PC Guy wants to meld PC fully into living room

Hi all,

Stumbled on this forum looking for information on Media Center and found new term HTPC, lol. Been a techie professionally since 1993 and had dabbled in film studies in college-- I love my movies. I'm also a long-time recovering gamer who has cut down to two. I don't get a new PC too often but the last one I built in 1999 is a bit long in the tooth these days.

She'll run MW4 but not Civ4. It's got a Matrox card with the Rainbow Runner daughter for RCA in/out and encoding. It worked but I had a TV in my office and used it with a camcorder. The last PC still runs W98 beautifully for email, web, and office stuff. Now, however, I find myself with a new TV for my living room that is an excellent candidate for an HTPC display and I want to experience Civ4 at as close to 1920x1080 as I can get.

I have DirecTV and OTA HDTV from local stations I am picking up with my old rabbit ears. The display can handle DB15, component, or HDMI connections so I am not sure how best to go from a PC to the display. From what I've read a vid card with HDMI out is needed if you get a Blueray or HD-DVD drive, but that is for down the road once I see whether VHS or Betamax wins, lol. I didn't shell out $200+ for the DirecTV HD DVR so I am looking to initially make this a workaround PVR with a DVD-R/RW to begin that can also do my games.

There are some nice cases nowadays that blend well with home entertainment stuff but at this point it ain't pretty. I still need to get a shelf or short table when I removed my old 32" max 4:3 entertainment center and wall mounted the LCD flatscreen. I do have a closet right next to the screen that could house a more traditional looking PC if the sleek HTPC look proves cost prohibitive. Anyway snapped a quick pic with a webcam of screen with closet edge and top of my motley AV pile.



So anyway hello to all-- hope to get some good ideas here...

[Mike P.]

Hi Chris, welcome to the Shack!

[mechman]

Welcome Chris!

mech

[nova]

Hey Chris, Welcome to the Shack. '99, not too bad, I'm still running one I built in '98, and just recently gave up on one from '93

[eridiorya]

Hello Chris,

Good luck to you on your HTPC build. I just built my first HTPC last year with Window's Media Center (not using it for recording OTA however). Mainly for watching movies, listening to music, and viewing photos. It's been an adventure for sure. I agree that going the hi-def route may be too soon. See you around.