The Dream is Over: The Death of my HTPC, Part 2

When last we left our story (see yesterday’s post for Part One), I had finally gotten the HTPC that I wanted when I started building it – it was quiet, it was fast enough, it played most of the video that I wanted it to play, and it was easy enough for my girlfriend to use – it had been a long journey, but I was finally where I wanted to be. Wasn’t I?

Update hell

The thing was, my victory was mostly an empty one. It had taken me about a year to finally get the hardware and software working together in a tolerable way, and I’d spent at least twice as much as I’d originally wanted (the budget for the original build was just a bit over $400). Windows Media Center integrated fairly well with all of the different apps and plugins (Hulu Desktop for streaming TV, Cyberlink PowerDVD for Blu Ray playback), but things still weren’t perfect. Hulu Desktop gets a particular shout-out here for using completely different buttons for pausing and seeking than every other program on the PC.

And then, the updates: Keep Flash and Silverlight up-to-date, and also install new nVidia drivers at every possible opportunity in an effort to improve the ION chipset’s hardware-accelerated video playback. Download periodic updates for the Cyberlink player from their slow awful server so that I can keep playing current Blu Ray titles. Keep Adobe Reader, Java and the rest updated so that the computer can still function as a general-use PC, and suppress their update notifications so that they don’t interrupt your Mad Men marathons. Do the same with Windows Update and, oh yeah, because this is Windows, you’ll also want to throw an antivirus product on there for good measure. Use Intel’s tools every couple of months to keep the SSD running at peak efficiency.

I think you get my point.

I’m completely fine with doing all of these routine maintenance tasks on my desktop and my laptop – on those machine, these tasks are second nature. As I mentioned yesterday, though, my needs are simpler in my entertainment center, and I want my setup to be simpler too. These updates and maintenance tasks could usually all be done in the space of an hour or so, and they usually only needed to be done every couple of months, and Remote Desktop even removed the need to dig the keyboard out most of the time. That wasn’t my ultimate problem with the setup, though – the entertainment center mentality says that, as with any old DVD player, you should be able to push a button to turn the thing on and start doing what you want almost instantly. At least, that’s how my brain works.

And so it was that after a couple of years of trying, I determined that even the best-case scenario wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I declared the experiment a qualified failure, took the computer apart and set to getting some of my money back by selling its components.

The Dream is Over: The Death of my HTPC, Part 2, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating Continue Reading This Post:123

Tags: HTPC, Media Center, Windows 7, windows 7 customization, Windows 7 Media Center

Category: Discussion, Misc, Windows 7 News

Next Post: Lead Gmail Developer Predicts the Death of Chrome OS »»

Prev Post: Microsoft Releases Narnia And Snow Angel Windows 7 Themes »»

About Andrew Cunningham: Andrew Cunningham is a rarity - an IT professional with a liberal arts degree. Please don't hold that against him. When he's not supporting the faculty and staff of Kenyon College, he's writing about games, music and movies at his other blog, Charge Shot!!! View posts.

View the original article here