Making a MediaCentre

[Bölvaður]

My aim is to make a cheap mediacentre that I can keep in my livingroom. So small is good, no wires are a must, connecting to my tv, vcr and dvd player is very good.


What I have found out that is is very easy to build VERY small but powerful computer, but then I dont have scart in and output.


What I must have

SCART in → (from dvd to mediabox)
Coax in ← (from antenna to mediabox)
SCART out ← (from dvd to my tv)
Watch tv, vcr, dvd and .avi, and youtube on my mediacentre
Instant Messaging

[hessiess]

Carnt say ive ever come across a PC with SCART before...

[fatality_uk]

Theres plenty of composite to scart boxes available cheapy on the net

Like this
http://www.avforums.com/forums/interconnects-speaker-cables-switches/820302-please-recommend-composite-component-scart.html

[Bölvaður]

hmm yes... well most motherboards only have vga output, while most television sets, normally do not have.

Man I really hate that the people on these forums never seem to read the OP, or are trying to answer some question that is related to it, but not really helping :)



1. Does anyone know motherboards with built in scart in and out, and a tuner?
2. ...or at least tell me if I get a card like that to plug in, what programs can I use to watch the input with?

[zekopeko]

hmmmm..... how about you build a mATX case with a motherboard and a nice Core 2 Duo and a 500gb+ drive? i'm guessing that there are external TV tuners that you can plug in and the cable part you can fix with converter cables/boxes.

EDIT: i think that MSI or ASUS have nice mATX cases for this.

could you give more info? like what kind of TV are we talking here? i'm guessing the old CRT one since you want SCART. also do you want to watch analog or DVB-T/S TV?

[fatality_uk]

hmm yes... well most motherboards only have vga output, while most television sets, normally do not have.

Man I really hate that the people on these forums never seem to read the OP, or are trying to answer some question that is related to it, but not really helping :)

1. Does anyone know motherboards with built in scart in and out, and a tuner?
2. ...or at least tell me if I get a card like that to plug in, what programs can I use to watch the input with?

Man I really hate that the people on these forums never seem to read the answer that some people provide and if they took time to do a little googling, they could help themselves, but hey!!! :)
out >>>

[zekopeko]

Man i really hate that people on these forums never seem to understand that by giving an answer that google can index they are helping 1000s of others that WILL search google for a specific phrase and perhaps find the answer that they are searching for.

[JohnFH]

I built my own media centre and connected it to a TV which only has scart input. My solution for it was to get an S-Video > scart connector and get a TV tuner card with S-Video output. Works a treat! My media centre has a DVD drive, so no need for scart connection from DVD to media centre. If you're worried about wires and clutter, then you can do away with the DVD player you've got by building a media centre that has its own. My livingroom has my media centre, TV and surround speakers - no need for DVD player, cable box (media centre has freeview), VCR player or other boxes.

Oh and it uses Ubuntu 8.04 + MythTV and cost a total of £250 but could have been a lot cheaper.

To answer your question directly:
* SCART in → (from dvd to mediabox) == Don't need as DVD already included in mediabox
* Coax in ← (from antenna to mediabox) == yes, using in built TV tuner (DVB-T freeview) card
* SCART out ← (from dvd to my tv) == yes, using S-Video to scart connector
* Watch tv, vcr, dvd and .avi, and youtube on my mediacentre == yes, except for VCR, although you can do the same with the S-Video connection
* Instant Messaging == yes, plus a lot of other things, eg. weather, youtube videos, news, radio, games, etc.