Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater ANyone here with a HTPC?

XP Media Center Edition 2005 (MCE) > all

If ur a tweaker you can buy it and build your own box. If you just want a system that works there are many pre-built MCE boxes out there that are just plug and play.

I've tried Sage, BeyondTV, MythTV and various other lil programs... none of them can touch MCE for ease and just plain coolness. Plus M$ just came out with this very cool keyboard designed for it.

There is suppose to be a big patch for MCE this fall that will really upgrade its HDTV support and there are rumors flying about that we may even see HD cable-card tuners for PC's by the end of the year to support MCE.

Right now in my HT I have my TV (50" Mitz SDTV), my receiver (HK 630), and my MCE box that I built myself, thats it! I couldn't be happier.

Oh and MCE does use WMP10 and it does utilize HW support, all dependant on ur DVD decoder and video drivers. Currently I have a ATI 9600Pro and Nvidia's DVD decoder. Next year when I go HD I'll likely be rebuilding this current box. Basically for SDTV you can get by with minimal HW but full HDTV processing ups the requirements quite a bit.

Thats just my 2 cents. And I'd be happy to answer any other questions that anyone has.

Where was that M$ keyboard a few months ago? FINALLY someone makes a real media center keyboard.

Yes.

However, it's just a monitor, headphones, and usenet for getting my movies. Nothing special - for now.

I've been running my HTPC for just a little over a year (since I got the house). At this point I have no idea how I'd have a home theater without it really. I run Meedio as my main front end and Beyond TV for the PVR stuff, there is no way MCE can cut it for me. I've spent countless hours messing with Meedio though and probably wont ever stop so it's really not for everyone. It does pay off though, I love having access to all this media on my TV.

- ALL my music in loss-less format optical to my reciever
- TV shows ripped from HD sources (ya I download em)
- Entire TV seasons in Archives
- Piles of random video (music, crap from the web, car stuff)
- Streaming movie trailes
- Streaming music vids
- Streaming online radio
- Movie showtimes in my 'hood with trailers
- Weather with sat images, traffic cameras for my bridge.
- All my digital photos
- PVR (barely use is though, see 2nd on list)
- Web browsing, kinda useless but handy once in a while
- X10 control for some lights
- RSS news feeds
- Sports plugin for scores and details
- Google Maps and Sat, I have to admit this is busted!
- single RF hand remote (Firefly), and keyboard backup

All this on a sub $1000 PC. I have a tube TV so it's S-vid for me which brings the cost down a lot. Video card is a Matrox for excellent TV out considering the s-vid. If I had a better TV this would be a much more expensive system.

Anyone who has PC experience needs to try a HTPC out, the benifits are just a total revolution of the HT really.

"With that said, I want a great picture, but after spending about 6 hours tonight trying to fix the crashed hard drive on my PC (remember the great one I mentioned before? Looks like an unrecoverable error. Oh, and it went out of warranty 45 days ago. Western Digital only has 1 year warranties I guess.)"
Stick with Seagate, I think they are all 3 year warranties.

Thanks for the help, everyone. I appreciate the discussion.

Can anybody tell me why this HP for $745 at ECost would be a bad thing? It seems like a good deal.

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there is no way MCE can cut it for me

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Not trying to pick a fight but I'm just curious, MCE can do everything on that list, why don't u think it can cut it for ya?

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Can anybody tell me why this HP for $745 at ECost would be a bad thing? It seems like a good deal.

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Well its a refurb, BUT that said, I'd still say that's a steal!

western digital special edition or with the model number ending in jb has the three year warranty

Seagate has a 5yr warranty on all drives, as of last year. As for that system at eCost, it looks great for the price. I'd want to know what the hard drive is though as it could be out of warranty if it's a cheap model and it's a refurbed machine.

On the topic of MCE maybe I need to give it another look. When I checked into it a few months ago there wasn't a plugin to be had let alone half of what I listed ready to go stock. Do you have any links to sites with plugins and details for MCE?