So I'm thinking of setting up a home theatre PC. I currently run WiiMC on my Wii and stream media from my Mac over Wi-Fi, but the Wii isn't powerful enough to run any kind of HD content (and doesn't have the hardware to display any more than 480p anyways).

I want something that will:

- Record HD over-the-air DTV signals and SD UHF signals to an internal HD
- Give me the TV schedule for the channels in my area
- Play web video content
- Play web radio stations
- Output 1080p video

So I'm looking at the Dell Zino HD 410, along with a USB tuner, would probably be able to run something like MythTV on Linux, but I was wondering what you guys are using, and maybe get some second opinions.

Get something that can run Windows Media Center.

I can't believe CM said that.

Yeah, if you want to DVR stuff, WMC is your best bet by far.

I have been looking at WMC as well, apparently it is one of the best programs around for what I want to do.

I'm way out of the loop right now on WMC. I used to avidly use WMC in XP MCE 2005 but I got tired of poor video quality. I know that the Media Browser plugin for Vista and W7 is excellent. I avidly used WMC on Vista last time I was deployed. WMC in W7 with the mediabrowser plugin supposedly ungimps various file types available to be played through the 360 when operating as an extender. Even though the 360 is capable of playing certain file types, they don't work out of the box when extending the Media Center interface. I keep toying with the idea of researching the current state of the issue but it's impractical for me to build a computer now.

The ultimate experience, I believe, would be to build a slim, A/V component sized piece that could reside with you other AV components. Keep the software as lean as possible and set to boot straight into WMC.

Oh, and this.

Uh why? Surprised I'm not biased?

Well, I might be if that were the case but, generally speaking, you would normally trumpet XBMC. Not that I find anything wrong with that program. I don't prefer it although it does one thing that I really like and wish all computers in general would do.

I would suggest XBMC... if he didn't want to use it primarily for recording television. It's more of a media /player/, not a capture system. Although I'm sure someone's hacked it to do so.

I use WMC on windows 7. I love it. My EEE1000HE can stream SD content over wifi perfectly. I assume a newer netbook could handle 1080p, not sure though. I also just got my parents an LG BD570 bluray player, which can also do network streaming. 1080p works great on that. It also has built in netflix/youtube/pandora and all that good stuff. I haven't done any recording. I use a method which is a little more ez.

Yeah, XBMC would be a silly suggestion, because it doesn't have native DVR functionality. Can be added in via plugins I think, but that's adding more complexity to the setup, when you could just as easily go with WMC and not worry about all that.

Hardware-wise, I'd recommend getting something with a little more ooomph than an Atom or AMD's equivalent. I have an Atom 330 (with an ION board, so integrated 9400M for video), and it can handle video playback just fine (even 1080p blu-rays). Where I think it's a bit underpowered is just in the smoothness of the WMC UI. Menus can be quite sluggish and unresponsive at times. If I were building that computer again, I'd go with something like a cheap, low-power Core 2 Duo (or Pentium) or a cheap Athlon X2, something that's going to have a lot more power than an Atom, but still be relatively cheap.

You think plugins, or a hack would allow XBMC to record? I just don't see how that is possible with no video input device.

Why would there be no video input device? You'd still be using a capture card.

You realize XBMC can run on Windows, Linux, and OS X, right?

Um, apparently XBMC doesn't stand for what I thought it did... (I thought you were talking about the Media Center on the actual Xbox360, not the XBMC software for PC)

XBMC does stand for what you thought it did. It was originally made for the XBox. Then they ported it to Linux, Mac and Windows. Now years later, they've stopped working on the XBox version entirely, and focused on PC development. It's rock solid, really customizable and has tons of features now. I especially love the latest version which has a proper addons system, meaning you can download new stuff like YouTube support with just a couple clicks, in the UI.

Indeed, I have been reading about it on the website. In fact I can't wait to try it when I get home.

I use an old Pentium 4, but it's just for streaming/worlds biggest DVD player.
I also use it for emulators.