Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and tweak the system for the best results.
Want to upgrade your existing system? Then you can cherry-pick from our list of components, then read part two of our feature to see how to install the software.
Getting started
When choosing components for a Media PC, it's crucial to think very carefully about what you'd like it to do and how it should perform.
We believe the ultimate Media PC should look like an AV device, complete with a built-in display and remote control sensor. It should also run in complete silence if possible. In terms of TV recording it should have an EPG, twin digital tuners and a huge disk capacity.
Suffice it to say it should also be able to play DVDs, archive TV shows to disc and manage your digital music and photo collections.
It should additionally have the power to play high definition content and crucially feature quality outputs to a variety of displays.
Last but not least we believe the ideal Media PC should run economically, typically consuming less than 80 watts in operation - traditional PCs can consume more than double this.
It's a tough list of requirements, but one we've met with our specification. The components that we recommend are listed below. Note: prices are listed as a guide only.
Tips for a trouble-free install...
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