Dude, I’m Getting a Media Center

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The AccessoriesI don’t like to think about it, but the death of my PC could have ended much more tragically. Waking up and discovering that I may have lost all of my data, I progressed through each of the 5 stages of grief. At first, I tried to deny that there was a problem, then I got angry at myself for not listening to Thomas Hawk’s advice, this was followed by plenty of promises to be more diligent, if I could only figure out how to repair the computer, and when I ultimately realized it was toast, depression set in over my loss. Eventually, realizing my problems had nothing to do with my data, acceptance was easy — it meant that I was going to transfer my digital life into an entirely new media experience.

Three years ago, I made the mistake of buying a computer from my employer. They had extra units lying around and I liked the idea of having Microsoft Office pre-installed. The computer was old, but still an upgrade over my Windows 98 PC. At first it seemed like this a good solution but, what I didn’t realize, was that all the media-related functionality had been stripped from the machine. It ran on just a half a gig of RAM, had no CD or DVD burner, the video card couldn’t support higher resolutions, and somehow they managed to disable the microphone.

As a media nut, this was a brutal mistake to make for the home PC. So when it came time to get a new machine, I wanted to make sure that I kept all my functionality options open – such as handling PC gaming and streaming digital video well.

Specs for the gadget fans:

DI-700-XFIRE: Intel 700-class Crossfire workstation
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 Mid-tower
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3GHz Dual Core 1333MHz FSB 4MB cache
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X)
DDR2 Memory: 4GB Dual-channel: 4 x 1024MB DDR2 667 MHz PC5300
Hard Drive with Serial ATA 2 interface: 320GB 16MB cache 7200RPM
Hard Drive #2 with Serial ATA interface: 320GB 16MB cache 7200RPM
Serial ATA RAID: RAID Level 1 (mirroring)
Optical Drive : 18x SATA Dual-Layer DVD±RW w/ Software
Crossfire Video Card: Two X1650 Pro 256MB for Crossfire mode
Removable Storage Device(s): Internal 8-in-1 Card Reader
Sound Card: On-board high-definition sound system
Network Card: Integrated LAN with 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet Controller
TV Tuner: Dual-channel TV-Tuner with PVR software
Additional Case Fan: Extra case fan
Power Supply: 500 Watt Crossfire/SLI ATX power supply with 120mm fan
CPU Cooling: Manufacturer’s CPU Fan
Operating Systems (OS): Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition

I’m looking forward to the extra horsepower, but the dual tuners excite me most. Even with my two TiVo Series3 tuners, I still run into recording conflicts. Some nights are popular, and I don’t like having to make choices due to those bogus :03 start times.

Media Center will be a change of pace compared to TiVo, but I’m looking forward to seeing the progress Microsoft’s made on the Vista platform. Initially, I plan on using my Xbox 360 as an extender, but care far too much about having access to the internet, to stick with that for too long. Microsoft’s WebTV may have never taken off, but for me, open access is the killer app.

I’m also excited to finally be able to start exploring some of the other PC DVR solutions out there. Over the years, I’ve read an awful lot about SageTV, BeyondTV, and MythTV, but have never been able to fully evaluate the differences in their approach to time shifting. I feel like I made the right choices with the components that I selected, but won’t know for sure until it arrives and I test it under real world conditions.

Davis Freeberg is a technology enthusiast living in the Bay Area. He enjoys writing about movies, music, and the impact that digital technology is having on traditional media. Read more at Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection. Davis is a TiVo shareholder.

8 thoughts on “Dude, I’m Getting a Media Center”

  1. The Hawk’s real advice is probably to get a Mac – he didn’t convince you? (Though I read it died on him.) PS I’m betting that dual tuner card is not HD. Can you selectively send it back? You can replace it with an HD tuner card or stick off NewEgg, Amazon, etc pretty inexpensively these days.

  2. The Hawk did his best to convince me to buy a Mac, but I want to have a computer that actually works with other companies, instead of restricting myself to Apple’s proprietary system. I actually did check out a Mac when I was looking, but after two days of using it, I was so frustrated that I knew it wasn’t for me. People say that Mac’s just work, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to do anything that I wanted. After trying out the software for the first time, I was convinced that Microsoft was a much better solution for me.

    As far as the tuner goes, I could always swap out the tuners, if they don’t end up doing HDTV, but since my plan is to use OTA attenna’s I’m not sure how important HDTV may be to me. What I really want to do, is to be able to record boxing and then strip out the commercials and burn to DVD. There are a lot of fights that I don’t have time to watch, but would archive for later, in case a fighter makes a big and does a PPV event. I’ll need to figure out how to get a non-cablecard feed in order to do this, but experimenting with my various options will be half the fun. My last PC had a customized motherboard that prevented me from swapping in and out parts, so this time I wanted to make sure that it would be easy for me, in case I ever did need to add anything new pieces.

  3. You want a software that you can talk too well get media center communcator from web site onev.com I think you will like it.

  8. I can feel your feelings about the death of a system. I’ve personally buried a few. But sometimes the funeral hits me pretty hard. I found that if you keep the body parts, you can still get some life out of them. As your fund of knowledge about tech ressurrection grows you’ll need something to practice it on.

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