Living with a Digital Living Room

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If you've ever considered turning your living room into a digital media center, you need to read this article by someone who made the switch. You may find that it doesn't go as smoothly as Microsoft and others who push a digital home media setup may have led you to believe, at least initially. Are the rewards worth it? Keep reading to find out.

Computers are interesting devices; they don't always work as they are supposed to. This is the basis of half my job, fix the computers. Sometimes they will do something you don't want them to, or lose or change a setting. Typically it isn't anything major, but just little things that can build up. 

I recently decided to make the switch from a standard cable to TV system, to a multi-system media center house. All was not as easy as simply plugging the computer into the TV and off we go. It is an uphill climb to keep everything running smoothly and still get them to do everything you want them to. I made the switch a little over a month ago as of the time of this writing and haven't looked back. It might have been a stressful first month, but once everything is ironed out, it's a great way to go. 

My Setup

First let me talk a little about my set up and how my media center is integrated into my network and house. The backbone is held together by an 802.11G network. This can be a little hard to work with when streaming media such as a TV show, but I've gotten it to work. As I will explain later, my girlfriend wouldn't let me run wires through the house and I didn't feel like it either. If you are starting from scratch, I'd recommend going 802.11N now; it's faster and shouldn't prove as much of a bottleneck as "G" would. 

My computers now all run Vista, so using the built-in Media Center looked to be the best solution for me. I could have gone with other programs, but Media Center integrates well in Windows and I like the look and feel of it. 

In the living room I have my computer hooked up to my TV via HDMI. A simple little adapter takes me from DVI to HDMI and also throws audio in there as well.  I have never had an issue with the connection, or any over- or under-scanning happening. Since this computer is next to the router, it's hooked directly into the router via a cable. Since it is the only desktop, it also doubles as my media server. It has a big hard drive; I will probably be throwing another one in sooner or later. 

The only other TV in the house is the one in our bedroom. I recently threw my monitor in there and ditched the old TV. They are the same screen size, but the monitor is LCD and the TV was an old tube TV that was going to die soon anyway. I have my old laptop in there hooked up to the monitor. 

My girlfriend and I also have laptops for our personal use. These aren't set up for any TV signals, but will play the recorded movies and TV shows we have. Both TVs have set top boxes for cable that get us those cable channels -- over 100. These can prove to be a bit tricky to set up.   

Next: Main Media PC >>
 

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