if you have an old laptop or pc that you replaced and your not shore what to do with it then making it in to your media centre c is a great idea. this allows you to watch movies and play music from a separate pc so your main pc can focus on other tasks. in this post you’ll learn the software and hardware needed to make a media centre pc.

1st – software

1. Boxxe – http://www.boxee.tv/signup/?download=windows this is available on pc, mac linux 32 and 64 bit and apple tv. boxxe is my favourite media centre app and it allows all sorts of cool internet video such as Revision 3 and Youtube.

2. Handbreak – http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php this app is avilible on mac and pc in 32 and 64 bit. this program allows you to rip dvd’s to your hardrive so you can play them without the sound of your optical drive spinning up.

2nd – Hardware

1. a pc or laptop that is running xp , vista or 7.

2. a optical drive. the one that came with your computer will be fine.

3. a reasonable sized hardrive. anything over 150 gb will be fine but id recormend if you have alot of dvd’s then 500gb – 1.5tb.

4. atleast 512 megabytes of ram. you can check your ram by right clicking on my computer and then click properties and your ram will be under memory.

now rip all your favourite dvd’s to your hardrive. open up boxxe and put all your favourite dvd’s in to a play list and go. your media centre pc is now set up.

accessories could be a pc remote and maybe blu ray optical drive if you have blu rays but theese arnt necessary.

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