dmcnulty

Not upto date with gadgets etc but have seen tvs using what looks like xp interface. what do you need to do it etc,

EssexBoyRacer

I got one at home. DIY built.



You can either go buy a complete media center pc off the shelf or build one your self.

To build one your self you need:

- MCE compliant TV tuner [analogue or digital or combo]
- MCE compliant graphics card
- Microsoft MCE remote control
- MS Windows XP Media Center (its a complete operating system but its basically just windows XP with an extra add on).

Other features require different hardware, like you need a radio card (some tv tuners come with these built in) if you want to listen to radio on it, and you obviously need a DVD drive to watch DVDs / DVD writer to burn recorded programs to DVD etc...


also make sure you have a large hard drive as the recorded programs are in mpg2 format.

you can find MCE compliant hardware here.. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/m...directory.mspx but I generally Nvidia graphics card work fine on MCE and hauppauge do a range of TV cards designed for use in MCE.