Media PC/File Server with some modding :)

[Ren.182]

Righty,

College told us they are chucking out a whollle heap of "old" pc's for new shiney dell ones we are helping to install. Now, the key thing in this is, we get picks of what they throw out, so potentially a hell of a lot of p4 2.4ghz work desktop pc's.

A little idea suddenly sprung into me and my mates head: a media pc / storage pc project!

But alas, we know nothing of building a media pc or a file server type thing.

So I thought I'd post here and ask you guys and maybe get some suggestions from you

What we would like to know is what hardware and software we will need to pull this off. Forget the scrap from college for the moment and try and make a list of what we need. Then we can salvage whatever from the crappy PC's and get started.

So what I'm asking for is a list of stuff we will need and if you could make it as cheap as possible

We'd like to make our own cases... but maybe thats a little tough for a first project so we may just mod a case. We'd also like some lights maybe to pulse on the power buttons and what not, so we'd need some little circuits that could do that (probably available from Maplin )

Any helps appreciated and would help us a lot

Cheers all.

 

[gweedodogg69]

Use the current PC. Get an TV Tuner Card to make it a media center PC. Get Windows Media Center Edition. For a file server you can just install XP Pro or Server 2003.

 

[Asus]

For a media PC, if you want to be able to watch TV and record then pick up a TV tuner. I would recommend a card that captures via hardware rather than software (softPVR). For analog TV tuners I'd check out the Hauppauge PVR-250, PVR-150 or one that uses ATI's Theater 550 Pro chip.
Not sure about digtal or HD tuners since we don't have them in the US except for Over-The-Air HD tuners.
Again if you want multiple tuners to watch one show and record another channel make sure you get tv cards that do it in hardware and are not software related (like ATI cards older than the 550 pro chip).

If you are not using Window's Media Center than I'd check out some TV programs that do a similar job. I know there were a couple free ones last time I researched this stuff. Sorta complex but you could configure just about everything. Other programs like Beyond TV and Sage TV you have to pay for but they are good. (Tivo-like programs)
I use Beyond TV myself and I know there are other products they have for media viewing and even over the network stuff and remote tv scheduling/settings from another internet connection to home.