Integrating my computer as part of the entertainment center

Happy Friday folks! Many years ago the topic of integrating your computer as part of your home entertainment center was a fairly uncommon practice, and for the few folks who did it at the time, there were a lot of ooohs and ahhhs! All because back then broadband was not readily available. Hard-drive storage was at a premium, video cards with video connections were very limited and costly, and let's not forget the 2.0 sound cards. This short list of hurdles mentions just a few of the many that existed back then.

Today, the whole landscape has changed. Many prepackaged computer systems are meant to hook up to your home entertainment center, and operating systems are written specifically for the media center. The necessary hardware to hook it all up is now readily available and ranges from large capacity hard drives to video cards with an analog connection, and DVI and HDMI to cover the HDTVs, all the way to 7.1 channel surround sound cards. And with broadband available to most people, online purchasing of music and movies couldn't be easier, and it only takes seconds to minutes to download the content. With all this media at your fingertips ready to be viewed, played, and listened to from a computer and enjoyed as an integral part of your entertainment center, who wouldn't want to look into setting this up?

However, the question from member Phil is: Is it still expensive to do this? Is it difficult to build or set up? Is it possible to eliminate the physical media and incorporate it into the computer so he won't have to put up with the space that it all takes up? And last but not least, are there any new technologies or methods that he may not be aware of? Well, Phil, I've gone through the answers and let me tell you that while we didn't get the sheer volume of answers as we normally get for certain topics, we sure have a lot of great informative suggestions and answers from our members that we hope will give you and all the folks out there an idea of what is involved in integrating a computer into your home entertainment center. I have selected a few member answers to get you started in the Q & A section, but please read all the advice from our members. So grab a seat, read up, ask more questions if you have any, discuss, and learn from our helpful members. For those of you who have a computer as an integral part of your home entertainment center, I urge you to join us in the discussion and describe your system to us and how you got started and all set up. We are all here as a community to learn from one another, so your contribution to the discussion is appreciated! Have a great weekend everyone!