my laptop (win xp pro) had this pattern for dying off one fine day every 6 months or so, sending me in a frenzy of install-clean-install cycles.
also i was looking for a desktop for home use that i can rely to my ever growing collection of digital images. i had no interest wahtsoever in buying a media center pc, and i used to say, what am i gonna do with a media center.
then i spotted this deal at best buy. a gateway lower end media center pc for $699. the machine was with some decent configs (512ram/250hdd/p43.0ht). add up a princeton 19″ lcd flat panel ($280 @ costco) and had a decent setup at home.
media center certainly looked good with the usual microsoft user experiences. the media center console looked real good. but the barebones gateway pc didnt come with a tv tuner card, so i was without live tv working in the media center console. i started liking the console so much that within 2 days i was out hunting for a tv tuner card. luckily got one for $100 next day. next up i linked up the cable into the tuner card, and i was getting live tv streamed upto my 19″ flat panel. so far so good.
the same me, who 2 days ago said i wont be using media center capabililities was now thinking ‘it would be good if i can stream this to my tv in the living room ,but still leaving my pc here in the other room’. i was back in the market hunting for a new solution. luckily i had a xbox lying around under my tv in the living room. now all i needed was to get that xbox online with my linksys router in the other room. tried wireless but failed in that. then saw a existing cabling channel in the living room giving me direct short access to the other room. so i opened it up and ran a network cable right through the wall, to my linksys router. a couple moments into the media center extender setup (which i bought again for $70) and i was streaming live tv via the extender on the tv.
moment to take a breather. while fiddling with the channels i noticed that i was not able to watch premium channels like hbo and hbo2 when viewing via the media center extender. prompts me about ‘restricted content’. seems like there is/was a upgrade for xbox to get rid of this problem but havent looked into it yet. though i am able to watch these channels on the media center pc. so yeah, i can still record these channels.
enjoying it so far, without any issues (apart from the premium channels).
Technorati tag: Media Center
Technorati tag: Media