ginogsm wrote:

Welcome aboard jsbauche. It seems Michaelangels has all the info you need. Michael , you can control all the media features of your machine from everywhere in the house via the RC or the network ?

yeah, George, check HERE! for more on marmitek products.

Hi, I thought I would add my own two-pennies worth.

I have dabbled with making a media center pc for a while and finally got a system which works well.

Before you set off on this journey there are a few things to bear in mind,

1, be selective over the type of content you put on the system. ( if, like me you like downloading mp3's ect be awair that this can fill up your library pretty quick with lots of little bits ), a better option is to rip entire cd's then you get coverart ( cd cover ) etc and proper titles / album names.

2, I properbly don't need to say this one but please back up regular like, I didn't and lost approx 18gb of mp3's in go... ouch !

3, if you build your own media center, take time to check out the right hardware in respect of 1, tv card ( preferably a dvr ) and 2, the infra red device.

the tv-card should ideally be a DVR which actually puts the recording on your hard drive in mpeg format which can be put onto DVD. Also Windows Media Center ( tv part ) will only work with a DVR card.

the IR device used needs to be considered, I just went and got a IRDA device which I think is going to be a problem. I think you need to get a compleate ir receiver ( comments welcome ).

By the way Showshifter works with a normal tv card and is very easy to set up, the front end is clean and easy to use with big buttons etc.

If you do need any help, feel free to ask, I have used both Showshifter and Windows Media Center.

I've set up my own one of these... put a grand total of maybe $300 into it. The good thing about media center PCs is that they don't have to have a great load of power. Mine is a 1GHz VIA C3 processor, on a Mini-ITX board with all of the essentials (video, sound, netword) on-board. I used to have an 80GB drive in it, but that drive went to hell, and money was tight so I bought a refurb 40GB one... which is big enough to store my Red Dwarf collection and all of my movies and mp3s.