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Building a Home Theater PC (HTPC)

Wed, 01/13/2010 - 18:22 — ltempleton

Larry Templeton 

(REVISED Jan 2010)

At the April 2009 SPAUG meeting, member Larry Templeton described how he built his own Home Theater PC. 

Bill Young really laid the groundwork for tonight's talk a couple of month's ago when he made a presentation to the group about how to build a standard desktop for the PC so I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of it, but I do want to talk how they work, how they fit into a home entertainment system and the parts that you might want to procure if you are going to build one.

What can an HTPC provide? 
  • Record /store/ replay off-air/cable TV shows, DVDs, CDs, ipod, MP3s, etc. 
  • From the internet, download /store /play YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, TV shows, movies  (amazing amount of content now available)
  • Edit video, burn DVDs, CDs, load iPod, etc.
  • Any other PC function such as surf the  internet, play games, etc.
  • Watch off-air, cable & satellite TV
  • Get rid of all your old CDs, DVDs, etc.

New "Build It Yourself" SIG

Thu, 01/07/2010 - 22:46 — webmaster

SVCS has established a new Build It Yourself SIG for those members interested in building their own PC systems. The new SIG will meet at MicroCenter in Santa Clara on the first Monday night of each month. The Multimedia SIG which previously met on this night will now be combined with the Digital Imaging SIG on the third Monday nights.

Topics of interest in this SIG will include:

  • Hardware discussions and comparisons
  • Construction of PC systems by members
  • Open source systems, including Linux.

10 dumb things users do that can mess up their computers

Tue, 06/30/2009 - 20:52 — webmaster

by Deb Shinder, Tech Republic

We all do dumb things now and then, and computer users are no exception. Inadvertently pressing the wrong key combination or innocently clicking OK in the wrong dialog box can change important settings that alter a computer's behavior or even crash the system.

How to Build Your Own Computer

Fri, 03/13/2009 - 13:41 — youngbill
 
In February 2009 SPAUG member Bill Young described how he designed and built a "general purpose" desktop computer, including:
  • Choosing whether to buy or build your new computer
  • The ease of building your own computer
  • Deciding on the objectives for your computer
  • Selection of hardware components to meet your objectives
  • Choosing your operating system

The advantages of building your own system include custom components wth better reliability and longer life, lower power consumption and cooler, quieter operation compared to purchased computers.

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