I've been having many problems lately with my desktop computer so it appears I may be in the market for a new one. I'm just curious how many people currently have a Media Center PC and do you feel it's worth the extra money? Is it a feature you would not want to be without? I know the ones I've seen come with a TV tuner, which I don't feel I would ever use. So besides for TV purposes, what benefit do they have?
I use it with an OTA antenna....its just alright...it should be great, but its way too slow, it does an alright job playing music and other media files, though.
My main problem is that while you are using it, it ties up whatever machine its running on! I have my HDTV connected to it VIA component cable, and if my wife is watching Survivor, the computer is disabled to do anything else. Some kind of Windows thing, I have used three different video cards, and all of them do it.
Vista will NOT let you have independent control of two monitors if one of them is a TV. For that reason and that reason alone I don't recommend it. :rant:
I have not tried to burn a tv show or anything like that, but MS being MS, they make sure they respect "do not burn' flags, I see them all the time in the notes for my programs.
Hope some of that helps. FWIW I have Vista Home Premium, a 3.0 Gig Athlon processor with 3gigs of RAM, 8600GT video card.
