Integrate a PC into your home theater
Know your options
Set-top boxes like that are great, but if you want to avoid subscription fees and wield more control over your favorite movies and TV shows, a home-theater PC is the answer. While TiVo begins and ends with recording
TV, and it does a fine job with that task, adding
a PC to your home theater lets you access media
files--from digital photos to videos to MP3s--
all from the comfort of your couch (almost any
Media Center PC comes bundled with a Media Center remote).
And while it's true that some set-top DVRs include
a DVD-recordable drive for archiving your
favorite shows, those units cost almost as much as a new home-theater PC.
Mixing a PC into your home theater is starting to sound good, right?
You're not alone. More and more companies have started selling
living room-friendly systems. They look less like a
standard midtower PC and more like a high-end home-theater
component, and most run nearly silently and use Microsoft's Media Center OS.
Your home-theater PC options, as we see them:
- Buy a new PC from your favorite manufacturer or electronics retailer.
- Get one with the Media Center version of Windows
- XP on it and make sure it has a
- TV tuner card for capturing signals from your cable or satellite box, and
- you're all set. If you have room in your home-theater setup to accommodate
- a standard midtower chassis, we've seen some fairly low-end PCs
- that are more than up to the task. For a more camouflaged look,
- either of these component-style systems comes highly recommended
- . In either case, you don't need to spend obscene amounts unless you
- also want your Media Center PC to serve as a gaming rig. Today's 3D
- games require high-end graphics, a powerful processor,
- and ample memory. Just recording and displaying
- TV isn't nearly as demanding, so you can get away with
- a middle-of-the-road configuration.
- Upgrade your current PC or an older computer you have
- lying around. You may have heard that you can get the
- Media Center version of Windows XP only preinstalled
- on a new machine, but that's a classic computing urban
- myth. In fact, almost any computer-supply retailer will
- be happy to sell you a stand-alone copy of the OS,
- with Microsoft's full approval. The OS will come as
- part of a hardware bundle, most likely with a TV tuner
- card, which you'll need anyway. This involves the
- potentially scary step of opening your computer's
- case and plugging in the card, plus installing a new
- operating system, but it's nothing too challenging for the average user.
- If you want to avoid the hassle of upgrading to a
- new operating system, there are plenty of
- third-party apps out there, ranging from free to
- a hundred bucks or so, that can handle all the same
- chores as the Media Center OS. Add a TV tuner
- card and remote control, and you have a Microsoft-free
- solution for your home-theater PC. For more on these DVR apps
- , direct your attention to tip 3 of this story.
DVR apps can see HD only in the form of over-the-air broadcasts, for which you need a big antenna and an HD-capable TV tuner card. That means no HD HBO or Discovery Channel,
so for most, this is hardly worth the effort.
so for most, this is hardly worth the effort.
Another thing to keep in mind: even if your digital
cable signal looks great, the image quality suffers
when the TV signal is sent through a PC.
This discrepancy will be especially noticeable on big displays,
since you'll be taking a digital signal and converting it to analog.
cable signal looks great, the image quality suffers
when the TV signal is sent through a PC.
This discrepancy will be especially noticeable on big displays,
since you'll be taking a digital signal and converting it to analog.
Most Media Center PCs come with a Media Center remote.
It sounds ideal, but to get the remote to work with your cable box,
you'll need to use an IR blaster, a tiny, wired receiver that you
connect to your PC and affix to your cable box. The blaster lets
you use your Media Center remote to change the channel,
but the signal has to go from the Media Center remote's receiver,
through your PC, and out to the IR blaster that you stuck in front
of the IR receiver on your cable box. It's an awkward setup, to
say the least. Worse, it results in noticeable lag every time you change the channel.
Sending the signal to your display can also be a challenge.
While it's possible to use a PC monitor for your home theater,
it's more likely that you'll be using it with a big-screen display,
such as a plasma, LCD, or DLP set. There are many different
audio and video options for joining the two; the method
you choose will obviously depend on the inputs and outputs
available on both your PC and your TV.
Older, standard-def TVs will have, at a minimum,
a composite-video connection (a yellow video connection that's usually accompanied by
red and white stereo audio jacks). Hopefully, it will also provide an S-Video port.
Newer sets should provide component inputs, and more
advanced HDTVs will supply DVI or HDMI inputs.
Unfortunately, unless your computer was specifically
built for home-theater use, it probably doesn't have
too many ways to output a signal to an external display.
Take a look at your video card and match up the best
connection option that both the display and the PC share.
DVI is becoming more common (replacing analog VGA);
it's your best bet for a high-quality connection.
HDMI is a newer digital connector, but you won't find it yet
on most displays, and it's on even fewer computers.
We'd like to see more computers with component-video
connections--the red, green, and blue cables.
Some higher-end home-theater PCs are starting to come with these jacks.
If you have slightly older components, S-Video--a single, black four-pin
cable--is probably what you're going to end up with.
Here's a quick recap of the connections you're looking for, from best to worst:
up exactly can be a bit of a chore, thanks in part to the
vagaries of overscan, an old TV technology that hides
the edges of video signals. Your best bet is to find out
the exact resolution of your display and set the computer
resolution as close to that as possible. Right-click and go to
Properties > Settings on your desktop to change the resolution.
Your video card may also have a special control panel that offers more flexibility.
It sounds ideal, but to get the remote to work with your cable box,
you'll need to use an IR blaster, a tiny, wired receiver that you
connect to your PC and affix to your cable box. The blaster lets
you use your Media Center remote to change the channel,
but the signal has to go from the Media Center remote's receiver,
through your PC, and out to the IR blaster that you stuck in front
of the IR receiver on your cable box. It's an awkward setup, to
say the least. Worse, it results in noticeable lag every time you change the channel.
Sending the signal to your display can also be a challenge.
While it's possible to use a PC monitor for your home theater,
it's more likely that you'll be using it with a big-screen display,
such as a plasma, LCD, or DLP set. There are many different
audio and video options for joining the two; the method
you choose will obviously depend on the inputs and outputs
available on both your PC and your TV.
Older, standard-def TVs will have, at a minimum,
a composite-video connection (a yellow video connection that's usually accompanied by
red and white stereo audio jacks). Hopefully, it will also provide an S-Video port.
Newer sets should provide component inputs, and more
advanced HDTVs will supply DVI or HDMI inputs.
Unfortunately, unless your computer was specifically
built for home-theater use, it probably doesn't have
too many ways to output a signal to an external display.
Take a look at your video card and match up the best
connection option that both the display and the PC share.
DVI is becoming more common (replacing analog VGA);
it's your best bet for a high-quality connection.
HDMI is a newer digital connector, but you won't find it yet
on most displays, and it's on even fewer computers.
We'd like to see more computers with component-video
connections--the red, green, and blue cables.
Some higher-end home-theater PCs are starting to come with these jacks.
If you have slightly older components, S-Video--a single, black four-pin
cable--is probably what you're going to end up with.
Here's a quick recap of the connections you're looking for, from best to worst:
- HDMI: It's unlikely that you have this on your PC or display.
- DVI: There's a 50/50 chance for both PC and display--a good choice.
- Component: You probably have this on your display--less likely on the PC.
- S-Video: Most likely candidate--decent quality.
- Composite: Single old-school yellow cable.
- You might want to consider upgrading some components.
up exactly can be a bit of a chore, thanks in part to the
vagaries of overscan, an old TV technology that hides
the edges of video signals. Your best bet is to find out
the exact resolution of your display and set the computer
resolution as close to that as possible. Right-click and go to
Properties > Settings on your desktop to change the resolution.
Your video card may also have a special control panel that offers more flexibility.
| Once your computer and your display are getting along, you can start figuring out how to build and manage your library of digital media. With Windows XP Media Center Edition, Microsoft has built a very functional package for keeping track of all your media files, plus DVR recording, that's easy enough for novices to use. A sizable percentage of new PCs come with the Media Center version of Windows by default; it looks just like regular Windows XP until you switch into the Media Center view. Even if your new PC doesn't |
have a TV tuner card, it's still useful for photos and music and video files, plus it has big menu icons that are easy to use and can be seen from 10 feet away on the living-room couch.
If you want to record TV without the Media Center operating system,
similar products on the market can do the job. SnapStream's Beyond TV
comes bundled with many TV tuner cards, so if you're building a home theater or
upgrading a machine you already own, you might end up with a copy by default.
Add the Beyond Media program for organizing photo, music, and other media files,
and it does pretty much everything Microsoft Media Center does. Beyond TV doesn't
support every TV tuner card on the market, so check the hardware specs first.
Meedio offers several interconnected programs that can control your music,
photos, and videos--even your lights and household appliances. MeedioTV is
its DVR program, and it'll grab the local program guide for your cable or satellite
signal and record shows. If you want just DVR functionality, that's one way to go. Or
, you can get one of Meedio's software bundles, such as Meedio Pro, for the full media library experience.
If you have no interest in recording TV programs, you can even use programs such as
Windows Media Player, iTunes,
and PowerDVD to manage your preexisting media library using software you already have.
Whichever option you choose, make sure to include plenty of hard disk space; once you start recording
TV shows or showing off vacation videos on a plasma TV, you'll find it hard to stop.
