Media centre tweaks

welshchem

welshchem

welshchem

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Joined
11 Apr 2006
Posts
37
I found a right bargain of a shuttle on ebay:

Shuttle sn26p
AMD 3200
80Gb HD
1 Gb RAM
x800gto 256mb
Official copy xp pro

I've got it, and it works like a dream, if a tad noisy (in other thread)

The question is how do I go about converting this into a media centre that I can use in my living room with a TV/projector (ie no monitor).

What I'm thinking:

  • Zalman cooling to quieten the Graphics card
  • Remote control
  • TV card to allow TV in and recording
  • Media software that's more TV friendly than XP

I'd appreciate your thoughts,

Cheers
 
Zalman for card and a Zalman to replace the AMD equivalent of the northbridge [I honestly dont know what it might be called btw :)]

Terratec PCI-Express dual tuner for TV card unless you want an external USB solution [not very neat IMO]

Ditch the ATI card :), I favour Nvidia for my Pioneer HD plasma and Hitachi PJTX-200 projector

Ditch the 80 gig and get a SATA2 of reasonable size, better a single large HD than a small boot one and a larger data one [storing mpegs will take up all your HD space]

I find MCE2005 fine on mine, but tend to use VLC player to stream HD material
 
isnt a 26p just a tad overkill for a media center PC (the work ownage springs to mind)

though i ugess if it really is a bargin price and you play games on it too, then all gravy :)

as for media software, try mythTV. I've read good things about it, plus it has tones of features

www.mythtv.org
 
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well yes we were both very fortunate in our purchases, it's embarassing to say how little we both paid, but it was less than half retail price for all new kit :)

I migrated some stuff from my old SN25P and sold it for some cash plus a mint SB75Gv2, so I will use the SB75 next to the TV and the SN26P can stream to my PJ in back room as it makes some fan noise anyways
 
Set the fans in the SN26P to ultra low, low respectively and it's all good :cool:
 
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