OK this might get expensive.
As you might know, I use a Home Theatre PC in my home. It’s currently a Pentium III PC running Beyond TV and does a pretty OK job of recording about 80 hours of shows at a good quality. We’ve come to depend on it and in fact take it for granted that it is happily recording the shows that we never seem to be able to see live. But it’s big, bulky and noisy to say the least.
Now Tom’s Hardware has decided to try to build the Ultimate HTPC. The beauty of the type of unit they’re building is that it is definitely non-PC in appearance and in noise. Nothing like that good old white noise of a PC fan while you’re trying to watch your favourite movie. However, you can’t always get what you want – look at all the issues they found here trying to get speed without heat. If a case is only a couple inches high and has no ventilation, it’s going to get hot. Really hot.
Never the less, if you’re thinking of a PC to record your shows or if you have a twist-tie-built version like I do, this article will tell you what to look for and what to expect if you want to go with a smaller or newer form factor.
