Here are two quick rules of thumbs:

1. Do not spend more than $400 on building a media center (not including tuners). You only need to get a $50 video card to pull it all together.
2. Power consumption should drive your build.  One thing I have learned using a media center computer is that setting up Sleep and Hibernate is still a pain. For instance, my digital cable tuner won’t work after the computer is woken up.  This means I have to leave it on all the time.  Suddenly, idle power consumption becomes a big deal.  The goal should be to use less than 50W when idling.  That would equal about $3 a month in energy costs.

My ideal system would be to use an Atom processor with Nvidia’s Ion chip for 1080p playback.  I have not tested such a system but the word on the street is that Windows 7 Media Center can be sluggish with an Atom processor.  Still under 10W at idle is an impressive number.

Here are some tips for an energy  sipping build:

1. Don’t use more than 2 GB of ram.  Nothing more is needed. 4 GB is just a waste.
2. Use “green” hard drives.  No need to use the fastest hard drives on the market.
3. Use an energy efficient power supply.
4. Anything more powerful than a Dual core Pentium E5300 is a waste. I have one in my system and it works fine.  The one caveat to that is the new Clarkdale processors that Intel has like the Core i3, which would save you from using a video card.

Slysoft does have frequent sales but they just announced a new sale that is way better than any they have had before. Until December 31, you will get lifetime free updates for the price of a 2-year subscription and still take advantage of an additional 20% discount. This is an awesome price for this software.

If you are thinking about ripping blu-ray movies to a hard drive, I would definitely take advantage of this deal.

Using a guide from Avsforum.com, I have converted my entire blu-ray library to MKVs using AnyDVD HD, eac3to, and mktools. The video quality is superb and is still 1080p. I have converted all the audio tracks to flac, including TrueHD. Lossless compression!

I installed MediaBrowser on the Windows 7 machine along with the Shark007 codec pack. To my surprise, the whole thing actually worked. No external player, no copy protection, and no crazy sound card just for TrueHD playback.

Using an ATI 4670, the picture looks great and the audio is sent to my Onkyo receiver as LPCM, all over one HDMI cable. 5.1 sound and everything.

I have no idea if this will actually work on an extender but right now I could care less. One thing at a time. Plus I think Divx is working on an MKV solution that will work with extenders.

Now I need to set-up a remote. I got a Harmony 880 that hopefully will do the job. Is this ready for the mainstream? No way. Is it ready for nerds? Absolutely.

Since owning my iPhone, my consumption of music has changed, making my concerns about storage space almost irrelevant. I mainly listen to Pandora and WunderRadio, which costs about $6. I hate paying for apps but this is one I highly recommend.

The iPhone and iPod sometimes get criticized for a lack of an FM Tuner. WunderRadio overcomes that by making streaming of online radio as easy as changing a station. For a one time price of $6 (non of that monthly fee BS), you can get access to radio stations all over the world. I use it to listen to WJFK and ESPN 980 in DC.

WunderRadio is able to access all of your favorite terrestrial radio stations as well online through  RadioTime.   It uses the built-in GPS of the iPhone to find your local stations as a default. Plus, you can access any major radio station anywhere in the US.  Definitely worth checking out.   Who needs satellite radio?

Here are a quick list of features of the app from the website:

The revised royalties are quite high - higher in fact than any other form of radio. As a consequence, we will have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners.

The gist of the changes is that accounts are limited to 40 hours per month of listening. If you go over 40 hours, you can pay $0.99 (yes, less than 1 dollar), for unlimited listening for that month. Overall, I can live with that, as long as it is not a slippery slope of upcoming charges.  I might even look into Pandora One.

My usage of Pandora has picked up over the last 6 months with my purchase of an iPhone and Sonos adding support for the online music service. Pandora is basically my own private radio station. It is my most used iPhone app so I might actually use Pandora for more than 40 hours.  We’ll see.

$20 for a movie is still too expensive in my opinion. I want to buy movies for less than $10 though Blu-rays are hard to find at the price point.

I recently started buying used movies from Amazon and have found some great deals, like Batman Begins for $6 and The Departed for $10. The prices of used movies fluctuate depending on the seller. The only downside to buying used movies on amazon is the $3 shipping that is charged for each movie. So that Batman Begins movie actually cost me $9 shipped. Still not bad. No taxes either.

Did you know you can search by “used” movies on Amazon? Combine that with sorting by “lowest price” and you can quickly scan for cheap deals. A little digging can help find movies to round out your library. Here is an example search. Happy hunting.

Since this is a “buyer’s guide,” below are some tips for buying Blu-ray movies:

1) Don’t buy kids movies on Blu-ray. Unless you are a big fan of Pixar movies, they look just fine on DVDs. The Cars DVD looked great on my PS3. Plus, you are more likely to watch kids movies on portable players or take them on trips.

2) Never shop on Ebay. You pay too much of a premium for used movies.

3) Never buy movies from a retail chain. Too expensive.

4) Buy used movies from sellers on Amazon.

This got me thinking: the price of used XPS 420 on sites like Ebay and Craigslist should start to fall, making an entry level CableCard machine even more accessible. Typical prices right now for used XPS 420 run about $500 depending on the specs.

You can buy digital cable tuners on Ebay for about $150 a piece so for a two tuner XPS 420, you are looking at about $800. This should drop with time. If you are in the market for a CableCard machine, I would start to monitor the prices for used Dell XPS 420s.

PowerDVD Ultra New Features
Cyberlink was kind enough to provide me with a release candidate version of PowerDVD Ultra 9 to review for this article. From the press materials they provided me, the following features were added to PowerDVD:
• TrueTheater™ Technology up-scales DVD for playback on HD displays
• Cinema Mode provides seamless Blu-ray playback to Microsoft Windows Media Center PCs
• Up-to 8-channel high-definition audio is supported for Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound
systems
• FancyView enables easier, more pleasurable navigation of DVD titles, chapters and movie information.
Library features allow information to be stored about both DVD and Blu-ray titles
• MoovieLive.com enables sharing of stored movie information, personal ratings and reviews.

The Good
For me, PowerDVD Ultra 9 offers two main upgrades over version 8: tight integration with Windows Media Center and DVD upconverting through its new TrueTheater settings. Support for HD Audio codecs is once again included, as it was in version 8 (note: hardware is still not available to actually listen to these HD audio codecs and won’t be until Q3 of 2009).
Media Center integration works well. No dropping to the desktop or anything funky like that. The experience is almost seamless. Just don’t hit the “back” button too many times or you will get kicked out of Media Center. Third-party plugins are able to piggyback on to PowerDVD. This means programs like Open Media Library and Media Browser are able to launch ripped movies from the media center UI. Finally.

PowerDVD Ultra had been losing market share in the media center word to TotalMedia Theatre by Arcsoft, mainly because TotalMedia Theatre was integrated better with Windows Media Center. Cyberlink had worked with OEMs like Velocity Micro PC to develop a media center plugin but it was never made available to the public. PowerDVD 9 rectifies this and once again appears to be the top choice for watching Blu-ray movies on a PC.

The Bad
PowerDVD suffers from an odd design choice, the inability to play ripped Blu-ray movies. You have to rip movies as an ISO file and then use a virtual drive to “load” the discs. For media center users, playing digital movies from a hard drive is essential. This has nothing to do with piracy. People just want to organize their movies like they organize their digital music files.
Out of Cyberlink’s control, the copy protection for Blu-ray movies can be a real pain, especially on a computer. You have to have a video AND a monitor that both support HDCP. If you have a monitor or video card older than two years, you are most likely out of luck. I use a 24″ Dell monitor to watch Blu-ray movies on my desktop. I have to use AnyDVD HD to strip out out the content protection since my monitor does not support HDCP.

Moovielive.com also seems kind of pointless. I really am not too interested to see what other PowerDVD users are watching. It seems like everyone is trying to add social networking to their products. Moovielive.com information should be made available though the media center interface.

Conclusion
With Blu-ray drives now easily found for under $100, high definition movies are more attainable than ever for the home theater computer crowd. PowerDVD Ultra 9 is an evolutionary product that should be looked at by any media center user, especially those with Blu-ray drives. If you are just looking for a software DVD player, PowerDVD is overkill, with cheaper options available.

* Up to 8.0-megapixel still image capture with software interpolation; video capture up to 1600 x 1200; up to 30 fps
* 2.0-megapixel sensor
* Built-in microphone for videoconferencing and recording
* Smart Face Tracking technology focuses on you
* Autofocus ensures a sharp and precise image
* Advanced Video FX enables you to add exciting effects while you video chat
300° camera rotation

On my Dell monitor the cam rests nicely and is easily adjusted, mainly because the USB wire is attached the base of the camera and not to the camera itself, unlike the Logitech camera I currently use. Some reviewers have recommended a piece of velcro to tie it down. I am not sure if that is necessary. The webcam is not designed for notebooks since its base is too wide.

Installation:
Installation is straightforward. Install the bundled software and then plug in the webcam. I did have an issue with my main Vista computer. I could not get the drivers installed properly. Granted, it most likely is a result of my computer being subjected to rounds of hardware testing. Technical support was of little help in solving my issues.

Bundled Software:
The included software, called Live! Cam, is very average. Nothing fancy or innovative. It offers screen and video capture with a minimal interface. The camera shines when used with televideo programs like Skype or Google Chat. I think most people will use software other than the what is provided in the box.

Performance:
The 2 megapixel camera sensor is the what makes this camera stand out from the crowd (and somewhat expensive). The image quality is a step above most webcams, putting it in head-to-head competition with high-end models like the Logitech Pro 9000. The image is not grainy and the video is smooth. The low-light image that the camera produces is adequate for most situations, picking up details you would expect. In a dimly lit room, shadows were reduced on my face but the image was not over-exposed.

Conclusion:
The 2 megapixel sensor is what separates this camera from its competitors. To buy a comparable web cam from Logitech with a 2 MP sensor, you have to spend just about $20 more than the Rocketfish cam. After using a 1 MP camera for over a year (a Logitech cam that I spent about $30 on), I have to say that a 2 MPs (and at 30 fps), like the Rocketfish Wedcam, is worth the extra cash. Overall, I think the Rocketfish camera is a solid competitor in the crowded market of webcams.

Auzentech originally stated that the X-Fi HomeTheater HD would be available in November. Then it was January 09. Now it is “first quarter 09.” I am beginning to think this is vaporware, like all those slick Sideshow remotes. From the Auzentech website:

The Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD outputs a bitstream of high-definition, multichannel audio from Blu-ray Discs with no downsampling, to take full advantage of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Developed in partnership with Creative, Cyberlink and Silicon Image, the X-Fi HomeTheater HD has broad support for the latest audio technologies in the marketplace.