HTPC - The long, ardous and expensive quest!

All I want to be able to do is archive all my movies, TV shows and PVR recordings to a machine from which I can watch it. I don't want to have to plug in different units, encode them to different standards or use differing disks for each media. All I want to do is sit in front of the TV and press the remote to play the files.

After an expensive quest, including a £400 Sony PS3, ending in a collection of odd units which won't play the files I decided to try the Mac Mini I bought some time ago [July 19th] and have never used. I researched it and installed something called Media Central on there, threw a couple of files at it and 'BAM!' plays them without issue! So at this point I starting throwing all my files at it to test it and it works on all the differing formats I have.

Coupled with an Apple Remote [more on that shortly] it's an excellent one box silent solution! So I've moved the 1.83Ghz downstairs, purchased a 2Ghz unit [that I'm writing this on now] and looking for another for the missus to play her PC games on when dual booted with XP. So I'll be buying a 3rd Mini on Monday!

Now I ordered the Mini on Wednesday and chucked an Apple Remote into my basket without checking, the 2Ghz model ships with remote *sigh*. Nevermind though. at least I have a spare now :)

Happy days, I'm currently catching up on all those shows I've been missing at long last.



H4rri
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www.randomphotos.net

The console wars

Having never really subscribed to a particular brand I am suprised at the amount of people that do. I'm talking of course about the great Xbox 360 vs Sony PS3 debate with each camp shouting about how great their consoles are and belittling their rivals.

I have owned both Sony & Microsoft consoles from launch with the PS and Xbox, I never really considered it an issue, a great game made me want the console, nothing else.

Now this weekend I went out and grabbed a PS3, the sole reason for this was the ability to play avi's out of the box, the BlueRay was an added bonus. Now it seems that the damn thing doesn't support all AVI's so that was a serious waste of some hard earned cash :

On the flip side, it does look good on my HD TV and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom is a great game, also has Lemmings which the missus loves :)

Guess I will have to keep re-encoding my AVI's to WMV's and running them through the Elite, one more point to MS!



H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net