Although nearly all of today's PCs are multimedia-capable (they can display pictures, play sounds, and show video), you can call only a select few PCs Home Theater PCs (HTPCs)that can feed video (and surround sound audio) into an HDTV.
HTPCs are simply high-powered PCs running the Windows, Linux, or Mac operating system (the majority use Windows), and they have been specially configured with hardware and software that lets them operate as the DVD player, TV tuner, or DVR source for your HDTV.
No rigid set of rules defines what makes a regular PC into a HTPC, but this list gives you some important components:
- Video card: Perhaps the most important item in an HTPC (particularly one that feeds video into an HDTV) is the video card. This specialized set of computer chips spares the computer's CPU from most of the "heavy lifting" of video processing. Both ATI's Radeon series, which you can find at ATI.com, and NVIDIA's GeForce series, at NVIDIA.com, include high-end video cards that can support HDTV resolutions and support HTPC applications.
- Audio card: If you want to support the surround sound (Dolby Digital and other systems like DTS) found in HDTV broadcasts and on DVDs, you need a relatively high-end audio card in your PC. A card like the Sound Blaster Audigy or Audigy 2, which you can find more about at SoundBlaster.com, is a good choice.
- CPU: You don't have a hard-and-fast rule to use here, but you build an HTPC around a PC with a fast processor. Look for either
• A 2.8GHz or faster Pentium 4 processor
• An AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor
- Hard drive: You need a decent-size hard drive on any media-centric PC. Media take up room; you need enough to store such data as MP3 and other music files.
• At least 200 gigabytes of hard drive space
Plenty of FireWire jacks for attaching more hard drives
- TV tuner: If you want to use the HTPC as a DVR, you absolutely need a TV tuner card. Most of the DVR hardware/software kits on the market include a TV tuner.
- Software: You can find a wide range of software that you may eventually want for your HTPC - such as software that turns your PC into a PVR or organizes your media library.
A great place to get advice, see the results of people's projects, and generally dig into the topic of HTPCs is on the AVS Forum Web site.
You can easily get into the HTPC game by buying a Media Center PC with the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system. Media Center PCs meet stringent minimum hardware requirements that allow them to work as HTPCs right out of the box. The big advantage of an MCE PC (besides having the hardware checklist all "X'd" off) is the software - the Media Center software provides a really nicely integrated experience for such home-theater functions as DVD playback, DVR functionality, and TV-watching.
