Playing media files on your television can be done in all kinds of ways these days. Think of a separate media player or a smart TV. If you want to play series, movies and music in a flexible user environment, it pays to build a media center. That sounds more complicated than it is.
Although there are plenty of ready-made media players available, such a separate box next to the television is not ideal. Although the file support of most media players is fine, the basic menus offer little flexibility. If the possibility exists at all, it often takes all kinds of art and flying work to get information about films and series into the picture. Also read: How to stream movies and series with Kodi.
Unfortunately, the operation, search function and available plug-ins also often leave something to be desired. The built-in media player functions of smart TVs and game consoles are certainly not a joy to use, given the limited file support and ugly menus. If you would like your media collection to be beautifully presented, you cannot ignore a self-build media center. In this article you can read which hardware and software you can best use for this.
Hardware
Media PC
If you want maximum flexibility for playing media files, a media PC is the obvious choice. This is also known as a home theater PC or HTPC. It is in fact a regular PC that you connect directly to a home cinema system and/or smart TV. The advantage of a media PC is that you can choose suitable hardware for the storage and processing of media files. Once the hardware is in order, install the desired operating system and a media program to organize all your movies, series, and music. In fact, just about everything on a media PC is customizable. A big contrast with a ready-made media player where you can hardly replace both hardware and software. On the other hand, the purchase of a new media PC is slightly more expensive.
Old or new?
Many people still have an old PC somewhere that is no longer used. There is a good chance that this machine will still function well as a media PC. In the second part of this article, you'll read that there are several free operating systems and media programs to breathe new life into your discarded machine. Keep in mind that with an existing system you usually make some concessions. For example, the system cabinet may be very large to put in the living room near your television. Moreover, it is nice if the machine does not produce too much noise, for example through the use of passive cooling. The fan of an old machine can be very disturbing while watching a thrilling movie.
The minimum hardware requirements for a media PC are not that bad. For software decoding of a 1080p film, a dual-core processor with a clock speed of 2 GHz is sufficient. In addition, many processor and graphics card video chips are capable of hardware decoding of videos, so you may be able to work with a slower processor. Installing a new video card may be enough to turn your discarded PC into a full-fledged media PC.
Choose housing
Are you going for a new system? Putting together a good media PC yourself is not an easy task. The possibilities are endless. First of all, it is important that the housing matches the other equipment around your television, usually a black one is the obvious choice for that reason. Also study what measures the manufacturer has taken to prevent excessive noise production. Consider, for example, sound-absorbing mats.
Specific media PC cases are also available for purchase. These are usually flat, so that you can more easily place the system cabinet in a television cabinet between your other hi-fi equipment. Do you opt for a compact housing? Then realize that in that case you can mount a smaller motherboard and fewer disks in the system. In most cases, you choose a microATX or Mini-ITX version as a motherboard. Also consider carefully whether you want to build in a CD/DVD drive, because not every housing has room for it. Do you want a luxurious housing for your media PC? Then take a look at products from the Origen AE brand. The Antec, SilverStone and Zalman brands develop excellent housings in a lower price segment.
Connect Media PC
It is best to use the HDMI output of your PC to transfer images and sound to the home cinema set. Keep in mind different standards for surround sound playback. If you would like to pass a DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD audio track to the receiver, it is necessary that the video card of the media PC supports at least HDMI 1.3. This is no problem at all for recent video cards.
Does your receiver not have an HDMI input to process image and sound? In that case, you pass on sound in a different way. When playing DTS and Dolby Digital surround sound, it is obvious to use an optical or coaxial S/PDIF connection. In that case, to transfer the images, connect the television directly to the media PC using an HDMI cable. With an analog audio cable, you only pass a two-channel audio track to the receiver.
