best current media centre thingy

[craigw]

my annoying quest continues, because of the way my house was prewired I need..............

firstly a media centre pc, have seen the new acer 250gb hd, the elonex artisan and the hp one, anyone have any clue which is best ? Then.....

to attatch the pc to my plasma tv.

Now, I need to do away with my dvd player but use its connections (component) so, can I use an xbox 360 plugged in through these leads to do this. the xbox would be the media centre extender/front end ?

Lastly, if I am using the pc (which would be in a different room) to record tv programmes, can I stream these to the xbox?

I think thats all I need. My brain is getting full.

There are also other issues as the whole house is wired with bose but this is confusing me more because doing it this way might cock the zones up, arrrrggghhh

[Plotloss]

Craig, YHM matey.

Yes you can stream content from the media centre through the XBox to the telly, thats what the Media Centre Extender functionality is all about.

Edited by Plotloss on Monday 26th June 15:50

[tycho]

Right:

I made a media centre pc for about £400 and a few parts from a 5 year old pc:
MB, CPU & RAM = £250
300Gb HDD = £60
TV Tuner = £50
Case (old case) = £0

Xbox 360 = £300

This is connected through the ethernet to my xbox 360 and displays the media centre frontend in high def. Many people say that the xbox 360 frontend is better than the pc interface. The standard onboard video card and sound cards are ok as they are only used to power a 15in monitor when things go wrong.

The xbox will stream tv, music and pictures through the wire to your tv. If you go down this route, you don't need a small Media Centre pc in a swanky case which will leave you more space to expand with more hdd's, TV cards etc.

Also, the 360 will adapt to the new Vista Media Centre unlike other current Media Centre extenders.


If you need any advice, google for "the green button" which is like Pistonheads for Media Centre.

Edited by tycho on Monday 26th June 16:36

[craigw]

tycho said:

Right:

I made a media centre pc for about £400 and a few parts from a 5 year old pc:
MB, CPU & RAM = £250
300Gb HDD = £60
TV Tuner = £50
Case (old case) = £0

Xbox 360 = £300

This is connected through the ethernet to my xbox 360 and displays the media centre frontend in high def. Many people say that the xbox 360 frontend is better than the pc interface. The standard onboard video card and sound cards are ok as they are only used to power a 15in monitor when things go wrong.

The xbox will stream tv, music and pictures through the wire to your tv. If you go down this route, you don't need a small Media Centre pc in a swanky case which will leave you more space to expand with more hdd's, TV cards etc.

Also, the 360 will adapt to the new Vista Media Centre unlike other current Media Centre extenders.


If you need any advice, google for "the green button" which is like Pistonheads for Media Centre.

Edited by tycho on Monday 26th June 16:36

thanks for all help.

If I wanted to watch tv or listen to music in a different room would I need another xbox then ?

[_Deano]

if the xbox360 is wired into the pc and the PC has a wireless connection to a router, then how do you get online with the xbox360?
Can the xbox360 be wired to a PC and be connected to a wireless connection to the internet via the router at the same time?

[Plotloss]

_Deano said:

if the xbox360 is wired into the pc and the PC has a wireless connection to a router, then how do you get online with the xbox360?
Can the xbox360 be wired to a PC and be connected to a wireless connection to the internet via the router at the same time?

You have to bridge the network connections of which there will be two on the PC

One twixt PC and Router (Wireless) and one twixt PC and Xbox (Wired)

[craigw]

and could one person watch tv downstairs & another use the pc upstairs ?

[Plotloss]

craigw said:

and could one person watch tv downstairs & another use the pc upstairs ?

Yes but quality will be dependant on what the PC is doing.

Just remembered I didnt mail you on Monday, sorry mate

[craigw]

no worries pal

[craigw]

alternatively maybe better to get a laptop & x box as then swmbo could surf etc without an xbox into tv upstairs.

[tycho]

_Deano said:

if the xbox360 is wired into the pc and the PC has a wireless connection to a router, then how do you get online with the xbox360?
Can the xbox360 be wired to a PC and be connected to a wireless connection to the internet via the router at the same time?

Get the wireless adaptor for the xbox. Then you don't need the PC on all the time. However, for streaming more than music and photos, you really need wired connections. MS say just one wired and the other on a G/N wireless connection but my experience has been to wire both for best results.

[catretriever]

I would suggest that you would want to leave your media center PC to get on with it's media center duties as using it for other tasks simultaneously is not going to give you a very satisfactory experience. Having said that, there are some good plug ins for the media center front end that will allow you to view emails, access news websites etc etc.

If you're planning to use xboxes for everywhere that you want to access the media content you should bear in mind that they have pretty noisy fans which may be an annoyance unless you can squirrel the thing away in a cupboard. A teeny tiny media center would probably perform better in that respect.

I'm confused as to why you need to keep your DVD player hooked up to the TV...what inputs does the TV have?

As others have said...if you want to stream live TV to an XBOX then you'll probably need a wired rather than wireless connection.

Another consideration is where your TV signal comes from. If you have SKY, and you want to watch or record different channels simultaneously then you are going to need extra decoder boxes. If you're on freeview then it's much simpler as you can just stick the required number of tuner cards into the PC.