Lab

Media Center PCs

Sell your DVD player, bin your video recorder and throw out that tacky multi-remote holder: it's time to replace everything with just one box. We've gathered together ten systems that take advantage of Microsoft's latest and most accomplished version of Media Center.

The previous version, Media Center 2005, was slick and effective, but Microsoft's Rollup 2 update addresses reliability issues and more (see our full review on p83). The result is a stable, reliable and wonderfully intuitive system that deserves to push Media Center into the mainstream.

One of the key improvements in Rollup 2 is the Away mode. Now, you can hit the power button and instantly put your Media Center PC into a sleep state, but it will still reliably wake up to record programs. We've tested the Away mode on several systems over the past month and it works flawlessly.

To showcase features such as this - and the flood of dual TV tuners - we asked manufacturers to send us their best Media Center systems aimed at the living room, ready to be hooked up to an existing TV and speaker system. They're all capable of recording TV, pausing live broadcasts, playing music and DVDs, showing photos and plenty more. The result is powerful yet discreet machines that will fit snugly in the space where your DVD player once took pride of place.

There's a range of systems to suit every need, from the minute and affordable Acer to the enthusiast's behemoth that is the Demonite, with its front-panel touchscreen TFT. Of course, all are fully fledged PCs as well, so you can browse the Internet, edit photos, send emails and play games.

We realise that not everyone wants a Media Center to replace their living room entertainment system, so we've also covered Elonex's all-in-one eXentia and a notebook alternative from Toshiba. There's even a Portable Media Center PC from Dream'eo, so you can take all your media with you wherever you go. Lastly, we take a look at how extenders can be used to spread your Media Center experience around the home. To find out what you should be looking for in a Media Center PC, see our buyer's guide, and to find out which systems we wanted to install into our own living rooms see the reviews.