Windows XP Media Centre

I have been looking into Windows XP media center.

There are some good community sites such as

The Green Button which is run my Microsoft, the domain name alluding to the button on the remote control that brings up the media center user interface

Another one is

XPMCE.com for news, reviews, etc.

Microsoft's own site has a demo video at
XP MCE Flash Demo of the interface

and

Paul Thurott's excellent review on WinSuperSite

From a Developers point of view there is a hour long MSDN TV show

MSDN TV Show on Media Center

and a Channel9 show (with the same guys talking a bit more informally) at

MSDN Channel 9 Show on Media Center

Which illistrates how you could build .Net add-ins or modify your websites HTML to be displayed on the "Online Spotlight" section of the Media Centre interface and navigate via the remote control, Nifty.

So in terms of building a XP MCE edition box from existing hardware you could do it for around €150 ex VAT

First Choose a TV Tuner (PAL for Europe, NTSC for US)

TV Tuner top 5 which recommends Hauppage WinTV PVR-250 and ATI's TV Wonder Elite as the top 2, approx $150 each. Ideally want to get a dual tuner card that can record one channel while watching another.

This is available at

Komplett, Hauppage Dual TV Tuner which is the same as the PVR-250 except with dual tuners

and

Komplett, MCE Remote control and IR receiver


I have the sinking suspicion that neither of the old PCs i have at home with be up to running XP MCE, worth a try though.