Vista + Media Center = Love Heart
My after-hours pet project over the last week has been assembling a new Vista Media Center PC.
I decided against buying a pre-built machine and instead bought the components to assemble myself.
Antec Fusion case - absolutely awesome. Excellent cooling, extremely quiet, and of course it doesn't look like a PC!
Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H motherboard and Intel Core Duo E6550 CPU. Micro-ATX, super-fast, and has onboard HDMI video for 1080p HD output (important as I will be using this to drive my Bravia).
Zalman CNPS8000 ultra-quiet CPU fan - for when I start overclocking :)
Installing Vista Ultimate. Insert the DVD, answer about 4 questions, and grab a coffee - Vista installs itself!
For full Media Center capabilities I have a Hauppage Nova-T-500 dual-tuner HDTV card (so I can watch one channel and simultaneously record another), a Media Center remote, and a Media Center wireless keyboard/mouse combo (pictured above). I also signed up to IceTV for an Australian EPG listing.
Finished!
My lesson learnt was to always have an old key board lying around. I didn't, and the wireless keyboard above needs drivers loaded - so I couldn't configure BIOS settings from boot as Windows (and therefore drivers) wasn't loaded yet. Fortunately the computer store around the corner had one for $12 :)
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