If you’re looking to resurrect an old PC as a media centre, the first thing you should consider is a new case. A small form factor case will not only look at lot better in the living room than a tower, but will take up a lot less space. The smallest cases require their own custom motherboard, but you can still get a small ATX case for around $150. A word of caution though, before you buy, check to make sure there’s enough space for all the components you want to install.
Processor
Performance-wise, a media centre doesn’t necessarily need heaps of grunt. A Celeron D 320 2.4GHz will give you all the processor power you need for under $150, and it’s compatible with most Pentium 4 boards from the last few years. You only need about 256MB of RAM as well, although given the low price of memory, 512MB wouldn’t hurt.
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| Two TV tuners are must-haves for a complete DIY media centre. |
Graphics and TV
If you want to hook your media centre up to your TV, then the most important peripheral will be the TV tuner. These come in analogue or digital, with the latter in both Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) varieties. Digital is definitely the way to go, with improved image quality and sound, better reception and extra channels. HD TV is cool, but there’s not much content available at the moment, and HD capable televisions are still very expensive, so you can save a few bucks by going for an SD digital tuner. For the best PVR experience, preferably go with dual tuners, and at around $150 for a standard PCI SD digital tuner, why not get two?
Your graphics card doesn’t need to be a powerhouse, although it should have at least S-Video or composite video output, or both.
Storage
Another essential component of a media centre is storage capacity. With SD digital television taking up around 2.7GB of space per hour, you’re going to need quite a bit of disk space if you don’t want to be constantly deleting things to free up room. $200 will get you a spacious 200GB drive, which will give you around 50 hours of TV recording space, once space for the operating system and apps are taken into account. More storage can always be added by investing in more internal drives, or an external drive using USB 2.0 or FireWire.
When it comes to storage, a DVD burner is also a good investment, and will allow you to back up and archive recorded content.
DVD burners have dropped in price dramatically over the last couple of years, and $125 will get you a dual layer, multi format drive.
Wireless
With your media centre in the living room, you don’t want network cables snaking around the floor, so it’s worth considering wireless. For around $300 you can get your wireless network running, with an 802.11g access point and two PCI adapters.
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| Alternative media centres like mythTV (www.mythtv.org) offer similar functionality to Windows MCE, but without the price tag. |
Media Center
The piece de resistance of a media centre PC is Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) itself. While you can’t buy it off the shelf, there is a loophole that allows you to pick up an OEM copy if you buy any internal PC components from some vendors. If you shop around you can get it for $220, although if you do go for MCE, then you need to make sure your TV tuners have MCE drivers.
Of all the PCs here, make sure your media centre looks the part. Small form factor PCs, like the Kloss KL-I915B can blend in, while special home theatre boxes, like the CoolerMaster Cavalier can be stacked with your hi-fi equipment.
| parts list |
| Celeron D 320 2.4GHz |
$150 |
| Dual TV tuners |
$300 |
| Windows XP MCE |
$220 |
| 802.11g access point plus two adapters |
$300 |
| 200GB HDD |
$200 |
| Dual layer DVD burner |
$125 |