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Best mediacenter pc8/13/2023 ![]() Which brings us to the thing about serious upgrades: Once you get into the bells and whistles that make a media-center computer the highlight of a home theater, DIY stops being all that cost efficient. This kit comes complete with a chassis, fanless cooling system, motherboard, processor and xpMCE operating system, and it costs about as much as you would spend for one of the less-expensive pre-built systems. And there are some complete upgrade kits out there that include all of the hardware, software and instructions you need to build your own Windows Media Center PC from the ground up, including the D.Vine D2 Quiet Media Center. The thing about xpMCE is that it presupposes certain hardware support, so it makes a DIY upgrade slightly more complicated. As recently as 2005, this operating system was only available to PC manufacturers, but now you can buy it and use it as the center of a media-center upgrade. When you're talking about media-center software, the most complete package you're going to come across is the Windows XP Media Center Edition ( xpMCE) operating system. Also, a lot of these software packages can put your regular computer monitor into a "theater view" mode that makes it visible from across the room. You can stream music to other computers, transfer data to a portable device, and view your digital photos on your large-screen TV. Overall, a piece of software like Meedio Pro, Sage TV, InterVideo Home Theater or Beyond TV with Beyond Media lets you connect home theater accessories to your computer and control it all through a single interface. There's a lot of media-center software out there with a variety of features. The advantage to including a piece of software in your upgrade is the added benefit of the onscreen menu and integrated remote control functions that let you control everything through a single interface. But if you want to really tie everything together into an integrated media center, you're going to want a piece of media-center software. Your PC already has a built-in CD player and DVD player, so you simply need to connect your PC to your TV and your speaker setup using the available outputs on your computer. Technically, this is all you need (and maybe a little more than you need) to use your PC in your home theater. a remote-control setup, including transmitter, receiver and, if you'll be using an external receiver for your speakers, a control cable to connect your PC to the receiver. ![]() a TV tuner, preferably with DVR capability so you can record programs and skip commercials (you can buy a standalone TV tuner or else upgrade your video card to one that includes a tuner).In this article, we'll find out what makes a PC a "media center," how it fits into a home theater and what you can do with it. Media-center PCs are made for the home theater in terms of audio and video support, and they maintain all of the functions we've come to expect from a home computer. The newest attempts at capitalizing on digital overlap skip the small stuff and go all the way to complete integration. Do you notice some overlap? Electronics companies have been trying to build on that overlap for years in products like WebTV, AccessDTV, digital-media servers and computers like the Sony Vaio, an early attempt at a "media-center PC." In the entertainment area, we'd watch and record TV and movies and listen to our CDs and MP3s. In the computing area, we'd browse the Web, send e-mail, maybe do some work, write papers for school, download MP3s and movies, create CDs, and edit video and photos. Until recently, the typical digital home was divided into two segments: computing and entertainment.
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