By Michael Hann, Gigabyte Technology product manager at Rectron
Today, most of us own hundreds of DVDs, CDs, VCR tapes, collections of pictures from our digital cameras and downloaded movies and MP3 files. And due to digital convergence and the advent of media centre PCs we can now store it digitally, accessible instantly from any room in the house.
A media centre PC allows you to record television shows to a hard disk, play your favourite movies and shows on your large screen TV, have your entire MP3 collection play through your stereo, access news from the Internet on your TV and generally act as an all-purpose media jukebox.
In short, a media centre PC is an all-in-one device for your lounge or entertainment room. It`s a video recorder and player, media jukebox, game console, digital picture viewer, TV Web browser and stereo system - it replaces a huge chunk of your home theatre set-up with a single PC and typically, it will plug into your large-screen TV set.
Currently, there are a number of ready-made media centre PCs and typically, these packaged media centre PCs will run Windows Media Center Edition.
If you`re planning to buy or build your own PC, designed to go into the lounge or entertainment room environment, there are a few key factors that you need to consider, above and beyond the regular PC considerations.
For one, you need to look at how the PC handles output to a TV set (unless you plan to plug it into a large LCD monitor or digital projector); how it looks with the rest of your entertainment gear; what kind of video and TV capture capabilities it has; how you will control it and what kind of software it will be running.
It`s worth noting that handling digital media can be quite processor intensive, and you can never have too much hard disk space, so plan your PC specs accordingly.
Therefore, if you are not absolutely certain that you can handle the above, rather call on the experts to either choose the right media centre PC or assist you during the building of your own one.
You should also consider additional add-ons such as Pinnacle Systems` recently released media centre streaming device - Pinnacle Show Center - which enables you to enjoy your home entertainment centre without the PC having to stand in the same room.
Set-up is streamed via wired or wireless networking and the device is PVR functional with optional PCTV range functionality.
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