spec me a media centre pc

[adelburn]

After a 2nd PC for living room for basically a media centre, so no gaming needed, needs to have high definition 7.1 audio with speakers and big TV something about 40" for full on movie/music experience. Also be looking to get a bose so needs to be able to somehow integrate with that.

Budget is around £2000, £500 or so for PC, £1200 TV, £300 for bose. Can stretch to more thats just a rough guideline.

What would you guys recomend.

Cheers

 

[ajones32]

Not sure if its right possible for you, but I use my xbox360 as a media center, my pc is vista, all networked together. The 360 does a lot via the pc but it isnt noticable when using the pc, its mostly network bandwidth.
As for a TV, Samsung LE40M87 - 40" Widescreen 1080P Full HD LCD TV. (about £1000
For Sound, Panasonic SC-PT850 - 5.1 Home Cinema System (about £350)
I know its not 7.1, but 7.1 is pointless unless you have a very large room so the speakers are evenly spread.
You might want to wait for the 360 elite with HDMI output if you were wanting that and the HD-DVD player to watch movies in 1080p as they're meant to be seen.

 

[the shadow]

Check out the Sony X series screens.

 

[adelburn]

Ye I could use 360 I suppose, but anuva reason to buy pc was cus I wanted to surf web in living room aswell. I was thinking something like the below would do, what you think.

Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO SILENT 256MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11109-01-20R) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Abit IP-95 Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66G-00576) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Creative Inspire T6100 5.1 Speakers - OEM £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Antec Fusion Black HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU £96.99
(£113.96) £96.99
(£113.96)
Asus DRW-1814BL 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail £15.99
(£18.79) £15.99
(£18.79)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 7.1 Soundcard - OEM £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Sub Total : £385.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £69.80
Total : £468.66

 

[Valo]

Ye I could use 360 I suppose, but anuva reason to buy pc was cus I wanted to surf web in living room aswell. I was thinking something like the below would do, what you think.

Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO SILENT 256MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11109-01-20R) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Abit IP-95 Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66G-00576) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Creative Inspire T6100 5.1 Speakers - OEM £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Antec Fusion Black HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU £96.99
(£113.96) £96.99
(£113.96)
Asus DRW-1814BL 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail £15.99
(£18.79) £15.99
(£18.79)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 7.1 Soundcard - OEM £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Sub Total : £385.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £69.80
Total : £468.66

Two things wrong there:

Your missing system RAM.
You would be better going for Vista Home Premium as that has Media Centre which will give you a proper user interface to control it.

If your not connecting it up to an AV Amp then dump the Creative card and the motherboard and go for this the onboard audio will be more than up to the job in my view.

Oh what about a TV Card to record tv?

 

[Growlingfish]

Also check that the card has optical out if that's what you're looking for.

Edit: I'm not sure if they're still packing the same things as they did back when I got my extreme music, but my standard one has no optical. You have to buy a breakout box/front panel to get it from the digi-out jack.