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Build Your Own Media Center

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Build Your Own Media Center

Published by Mike
30th April 2006

Build Your Own Media Center

BUILD YOUR OWN MEDIA CENTER

A PICTORIAL GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Written by bella

Special thanks go to Davis Hampson, Pantonius, GlenR, Chris Maddern for their editing assistance!

The guide comprises of the following sections:

Part 1: Budget and Research
Part 2: Building the Mediacenter
Part 3: Install Windows Mediacenter Operating System
Part 4: Make Back Ups
Part 5: Install Updates and Continue Building
Part 6: Install the Mediacenter Video Decoder and FFDshow
Part 7: Windows Media Center Setup
Part 8: Media Center Plug-ins
Part 9: Re-install Media Center
Part 10: Connect Your PC To Your TV
Part 11: Problem Solving

This guide is designed for beginners and has been kept as simple and easy to use as possible. It describes the path I have taken to successfully build a Media Center PC. It is been based entirely on my own experiences building my first Media Center PC from scratch and details the specific parts I used. If you are going to use different components such as CPU or AGP/PCIe cards, please refer to the manufacturer's guide and replace my text with theirs.

Photos and examples used in this guide are from the parts I used in my build and a few pics from my other PC.

This Media Center was build to a strict budget. With the MCE remote included the total cost came to $861.00 Aussie Dollars.

I hope my experience will help to answer any questions you may have and if you have ideas for additions or find any errors, please let me know or send me your contribution by PM or let's discuss it below - however I don't want to discuss which PC parts would have been better etc because it's too late now

In addition to the assistance provided by the people mentioned above, I would also like to thank the hundreds, if not thousands of members of this community for adding to my/our collective knowledge - without all this I would never have attempted this adventure!

bella

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#1 (permalink)

By Mike on 30th April 2006, 09:18 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

OUTSTANDING BELLA!!

Many of us have talked about doing this but you actually did it - big effort and on behalf of us all - THANK YOU!

Now let's see how many rep points you can build up after providing this - plenty I hope - so let's start the ball rolling with a bunch from me

Mike

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#2 (permalink)

By blackjet on 30th April 2006, 02:07 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Thankyou, Excellent.!!!! This document should be compulsory reading for everyone who joins this community...needs to be pinned to the top of the community page and the new posts page..

#3 (permalink)

By bella on 1st May 2006, 01:19 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

A special word of appreciation for Mike our administrator who spent an unbelievable amount of time in getting this article in the right shape.

Few people realise what amount of time he spends on keeping this site up and running.

eddy

#4 (permalink)

By philzgr8 on 1st May 2006, 03:05 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Great effort Bella. I'm sure there will be countless users who will greatly benefit by the amount of work you have put in.
Cheers

Phil

#5 (permalink)

By arkay on 1st May 2006, 03:59 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Yep, thumbs up Bella. Great job!

Cheers,

Arkay.

#6 (permalink)

By bella on 1st May 2006, 04:04 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

My article a STICKY? I must be dreaming!

#7 (permalink)

By bella on 1st May 2006, 07:46 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

I was.

#8 (permalink)

By Mike on 1st May 2006, 07:56 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

No you weren't:

"Sticky: Build Your Own Media Center"

#9 (permalink)

By egsi on 2nd June 2006, 12:27 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Awesome Article. Just letting you know we appreciate the time you put into it!

#10 (permalink)

By bella on 2nd June 2006, 12:17 PM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Thanks Egsi,

It took a while to complete it but I really enyoed doing it.

#11 (permalink)

By Mike on 19th April 2008, 08:27 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

I received a PM from NevilleW telling me that he'd converted the HTML version of Bella's guide to PDF for easier printing and making notes.

He also uploaded it to Mediafire to save me bandwith and since every bit helps, I see no reason to change that.

I've edited the first post in this thread providing a link to the PDF and also added one below, if however at some point the file becomes unavailable, please PM me and I'll activate the copy I have on my server.

Great idea and much appreciated Neville!

Mike

Download Bella's guide as a PDF

#12 (permalink)

By shah on 10th October 2008, 01:53 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Hi,
I am new to the forum. After buying many DVD recorderes and having problems with them, I decided to buld a HTPC for myself. I have an old Dell laptop (inspiron 5100) that uses a desktop P4 processor. Can i use it for the purpose of the HTPC. Is there any part of it can be used for a HTPC. Any comment is much appreciated.

Regards,

Shah

#13 (permalink)

By supafly on 10th October 2008, 09:48 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Dude, if your having troubles with a standard DVD recorder your heading in for a worl of pain in comparrison

#14 (permalink)

By shah on 11th October 2008, 12:35 AM

Re: Build Your Own Media Center

Mate,
Thanks for your comment. I didn't mean that I had problems with how to use the DVD recorders, I meant after buying 3 different brands, they all stopped working or didn't play the media format that I required and and I had to return it to the supplyer.

Still if anyone has any idea if I can use the laptop P4 CPU to build the HTPC please let me know.

Many thanks,

Shah

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