Media Centre PC

[fulhamfcboy]

At present Ive got a dual core 2Ghz pc sitting attached to my TV which I use to play films etc. I also use it to convert AVI's to mp4 files for my Ipod, and Ive found its starting to struggle. It also has problems playing bigger mkv files, even with a decent graphics card.
What im ideally looking for is a pre built PC which can sit in my tv cabinet (i.e a little bigger that a VHS video player type size), and can power through video conversions etc with ease, and play all my films etc.
Not worried about playing games on it. Hoping to spend a max of £500....can anyone recommend anything? Im happy with barebones systems as well.....

 

[Hainesy.]

how about any of these. http://www.mediacenter-tv.co.uk/products.asp?cat=96

 

[wozzaa]

Your current machine should be able to manage those tasks fine to be honest.

A 2ghz dual core is all that is needed...However I have no idea what GPU you are running, what version of drivers you have. What software you are using for playback etc etc.

If it is anything ATI 3000 series and onwards or Nvidia 8000 series onwards it should cope with HD content fine.

I mean those systems above on that link the majority of them are using Atom CPU's or similar. Which are usually around 1.6 GHZ single core CPU's. With a decent GPU decoding MKV files should only utilize 20% of the CPU on one of those.

Might be worth formatting and reloading everything back on it again.

 

[Revels]

Get a 2nd hand MacMini and install Plex.

Perfection.