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Posted by Bob Day on June 23, 2008, 11:03 am
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I am putting together a high end media center using Vista Home Premium. I am
in tech support for a living, so it should be fairly straight forward, if I
can identify the best components. I live in the USA.
1) Is there a URL to the optimum way to build a media center?
2) Is there a URL of reviews of tuner cards and/or remotes to help choose
the best for Vista MCE?
3) As I understand it, there are 3 ways to get digital TV - Over The Air
(OTA), cable, satellite (I am assuming, but don't really know, that both
cable and satellite are digital or available in digital, which is a separate
issue from HD) and IP (i.e. AT&T Uverse product). Does Media Center work
with all, or not? I heard/read somewhere that it does not work with
satellite...but to me, all of this would be a function of the TV Tuner, not
Media Center. Is it a function of the TV tuner card?
4) On the TV Tuner cards themselves, I have gotten confused reading their
descriptions. I want a 2 source tuner card, with those sources being any
combination digital of OTA/cable/satellite so I have all bases covered (at
this point, I don’t see any reason to have analog TV capable TV Tuner…advise
if I am missing something). But TV tuners seem to come with one analog input
and one digital, which makes no sense to me (since analog is going away).
Please advise.
5) I understand in XP Media Center, an analog tuner was required. In vista
Media Center, there is no such requirement, they may all be digital (and even
HD).
6) About connecting the Media Center to the TV… I have an HD Sharp Aqueous,
so I would want to connect the Video via HDMI and the sound via some digital
method to my AV receiver to pump 5.1 surround to the room. I had always
assumed I would use a DVI to HDMI cable for the video connection, but now see
that the TV tuner cards come with all types of connections (even HDMI). The
computer itself only has a VGA, but I could add a video card that has HDMI or
DVI or both. So, how do you get the video to HDMI and the Audio to the AV
Receiver to generate 5.1 surround? Do I need a DVI/HDMI video card or is it
all done through the TV Tuner card?
7) Some TV tuners come with remotes, which seems like a good idea. Do you
get the best remote possible buy a pair like this, or is buying a standalone
remote better? What remove works the best?
Thanks
Bob
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