Ok, so let me explain what my media PC is and what it does. My media PC is a small, quiet computer which is connected to my TV. It allows me to access the internet to stream movies to my TV, check my emails, check the news and weather from my sofa, play my music on the surround sound in my front room (which is especially great for parties!), and I also have a blu-ray drive so I can watch my blu-ray movies on it too. I can control it either with a smart little wireless keyboard and mouse I have which tuck away tidily into a newspaper rack, or under the coffee table, or being the tech geek I am, I have an infra-red receiver configured with my TV remote. You can even get TV tuners for your media PC, so everything on your TV is controlled by one single machine, but I havn’t got one of them... yet!
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| It's All About Choice |
You might be thinking by now, “Well, that’s all well and good, but I don’t want a sodding computer sat next to my TV, my partner would kill me!”. Fear not! Media PCs are relatively small, and you can get some extremely stylish cases for them too. One of the preferred styles are ‘shuttle’ PC’s because they are small and fairly discrete. If you want to go an extra step further you can get specialised cases from various manufacturers, like Lian-lee, which look very sleek. Feel free to ask the guys in the shop to take a look at what they can offer.
Editors Note: James is spot on and I have such a device based on this unit It 'fits' into our decor, it's small footprint, low noise and very green running makes it a hit with my wife.
There is also some great free software available to integrate your media PC into your front room, three of the most popular ones being Windows Media Center, Xbmc and Boxee, which provide you with a nice interface to access your media. If you didn’t believe me before about aesthetics of a PC in your front room, then I believe the Xbmc has a gallery of users media PC setups, some of which make me drool, so take a look!
An advantage of the media PC is actually the fact it is a PC and as you may or may not know, PC’s are fairly modular. By this I mean, when you want a media PC, you add hardware to it based upon what you want to use it for and this will determine the price. If you simply want a media PC to watch movies and browse the internet then you don’t require a supercomputer and so will be relatively cheap. If you want to watch high-definition movies, you’ll need a better graphics card, if you want to play blu-rays you will obviously need a blueray player drive, and if you want surround sound you will need to get a sound card and the speakers, etc. If you want any advise or want to discuss anything about the hardware, please feel free to quiz the guys in the shop.
With the growth of media streaming services, such as BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Player, Spotify, LoveFilms’ movies on demand and now Netflixs, there are hundreds of television programs, movies and music which you can access whenever you want right from your Television!
If you’re interested in setting up a media PC, or have any queries, please feel free to pop into the shop and talk to one of the guys; and if you decide to get a media PC then I hope you enjoy your new entertainment system as much as I do.
There is a tremendous amount of terrific content out there and the whole world is moving towards digital distribution. I firmly believe that the days of physical film rental is over. If you want to watch a film, you'll set it to download onto your media machine, watch it at your leisure and it will auto-delete. No more late fees!!
Have a look at this new article on How to connect your laptop or media friendly computer to your wide screen TV
