Whether you choose an off-the-shelf model or bravely decide to build a custom DIY special, all home theater PCs share some common features:
- A TV tuner PCI-E card — or two if want to watch and record two different programs — enables TV recording.
- Jumbo hard drives totaling 2 terabytes — equivalent to 2,000 gigabytes — and larger are handy for storing all that video. When determining your needs, consider that an hour of HD programming occupies about 6GB of space.
- If you have a high-definition TV with HDMI digital audio/video connections (and all newer models do), make sure the home theater PC comes with an HDMI output for maximum fidelity and one-cable connection convenience.
- For the most eye and ear-popping Blu-ray and HD programming playback, standard integrated video and audio hardware doesn’t cut it. Video cards from arch rivals NVIDIA and ATI, including NVIDIA’s GeForce 9000 and ATI’s Radeon HD3000 series, will provide plenty of graphics muscle.
- While most integrated audio processors in PCs will output 7.1 channels of surround sound, a dedicated PCI sound card will take some of the workload off of the computer’s CPU and produce higher-quality audio. Creative Technology’s X-Fi cards are among the best.
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