I need a Media Center PC (in the Living Room). Any Advice?

[fukdatsonn]

I'm interested in buying a small desktop PC that is capable in playing HD videos. I tried one made by Acer called Aspire Revo (http://www.expansys-usa.com/zoompic.aspx?type=item&i=183737) and it was good enough to play SD videos but completely useless when attempting to play HD content. My objective is to ditch my cable/ sattalite subscription completely.

The Mac Mini is the best system for this but it's just way too pricey for me. My budget for such system is $350.

Thank for any advice

Mike

 

[C7J0yc3]

You may be best off going to ebay and trying to score a Dell Latitude D620/630 or a Lenovo T60/61 for your budget, throw Windows 7 on there and then hook it up using a DVI-HDMI or VGA cable. The problem for a lot of the low cost PCs on the market at the moment is that they are using the Intel Atom. Its not a bad chip for a nettop/netbook but isn't going to have the horsepower you need to decode 720p.

Alternatively you could go with a XBOX360 / PS3 approach and stream media from another computer.

 

[Blazestorm]

You could build one... just need to look into hardware decoding for HD video... Which use the video card to decode the HD Movies and that's why you can use an Atom.

Zotac 9300 Mini-itx motherboard is ~$130, add a 2.5ghz Intel Dual-core for $60, 4GB ram for $80, case, psu, hdd for the remaining $80 or so... and you're set...