HTPC Are They The Future Of Home Theater?

The Home Theater PC (HTPC) is it becoming the latest must have part of your home theater set up is a question being asked by many on the internet.

Only a couple of years ago a HTPC would have set you back well in excess of $1500 but today the basic set up can be obtained from Dell with their new Zino for Home Theater which starts at an incredible $299 but you can expect the true cost to be nearer $500 or more so don’t get to excited. My trawl of the Dell website didn’t manage to find a price for the optional blu ray player and the specification looks a little weak.

Dell Zino on Amazon Bargains

But before you part with your hard earned you might be wondering what exactly is a HTPC well I will do my best to explain and then things will be much clearer.

A Home Theater PC (HTPC) or sometimes better known as a multi media PC is a combined device that combines the normal functions of a personal computer and a media center software application which feature video and music playback, and usually but not always it also has digital video recorder functionality.

It will typically have a 10-foot user interface and is typically connected to a television or other large-screen computer display, and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder, and normally controlled with a remote control.

So as you can see pretty versatile and handy bit of equipment to own.

The general goal of an HTPC is usually to combine many or all components of a home theater set-up into a single machine that will be located where the home entertainment system is desired. This means more often than not it will be more compact as ascetically pleasing than most normal PC units.

An HTPC driven system is typically controlled with a remote control for controlling the main interface, and the graphical user interface or GUI normally will normally operate around 10 feet so that it can be comfortably viewed and navigated/controlled from such a distance.

You’ll find some HPTC’s can be purchased ready to go out of the box totally preconfgured with all the required software and hardware while others are put together to an individuals specification.

The HTPC came about to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into a single box. As a convergence device, the HTPC combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder.

Effectively a HTPC can replace DVD/Blu-ray players, CD players, recording devices and various other multimedia entertainment devices.

If you want to build your own HTPC take a look at the video in the next post Build Your Own HTPC.

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