Play with your PC

Do you have what it takes to make your PC-based home entertainment a sustainable source of fun?

You spend money on hardware and software. You spend time keeping the system in good condition.

And then you go and use your computer as an advanced typewriter, with occasional excursions onto the Internet?

That is no way to treat the formidable power sitting in your study corner. With a little planning, you can turn your PC into the hive of your very own home entertainment industry.

Let`s review what it takes to make your PC-based home entertainment a sustainable source of fun.

You already have a reasonably good home PC, with ample memory and spacious hard disk drive. Plus, your graphic card, sound card and speakers perform well and have never made you blush with embarrassment.

Your computer also has a DVD rewriter. If it does not, the time is to get one. DVD rewriter does all that other, cheaper optical storage devices can do. And more, like allowing you to record over and over DVD RW disk. Even more importantly, you do not have to burn the disk in one go.

Dual standard (+ and -) DVD rewriters are recommended for versatility.

Trek to the summit

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The first thing you will want to do with the set up is to watch the DVDs you rented from your neighbourhood video shop.

Here you have several options.

You can use your big screen PC monitor, 17-inch being the minimum.

You can watch the movie playing in your computer DVD drive on your TV screen - if you were far-sighted enough to get a graphics card with TV out.

Or you may want to re-create the movie going experience without getting out of your house.

For that, you will need a projector.

Until recently exclusively in the domain of the businesses, the projectors of new generation are priced to conquer the home market. Presently they are throbbing (very quietly, mind you) with impatience to open up the experience of home cinema for you.

Just to get things into perspective, reasonably priced projector for home and small office will still cost between two and four times more that a PC monitor - but then, no monitor can be stretched to accommodate a picture measuring seven metres diagonally.

You may feel like turning the tables and watching your TV programme on your computer. That is a pretty straightforward proposition with TV tuner card or box. The entrance of digital satellite TV card makes things a good deal more intriguing.

When the PC partner gets the digital TV card installed and the TV partner is of the satellite kind, true marriage can take place between the two.

Then you can record TV programme on your hard disk, and watch part of it while the recording continues in the background. You can also grab stills from programmes.

The ability to store TV programmes on your hard disk drive means that you can use your PC as a video library. You can manipulate the footage and burn your favourites onto a disk with the already mentioned DVD rewriter. Then watch on your monitor, TV or projector screen.

Now is the time for a word of warning: sooner or later, PC-based entertainment will make participants even out of the most determinedly passive consumers.

It might begin benignly enough.

You have already had a taste of DVD disk advantages.

Now you bewail the bulkiness of your old video collection.

You start despairing over all those home videos which feature endless footage of practically nothing at all.

If at that point you decide to do something about it, there`s no turning back. You will simply have to get an MPEG card. With it in place, you will spend many rewarding hours downloading videos onto PC`s hard drive, editing the material and then burning the footage onto neatly labelled DVD disks.

You will probably promise yourself then and there that you will improve your video recording skills. Or you will decide to preserve your family`s history the digital way, thus skipping the step which involves capturing material from video tape.

Still or moving pictures taken with digital cameras will lend themselves readily to creative manipulations.

It takes time and practice to make a home video that does not inspire your friends to consult their watches. But, there is a shortcut: software which automates the whole process. Just load a bunch of video clips from your digital camera; specify music; choose a style - and let the programme do the rest. It will surprise you with professionally edited music video. (To get the software, Google for Muvee AutoProducer. Try it for free and pay a reasonable fee to have it for keeps).

Your digital masterpieces now deserve to be duplicated with CD and DVD duplicator and distributed to family and friends on every occasion (you do not even have to tell them this was our idea.)

There are many more ways of playing with your computer. For example, you may want to transfer your LP music collection on to CD or DVD disks with the help of CDPlus software tool. Or you may want to arm your PC with Bluetooth adapter and let it communicate with your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone.

All things considered, there is powerful thrust towards personalisation of entertainment and participation in creating it. It does cost money and it does involve the effort of learning, but don`t let that deter you. If you move gradually, in accordance with your budget and your affinities, you will build an immensely rewarding field of leisure activities.

For the benefit of your delightful amusement, Frontier Electronics has in stock all the items required to convert a computer to a home entertainment system. Those are in (tentative) alphabetical order:

* Bluetooth
* CD and DVD Duplicator
* CD and DVD Media
* CD Plus LP to CD Converter
* Computer System
* Dual DVD rewriter
* Digital Camera
* Digital Satellite TV Card
* Graphic card
* Monitors
* MPEG Card
* Projector
* Sound Card
* Speakers
* TV Tuner Card

(The list was correct in time of publication of this text. For detailed information and updates, please visit Frontier Electronics` Web site.)