Home Theater Buff?

[TurboDewd]

For those not in the IT caper let me tell u about my new home theatre setup.

Basically Ive got a black box under my LCD TV which is a regular computer, in a nutshell here's what it does:

* receives High Def free-to-air digital TV signals (coz the aerial plugs into it)

* can pause and rewind live TV like a Topfield settop box.

* lets you record one channel and watch another (like a Topfield) or record 2 at once.

* lets u play downloaded movies and TV shows (its hooked up to my PC via a utp cable)

* u can play DVDs on it (hard media is a thing of the past for me though, Blu Ray? pffft)

Anyway, the computer runs Windows Vista and has this software called Media Center. its the future of TV and the ducks guts. If youve got a mate with one of these bloody check it out!

Cost of box was $1200 and makes your DVD player, VCR and settop box obsolete in one go.

PS Im not an audiophile but my sound is fine by me.

*********

ne1 else got this kind of setup?

Edited 25/09/07 10:10 AM by TurboDewd

[thalamus]

Yep, I sure do. I have 1 Terebyte storage space, run Media Centre 2005 and put all my frequently watched movies and music on it. Using a media centre remote control everything operates like a regular VCR or TV, except with time-slip for pausing / skipping through live TV. I also have an Xbox which streams video and audio through to my plasma if I want to use the PC for something else!

Media Centre is great. I recommend getting a copy of Auto Gordian Knot to convert your recorded TV shows to smaller xvids if you find you're running out of storage space.

[Dillz]

Me mate got something very similar done to his xbox, but it plays games to

Have you got a sound system to back it up?

[thalamus]

Me mate got something very similar done to his xbox, but it plays games to

Have you got a sound system to back it up?

Yeah, the xbox mod with Xbox Media Centre is very handy! I have a $400ish logitech 5.1 THX system, nothing super fantastic but sounds great and plenty of bass in my 1 room flat!!!

Using the optical spdif out of the advanced AV pack for xbox gives a good sound too.

But getting back to the PC media centre, I need to get a good sound card for that, currently only have stereo outputs. Does anyone recommend a good card with spdif?

[tab]

I got a sound blaster audigy for $110, and $20 for the dongle that has both coax and optical inputs and outputs. But I don't think it would reproduce sound any better than a generic card as digital audio should be on pass-through or whatever they call it...as in the audio card doesn't re-process the audio stream just spits it out.

A good piece of free software for you home theater PC buffoons is Webscheduler. It downloads program guides automatically and checks them against your match lists to record everything automatically.