Media Center: Cut the Cable For Good with Boxee and Apple TV
http://lifehacker.com/5138423/cut-the-cable-for-good-with-boxee-and-apple-tv
Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Cheap or Free Home Theater Upgrades
http://lifehacker.com/5145502/top-10-cheap-or-free-home-theater-upgrades

maybe useful

Heal your wallet with ten upgrades, fixes, and setup tips that take your system to 11 on the cheap.

Inspired by Roku’s awesome Netflix video download box and impressed with Boxee’s free A/V media center platform, it was merely a matter of time before I’d create the BoxeeBox, an Ubuntu-powered HTPC that I call my “one box to rule them all.” Here’s how it’s done.

Windows/Mac/Linux/Xbox: What could make the already awesome Xbox Media Center even better? An infusion of eye candy, of course. Read on to see some awesome XBMC skins and learn how to install them.

Customize XBMC with These Five Awesome Skins

With Boxee now available for Windows, nearly any computer can push streaming and downloaded content onto a TV. Here are five tips and tricks that add content and convenience to the social media center, for newcomers and veteran users alike.

Maximum TV: How to Build a Hulu Desktop + Boxee PC

jak zbudować PC komputer do ogladania TV.

Pundits may argue that the modern day HTPC has no place in the modern day living room, but we disagree. In fact, with the economy still struggling to regain its swagger, folks are staying in and finding entertainment at home more than ever. It's that truth that spurred us to start this here project: building a fully capable, Blu-ray and TV tuner-equipped HTPC for less than a grand. And lo and behold, we made it happen. If you're interested in seeing exactly how we pieced together a mighty fine entertainment box for less than the starting price of most pre-configured systems, hop on past the break with your notepad open. If you'll recall, we did a similar piece on HTPC building way back in early 2006. A format war and a digital TV transition later, we figured it was finally time to issue a revised edition. With disposable income becoming an increasingly rare commodity, we put a soft $1,000 cap on our model rig, and we did our darnedest to construct a solid, potent media PC that could

How-to: Media center

Hulu Video Downloader Saves Your Favorite Shows for Offline Enjoyment http://bit.ly/eX3wX [from http://twitter.com/jjjunk/statuses/2561179392]

It should go without saying that in order for this to work you'll need a pretty new computer running either Windows Vista Premium (or higher) or Windows 7 as well as an ATI Digital Cable Tuner (DCT). The first requirement you probably already have, but the second can be a bit more difficult. Both the internal and external version of the DCT have the same functionality with the only real difference being where it is mounted. Some prefer the external since it is easier to swap out and doesn't require opening the case to install, while others will do just about anything to eliminate yet another box with a wall wart from their setup. We will warn you if you're leaning towards the internal though, it is pretty big and puts off some heat. So to accommodate the internal version you're going to need a decent size case as well as an internal USB port and free floppy power plug. Not for everyone

The Mac mini has always been the perfect form factor for a media center appliance (often called a Home Theater PC/HTPC). It's extremely small, almost completely silent and it can easily blend into an existing electronics shelf - or be hidden away completely.

The Mac mini has always been the perfect form factor for a media center appliance (often called a Home Theater PC/HTPC). It's extremely small, almost completely silent and it can easily blend into an existing electronics shelf - or be hidden away completely.

Acer AspireRevo

You won't find a better media center than the open-source XBMC, but most people don't have the space or desire to plug a noisy PC into their TV. Instead, I converted a cheap nettop into a standalone XBMC set-top box. Here's how.

ers in pretty close detail one method for putting together a dedicated, quiet XBMC media center without breaking the bank, but it's certainly not your only option. If you've gone down this road before, offer your tips and suggestions in the comments. For my part: I'm com

Media center tools

good hacks

is a Media Center application. Featuring a simple user interface, Enna is based on the powerful Enlightenment Foundations Libraries (EFL) as for its graphical user interface and GeeXboX libraries as for multimedia playback and information retrieval.

I love messing with settings and geeky file-sharing programs. My spouse doesn't, but digs Hulu and appreciates free. So I set up a media center that satisfies my geek cravings but is actually easy-to-use for non-nerds. Here's what I pieced together.

Set Up a Geeky Media Center that Non-Geeks Can Actually Use - Media Center - Lifehacker

Media centers like XBMC and Boxee are excellent tools for playing local media on your big screen, but many new (and even experienced) users run into one big stumbling block: How do you get them to correctly identify your media? Here's how.

to get around to doing but find time for. Ever since I switched from using the classic Xbox to using a PC running XBMC, I missed the games. My old Xbox was set up with emulators and I had

Usb.brando.com.hk provides USB peripherals, parts, accessories and some interesting USB stuff for users.

SATA HDD Multi-Media Player Adapter

Of course, the whole point of this is to turn your media center into a game console—you don't want to sit and play games on your TV with a keyboard (or maybe you do, in which case you can skip this section). If you have a gamepad already, you can configure that—if not, though, I highly recommend an Xbox 360 controller, which is USB and has drivers available for Windows direct from Microsoft. For Mac and Linux users, I know this third party driver worked well on my Mac in the past, and the xpad kernel driver or this third party Linux driver should work in Linux (though I have not tested either myself).

A guide on playing roms through xmbc

We love XBMC media centers for watching movies and TV, but if you like video games, they can do so much more. With a simple plug-in, some configuration, and a USB gamepad, you can play video games straight from your set-top box.

We've featured a fully automated media center set-up before, but Lifehacker reader Andre has improved on these methods, allowing you to download torrents to your media center while still seeding them to others. The basis for this guide was this fantastic guide written by Alex Ward. Kudos for alerting me to the existence of The Episode Downloader and The Renamer which integral to this setup. Following the instructions in the guide above, however, does not allow you to continue seeding a new torrent. The Renamer moves the file into a new location. By following this guide it will be possible to continue seeding your torrents for as long as you like while still getting your files added to the media centre as soon as they become available. This guide is written with Windows users in mind. It should be relatively simple to adapt for other operating systems. Also, the XBMC installation described here is a stand-alone Linux version.

We've featured a fully automated media center set-up before, but Lifehacker reader Andre has improved on these methods, allowing you to download torrents to your media center while still seeding them to others.