HomePC as Home Theatre

I have an old home PC specifically celeron PC 1.2 Mhz with 256 MB ram. I bought it around 4 years back. Back then it was a good PC, but not anymore. With office applications, antivirus, firewall, VPN etc etc it is the slowest of ever PC to work. In fact my 6 year old daughter while reading her first grade book on introduction to computer which mentioned "Computer make things faster and we can do lot of things faster" immedeatly after this statement she came with her curious eyes, daddy why is our PC so slow..... is it NOT A PC???

Well, this prompoted me to bring the change and I have only two options

1. Throw the PC as junk and get a new one
2. Somehow keep old PC for something and get a new PC

Well I am sure lot of people face same dilemma. After some exploration and thinking I decided to make my old PC as a media center for my Home theatre. Specifically a home theatre with just PC serving everything without bunch connections to DVD player, VHS player, IPod etc etc

Here I am sharing how it did it and some things to equip if you are heading in the same direction

Things required for a good Home theatre:

1. Home theatre projector
2. Good home theatre receiver 6.1 should be fine but better to get 7.1 for future media standards
3. PC with DVD +/- RW drive and CD +/- RW

Leaving Home theater projectot and HT receiver for some other discussion, let look at the home PC in this blog. PC can as be a basic PC and should have following specs:

1. Standard PC P3 or more. In my case it is my old celeron PC
2. RAM of minimum 512 MB ram
3. Windows XP home edition
4. Itunes if you have IPod
5. Interview Win DVD Player
6. External 500 GB USB Hard disk
7. PC remote. I got it from StreamZap.com

At first I copied all DVD media to hard disk on my extrenal hard drive using my new Home PC. Also, copied all my iTunes music to my external hard disk. Basically my PC have basic internal 40GB harddisk which holds OS and tools, most of media is stored in external disk so that it is handy and can be carried anywhere.

To connect my media PC to projector, I used VGA input to my projector. VGA input is as good as DVI or HDMI clarity. To avoid any processor overhead, I avoided any other tools i.e. antivirus, quick launch applications. In order to protect from any online menace, I did not connect it to internet.

For sound I used M-Audio Revolution 7.1 card and connected it to Pioneer HT receiver. To control the PC remotely I bought Streamzap PC remote and mapped windvd and itunes. In general you can program the remote to control any application on the PC

To enjoy the media PC:

1. Power on the PC.
2. Connect external harddisk using USB 2.0 to PC
3. Connect the PC to Projector using VGA cable
4. Connect the PC to HT receiver
5. Start WinDVD and go DVD from source menu
6. Select external moview from external hardisk

You are now all set to next gen entertainment WORLD!! ENJOY!