[OTish] HTPC

["Gareth Williams" <gjw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

What with all this talk of media centres ....

My PC (Athlon 1800-XP, an old Soundblaster 1024, GF4MX) is currently
sitting in the study and I thought I might use it more for PVR use and a
possible media centre.

It will be plugged into my AV amp (although with the old card at the mo -
will have to look at this) and take inputs from either my Freeview box or a
new card for freeview.

I then want to run it through the TV (CRT at the mo, but who knows...)

At the moment I'm not that fussed about reducing the size of it from the
tower (it will go behind the TV) and I can put some quieter fans in it. It
would be good to use it for standard PC stuff as well when the PVR is going
on, and possibly watching one and recording another - two cards possibly?

The question is what do people use for the hardware (Win-TV/sweetspot etc)
and software (inc the EPG stuff) and/or do you know of any good forums
(ideally UK based).

I'm fairly green to all this, so be gentle ;-)

Thanks,

Gareth