Originally posted by: Griffinhart
The best place to go for Windows Media Center info and help is:
http://thegreenbutton.com/
It's a great resource with a lot of helpful information and links.
I've been using Windows MCE for 3 years now. I absolutely love it. I started with MCE 2005 and then went to Vista for my Media Center a year ago.
I really recommend the Hauppauge PVR 500 MCE.
http://hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html
It works with both MCE 2005 and Vista just fine. It has two TV tuners on one card. Something you really want for a PVR system. A single tuner just doesn't cut it really.
You may also want to consider picking up an over the air HD tuner as well. That is if you have good HD reception in your area. Media Center supports two Standard Def Tuners +1 HD tuner.
Keep an eye out for the recently announced Direct TV tuners for Media Center. I believe they are going to be Vista only, however.
You may also want to consider Media Center Extenders. The realy gem of the Media Center universe IMHO. You can set up your media Center PC in any room of the house like your office. then you can attach Extenders to TV's in the house. They "extend" the MCE interface to that TV and streams Live TV, Radio, Music, Recorded Media/TV to any Extender over your Wired or Wireless network.
You have Various choices of Extenders now too.
HP makes Media Smart TV's that have extenders built in. So, no external box needed!
The X-Box 360 has extender software built in to every one.
Linksys has two models:
http://www.linksys.com/servlet...ommon%2FVisitorWrapper
One with an upscaling DVD player the other without.
Dlink has one as well:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=547&sec=1
The real advantage of using the HP MediaSmart TV's and the Linksys and Dlink products are that they are silent. You don't need to set up a noisy PC in the livingroom. If you have a 360, it's a nice solution too, but let's face it. 360's aren't exactly running in stealth mode.
Anyway, I'm a huge Media Center Fan. I highly recommend it to anyone.
Just a couple of extra notes. I don't have any problems with video freezing. I have two 360's on a Wireless .11a network and I can stream Live/Recorded TV to both of them at the same time with no network congestion. The new Wirelss N stuff should be even better.