HTPC stands for Home Theater PC. HTPC is a computer connected to your TV which is dedicated to the purpose of playing media files (movies, music, photos etc) and online media content.
As a technology enthusiastic, studying about different technologies and HTPC media centers available is not a problem for me. But for an average beginner who wishes to buy their first HTPC and related accessories, visiting a local computer store or amazon.com might feel overwhelming. I have been hearing from many people that they are interested in the topic, but there just are too many products available and they do not know which products really are value for their money.
building your own media experience is far more than just putting some HTPC components to the computer case
My Media Experience site is developed based on idea of preselecting popular and good quality home theater pc related accessories and writing about them while providing links to the trusted and reliable Amazon store.
The benefit for you is that you can buy any necessary upgrade to your existing digital living room directly from via us knowing that any product you see on the site is relevant and has received high reviews from the fellow users.
On the other hand the concept of My Media Experience means how I experience the digital media files in my living room. My Media Experience comprises of several parts that together determines how I experience my media files.
In addition to the product recommendations, this site is a learning resource dedicated to the home theater PC and media center related topics to help you to build your media experience into your living room. The topics have been organized around five dimensions that together create your media experience. These dimensions are called
- Connect
- Play
- Control
- Entertain
- and Share
The reason for dividing the media experience into five different dimensions is to help people to take all relevant areas into account when building their best HTPC media experience into their living room.
Connect
The connect dimensions starts with connecting the computer to a home theater using either DVI- or HDMI-connection. The guide in connecting computer to HDTV is a good starting point to get your computer connected.
On the other hand, the connect dimensions also relates to creating a wired and wireless home network to let the devices access to the Internet. For example, Apple Airport Extreme is a good router with very easy setup.
Sometimes you want to extend the home network to other rooms, but the wireless range is not strong enough. This is where the guide in extending your wireless network comes in handy.
Play
Obviously, you will need a media player to play all your media files such as movies, music and photos. There is a wide range of pre-built mini PCs and nettop PCs available nowadays. In fact, the situation has changed dramatically in the past two years or so. However, for those who require excellent performance and want to keep the HTPC setup flexible, building your own custom PC might be resulting the best HTPC for your needs.
Selecting the right HTPC as a media player depends mostly on your usage needs and budget. Nowadays, most new HTPCs are capable of HD video playback, so price is more the differentiating factor. Obviously, with larger budget, you will get better performance and other additional features such as Blu-ray playback capability.
Control
Surprisingly, the control dimension is quite often an overlooked area. At the end of the day if the HTPC is not easy to control, it does not get used much. There are three types of remote controls that you can consider. The traditional mouse and keyboard are still a viable solution and there are some excelent mouses and keyboards that are specifically designed for the HTPC usage.
Logitech remote controls are also very popular choice. For example, Logitech Harmony 520 and 550 have been long very good option. The more recent substitute to remote controls have been the iPod Touch and iPhone devices with their solid remote control apps.
Entertain
As you are sitting further away from the TV screen, you need to pay special attention to use the best HTPC software as the 10-foot user interface. In addition to the media center software, you need to optimize the internet browsing experience for the big screen. Thirdly, you can also try the Google RSS Reader Play which is a RSS reader for the 10-foot interface.
There are several active media center sofware developers at the moment. User interfaces and learning curve varies quite a bit, so it is better just install and try which one is more to your liking. Boxee and XBMC are good choices in the Windows environment, Plex and Front Row are additional alternatives on Mac environment. We should not forget the excellent media centers such as the MythTV in the Linux environment either.
Share
Last but not least, you need to take care of how do you store your media files and share them accross the home network. This is where Network Attached Storage (NAS) is very important part of the home theater. As more and more video content is available, there is an increasing need for larger hard drives. Similarly, you do not watch videos only from one place, that is your TV, but you might stream TV shows to your laptop of iPhone occasionally as well.
As we can see from this article, building your own media experience is far more than just putting some HTPC components to the computer case. For this reason, My Media Experience site has a unique position compared to alternative HTPC guide as it takes a complete integrated approach in helping you to create an effortless and family friendly media experience into your living room.
Continue reading our HTPC guide to build your optimal Home Theater PC depending on your needs.
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