Media PC

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A Media PC is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder. A Media PC can be purchased preconfigured with the required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, as is commonly done with Windows Media Center Edition (MCE), or can be cobbled together out of discrete components as is commonly done with SageTV.

Contents

[edit] Hardware

[edit] CPU

Current generation computer systems have enough computing power to record and play at least one stream of HDTV content, but conservatively an Intel processor of at least 1GHz will be able to play standard definition TV content even without hardware support, while a 2.5Ghz Pentium 4 (roughly a 2Ghz Athlon XP) or faster CPU is needed to play back the highest resolution of HDTV content without hiccups. For weaker machines the GeeXboX is the best solution.

[edit] TV Capture

Several manufacturers build TV tuner/capture cards for PCs. When working with analog TV signals (such as standard definition cable or off the air television signals) a hardware MPEG encoder is required if the card will be used with Windows MCE.

[edit] Remote Control

Integrating a Media PC into your living room means that you will need some way of controlling the computer from the couch. While it is possible to use a wireless mouse and keyboard these devices are usually intended for close range use from a hard surface like a table.

Many TV tuner/capture cards include remote controls for use with the applications included with the card, but to integrate Windows MCE into your living room you will need a certified Windows MCE remote control.

SageTV and Beyond TV support the use of a Windows MCE remote control, or Snapstream's Firefly remote control.

[edit] Software

[edit] Operating System

There are Media PC options available for Windows and Linux users.

A common approach for Windows based Media PCs is to install a version of Windows Vista that contains the Windows Media Center(Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate) or Windows XP Media Center Edition as the operating system. This release of Windows includes additional software that covers the PVR functions of the Media PC, including free program guide information and automatic program recording. When building your own Windows MCE based Media PC it is worth noting that Windows MCE does not, of itself, provide an MCE certified MPEG2 codec, although one can be purchased from Intel, or is alternatively included when purchasing Intervideo's WinDVD

Alternatively a Media PC may be built from Windows XP with the addition of a third party software PVR such as SageTV or Snapstream's BeyondTV. SageTV has integrated placeshifting comparable to the Slingbox and allows connecting other TVs over the home network to the Media PC with the Hauppauge MediaMVP. Snapstream provides heuristic commercial detection and program recompression. When using a faster CPU, SageTV and Beyond TV can record content from TV capture cards which do not include hardware MPEG2 compression. For a free alternative, MediaPortal provides full home theatre support and good multi-card DVR capabilities.

In the Linux realm KnoppMyth combines the Knoppix Linux distribution with MythTV, a Linux based software PVR. SageTV provides commercially supported Linux Media PC software that is compatible with most major Linux distributions.

[edit] Peripherals

[edit] Portable Media Player

A Portable Media Player (PMP) can be used for portable access to recorded programs, such as for working out at the gym, or for passenger entertainment during long drives. Some devices in this category can be automatically synchronized with a PC using the PMP features of Windows Media Player 10.

When using automatic synchronization, or batch converting a directory full of recorded programs to be placed on the PMP, it is useful if the device includes a commercial skip feature. While there have been attempts at automatically detecting commercial breaks, the reliability of those detection algorithms isn't accurate enough to rely upon when converting video content. When moving video to a device which does not include a skip feature, video editing software can be used to remove commercial breaks in the programs on an individual basis.

Archos makes a PMP named the AV700 that includes a relatively large display area, and program navigation buttons for skipping forward and backward past commercials in any videos that have been loaded on it. The limited resolution of the AV700 allows video content to be reduced to about 300MB per hour with good quality video and audio reproduction, but requires that most video content be recompressed for the device before it can be played back.

[edit] Utilities

[edit] Video Conversion

Mencoder can convert MPEG and HDTV transport stream data into reduced resolution formats playable on a video enabled PMP.

[edit] Media PC Manufacturers

[edit] See also

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