[Closed] Media Centre - anyone use one? or an old xbox??

I keep half-heartedly attempting this myself as I have two 2.5GHz desktops sat about doing nothing. The only problem I found was my graphics cards can only output 4:3 and my tuners are analogue, so together I'd need about £150s worth of cards before I even saw if I liked it.

I built up something similar 'new' from components about 3 years ago and stuck it in a media centre case. It sits under the TV in the living room as the main Freeview tuner/PVR.

Overall it works pretty well. I recently swapped from XP MCE (which was quite crash-prone) to a Vista version (which is significantly more stable). I can't remember the hardware details, but it's nothing too extravagant (Some sort of P4, 512Mb RAM) but clearly a sizeable HDD is a bonus (I seem to remember that ours has a 500Mb drive, but we've never run out of space on it). It's got a twin tuner card in it (Hauppauge something-or-other) and a fairly low-spec graphics card that is driving the TV (a Sony CRT).

In addition to running as the local PVR the kids can access the recorded TV and MP3 library from their PCs. The media centre seems happy to do all this (record, playback and serve a couple of network clients) at the same time.

I understand that you can use an original XBox (with a software add-on) or XBox 360 (as it comes) as a media centre extender, but have never tried this.

I tried to do this a while back and to be honest it didn't work too well. The PC part did the film/mp3/iPlayer thing really well but was utterly useless when it came to recording TV. Granted that could have been due to poor reception but the PC couldn't record two things at once (Vista Media Centre which also doesn't support the red button) despite having a dual tuner TV card. It also didn't work too well with my old CRT TV. The playback was okay but the normal computer stuff was impossible due to screen resolution.

What I ended up doing was buying a Humax PVR for TV recording and using my macbook for everything else. I could have used the macbook as a full media centre but the Humax does the job of recording TV much better. Front Row is is also a much better interface than Media Centre.

really? i have a laptop tuner that was 15 quid from maplin, and i'm sure you can get a fanless graphics card for about 30-40 quid.
like this
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=5DWW&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,11,4294955174
with HDMI out.

I use a playstation3 and can stream films/music/photos from my PC. If you get PlayTV you can record and pause live digital TV but I haven't tried it. Bonus blu-ray player and excellent games console as well.

I used to use an old Xbox as a mediacentre. As far as I know it won't do all the TV recording stuff, the HD is tiny anyway and it can be a bit finicky with with ratio - BUT for streaming / playing off DVD it was pretty decent.

I wouldn't buy one just for it though.

...was utterly useless when it came to recording TV...couldn't record two things at once (Vista Media Centre...doesn't support the red button)...didn't work too well with my old CRT TV...normal computer stuff was impossible due to screen resolution.

Never had any problems recording one or two channels on either the XPMCE or Vista configurations. Perfectly possible to record two channels whilst playing back an earlier recording without problem.

Red button is a limitation, but only from the interactive point of view. The red button content is broadcast on separate freeview channels (typically around channel numbers 300-305 if I remember correctly) so you can always find, watch and record it on a non red-button device (media centre, freeview box, PVR etc).

As for using PC functionality on a CRT TV, it's never going to work, whether using a mediacentre or ordinary PC - due to the very poor resolution and refresh frequency of a TV. The media centre interface is designed to work at these lower resolutions, so is fine, but don't expect to be doing web-browsing / email / word processing unless you have a high resolution screen (e.g. LCD or plasma TV).

Problem with video cards is they either output 4:3 through something like svideo or composite, or they output HDMI (DVI converts to HDMI easily). If you have an older CRT widescreen TV like I do (a nice sony wega) you either have to watch anything you have in 4:3 or accept its going to be blurry and stretched. I've not looked into it in great detail but cards that output widescreen svideo seem to be few and far between. If you're in 4:3 mode and on a decent TV I've found its perfectly easy to web browse etc with a 28" screen.

-m- When you were recording two channels was that via the Media Centre interface or via another program? The reason I ask is that what I wanted was a system that didn't need a mouse and keyboard to operate it.

I did also end up with interference issues when the PC was connected to my LCD TV via an HDMI cable and some other hardware issues that have probably clouded my opinions somewhat which is why the PC isn't used anymore.

We always do our recording (one or two channels) via the Media Centre interface; you just use your media centre remote to pull up the guide, find the programme that you want to record and hit the record button (or just hit the record button from the channel you're watching). If both tuners are already in use and you try to select a third channel media centre asks which tuner you wish to reassign.

We do have a keyboard and mouse connected to the media centre, but these are typically leant against the wall behind the TV. For normal use they're not required, but sometimes can be handy.

I do think that pitching Media Centre as a mature consumer technology (as I suspect Microsoft would like...) is probably still pushing it a bit, but if you're a reasonably competent PC user I think it's perfectly usable. In my experience it's massively improved under Vista against XPMCE, and probably as stable as Sky+ / most PVRs - but you're right that, as with all Windows setups, driver problems can/could be a nightmare.