Saturday, February 27, 2010

Whats in a media player?

This is what I reckon I'll need:

1. A nice PC case, preferably a HTPC case that fits where I need it to and looks stylish.

There are number of considerations for a case that I looked at. I'll get to that in the next blog.

2. A suitable motherboard, CPU, graphics card and RAM

I've chosen what I think will work and checked it with the experts - I'll explain later.

3. A digital tuner card for receiving free-to-air broadcasts

Still not sure about this.

4. IR remote control

Not sure about this either - yet.

5. Keyboard, mouse, etc

I'd like these to be wireless, if they don't cost that much. Is it possible to get Bluetooth keyboards and mouses? Or are they Infra red?

6. Operating system (OS) software

Lets face it... it will probably be Microsoft rather than Linux

7. Media centre software

There are so many to chose from. If I go with a Microsoft OS, then Windows Media Center comes with it - but there are lots of others that I might investigate.

8. Power supply

I was suprised how tricky this worked out to be.

9. DVD or Blu-ray reader or burner

Meh - I think that they are all the same?

10. Hard drive

What size?

11. Cables

There are a few that I'll need.

12. Wireless network card

Internal or external card? I'll decide later.

Next post: The Case, with pix!

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