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Media Center Pc


dstryr420

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Well, im gonna need something to connect to my new tv... so if anyone can suggest where to get a chasis and parts that'll fit it, or any ideas on what to do? I was hoping to get a vcr- shaped/sized box, but I saw some pretty cool HP really-small tower PCs that look good too... anyone have any ideas?

thanks

-Jason

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Yeah those HP mini towers are really cool. I'm planning on doing the same thing, but as of now all I have is a huge Gateway tower. The HP mini towers I think had a relatively small amount of RAM.

You can also look into a mac-mini for a PVR. I saw a few people had a couple great looking ones, but it requires some modification, I believe.

And finally, I think Dell makes either cases for full setups that are designed to sit atop your DVD player or receiver or what have you.

I'll try and look up some models for you and get some links when I have more free time.

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awesome thanks.. im gonna check 'em out this afternoon when i get some time.

you mentioned in the tv section looking at the combo tv/monitors at officemax etc. Since I'm using a PC for a media center, are there any benefits to get a combo tv/monitor?

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The only real noticable benefit would be that when outside of the Media Center program, you'd see a much higher resolution than on a TV screen, no matter what TV screen you'd get. Regular TV resolution is at around 720x680 or something and on a HD TV with 1080i it'll have a resolution at about 1080x720 I think. Where as monitors will boast at minimum 1280x1024, some even going up to 1600 or higher. Only thing is, this is only noticed outside of the TV because the signal coming into your screen will always output at the same resolution, so when you load up media center it will lower the resolution down to the TV standard.

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If you want something easy and sexy, look into the Asus DigiMatrix. It's a "barebone" PC, meaning you have to add your own processor, memory and hard drive, but it has TV in/out, media playback without loading Windows, radio and remote control, VGA and DVI. It's a slightly older machine so I don't know if it officially supports Windows Media Center Edition. They come with Asus Media Center software that does pretty much the same thing though.

The best part is that it's about the size of a DVD player, very slim and whisper-quiet. I think they come in your choice of silver or black, I've only touched the silver ones myself.

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