explain to me HTPC... what can i do with it...

[Sounds Good]

last week while on a vacation to las vegas i toured the New American Home 2008, AMAZING...

anyhow the house audio/video is pretty much all run by windows media center and 5 xbox360 as media extenders (not sure why they decided to use xbox360 after reading about them)

anyhow it makes me want to build a HTPC, id love to do away with my DVR from dish to save my $5 a month DVR fee... but is a HTPC reliable enough?

So i guess i would like to primary use media center to control my live tv watching and DVRing. is this possible?

i would guess i am going to need a beefy processor, 2 HD tuner cards, a boat load of memory, and some monster hard drives.

is this doable... to primary use media center to pipe live tv to 2 tvs in my home and take care of ALL DVRing tasks?

 

[jinjuku]

HTPC's are still in the domain of people that are power computer users unfortunately.

But this is changing. Currently the only HD programming you are likely to get is Over the Air (OTA). There is another thread talking about how Dish Network and Cable Labs have finally opened up and are allowing MS Media Center to display their encrypted content.

The other area of frustration (at least here in the U.S.) is the the gray area of ripping your own DVD's and letting your HTPC function as a DVD/CD jukebox.
HTPC's are viable and enjoyable as long as there is some expectation management.

On the hardware side I would tell you to do two things: Build a front end and back end to your computing environment. You want a low wattage front end so you can easily cool and keep quiet your HTCP. The backend (like a Network Attached Storage device or Windows Home Server) will store and serve up content.