Media Center - who has one?

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

Roll call!

;)

P

[Guest fluffcat1]

Roll call!

;)

P

Me! Both a portable unit and a desktop - samsung summat or other 20gb portable, home built MSI mega PC. Made our kid buy a HP media center as well....

Richard

[Guest nevawlkalone]

Whats the point of media centers? never seen one properly or been interested in owning one...whats the pluses?

[Guest Will]

all present and correct here 'sah!

with remotes and AV extenders in all the rooms ;)

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

I had the Samsung (and Creative!) PMCs... but they were very 'first-gen', looking forward to the second wave!

Home built media center here, love using it as a PVR on sky, all my music / pics / videos together, great when using the 360 as an extender...

P

[Guest Islanti]

I won an HP Media Center PC from Microsoft at an event. It sits in my office and I use my Xbox 360 in the living room as an extender. I don't have my WM phone or PDA setup to ActiveSync with it at the moment, though. There are almost no occasions where I need to use one of those devices instead of a better display (TV, monitor, whatever).

[Guest spacerace]

yes I've got one - home built effort, running very nicely thankyou now that I've rebuilt it using a faster machine...

also got the web based control IIS scripts so can fire in from my smartphone and schedule recordings when I'm out and about and see a promo of something I might want to watch. It's hooked upto my normal sky box, so with that and sky+ I have 3x recording capabilities on any tv channel!

[Guest jimbouk]

Elonex Artisan VX installed and working fine.

In answer to the question as to why have one:

One box sitting under the TV. It has both digital and analogue tuners and can accept satellite. It records tv to its own hard disk, can access the web, you can watch one channel, record another, watch a dvd, all whilst msning with a friend in a window and surf the web and check your emails. All with 7.1 surround sound.

Stick an xbox 360 as a media extender anywhere within wireless range and all your movies/tv/pics/music etc can be enjoyed wirelessly throughout your house.

With forthcoming IPTV, you can even share your own tv channels with your friends and family.

Then add a WM5 device and watch your own recorded tv when out and about.

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Missed this thread :/

One homebuilt unit here with PVR500 dual tuner, and one day I'll get round to setting up Sky on it properly.

I only really use my unit for recording TV.

my biggest gripe is I can not use a slider to move to another part of a film. Also for some reason I can not chapter skip using the mouse.

[Guest Tech]

i have 3 :)

[Guest nevawlkalone]

i have 3 :)

Get you lol ;) :)

[Guest spacerace]

i have 3 :)

jeez ! are they in different rooms or all hooked up to the same TV ? could become confusing as to what tv is where !

[Guest James]

show off!! :)

:)

[Guest ice_cold_3000]

I am just about to build one, any suggestions on a good case ?

thanks

[Guest fluffcat1]

I am just about to build one, any suggestions on a good case ?

thanks

SilverStone do some nice ones - you can get 7" touch panel LCD's in the case etc etc.

Just got this one for my brother to build up:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=212714

Richard

[Guest James]

yeah i have the LC14M case form those guys!

highly recomended :)

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Biostar iDeq 210P is decent if you want a cheap cube case (just built one of those with a Sempron 3000).

Not everyone is on James' budget :)

P

[Guest Tech]

yes im sorry i said I had 3 just to show you off :) :D

the cool thing is, ive almost developed an app for an LCD unit (digital/crystal LCD display) which basically you can write in what you want it to say, and it will display it on this unit display

its like how most of the MCE cases may have them stuck at the front of the case, pretty much that but designed to display whatever you want.

actually wanted to implement it in my WMP Remote app at some stage ;)

next stage would be mounting these units around the use with the aid of wireless to display custom/random messages

"you stink"

:)

[Guest fluffcat1]

Biostar iDeq 210P is decent if you want a cheap cube case (just built one of those with a Sempron 3000).

Not everyone is on James' budget :)

P

I tried MCE in the older biostar 200 series ideqs and the built in IR receiver was some propreitary thing that wouldn't work with the MS remote :-(

Richard

[Guest ElGato65]

Recently built one using Zalman HD-160 case.

[Guest ch0mik]

i have MCE 2005 PL OEM with MS RC.

[Guest markdotpeters5]

I built one, worked fine for a while but then kept losing the channel listtings every few days, MOST annoying. Might look at it again when I eventually get my hands on a legit version of Vista Ultimate.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

I have an Alienware Media Center on the way, which i'm gonna blat with Vista probably (to replace my now aging slightly (and loses time very annoyingly at the rate of around 10 mins per day)) Shuttle box!

P

[Guest travisb]

I've got a new Acer laptop with MCE. I've also got a USB digital tv tuner that works quite well with it, as long as you are in a strong signal area (or have access to an external arial).

[Guest genaldar]

I've sort of got one. I have a pc hooked up to my bedroom tv and I watch videos on it but it doesn't have pvr functions. Since I have satellite I stuck with a directivo unit, which I'll eventually upgrade and unlock so I can take the videos with me on my phone. The computer isn't mce though, its just plain xp. I figured it gave me better flexibility and I read some of the 3rd party pvr software worked better than the mce stuff. I really use it more once I bought a gyro mouse for it.

Of course that bedroom computer will be great for watching torchwood episodes once I get enough time to sit down and watch them.

Edited December 28, 2006 by genaldar