Hi I have an LG lcd tv in my living room. I'm looking to buy a PC to provide internet access, play/store music and maybe a couple of other bits and pieces. Couple of questions 1) Any tips on what kind of PC to buy for these needs? 2) Will there be any problem displaying the picture on the TV? My tv has a PC setting but will the quality be diminished etc? Would appreciate any help people could provide. Cheers Paul

Can't answer the quality, but my guess would be there would be good quality. You will need a media PC and most preferrably a quiet one (since it will be in the LR). I would suggest a home built so you can get the features you want.l If you can't fix it, blow it up and deny that you saw anything.

I recommend shuttle products for such a setup (amd will run cooler/quieter). Throw in a dual layer burner, a digital tv tuner and a whopping big hard drive, cpu, ram and bobs your uncle. Interfacing with such a pc can be a bitch so a tv tuner with a good remote would be essential. And do your research on the tv tuner. This is the most critical aspect of the system. Also consider if the pc has all the appropriate sound outputs you need / will need in the future.

I have a similar setup. If you are getting a Plasma or LCD Tv and you have VGA (good), Digital/HDMI (better) outputs on the tv. (VGA Is the blue one, digital is the white one and HDMI is the small connector you can get sound and video from) Make sure the PC has a video card that comes with Digital outputs that have a Digital to HDMI converter (like a Radeon 4850 is a good card to buy right now or 4870 if you wanna pay more) Make sure the video card has its own unique Digital to HDMI "dongle" (adapter) or else you may only get video and not audio through the HDMI cable. You'll get pretty darn good quality when playing games and watching movies, as for just reading text on the computer it might be a tad more difficult but possible, at least here with a 50" plasma I wouldnt want to use it solely as a computer monitor but I love to play games and watch movies on it. Perhaps sometimes in the 30" range would be more appropriate for dual use. Depending on how into building PCs you are, the e2160 is a 1.8Ghz dual core chip by intel that with STOCK cooling easily overclocks to 3Ghz (my friend and I have the setup and havent had any problems as far as I know of). If you get a video card check out the 4850 (if your price range is less than 200 dollars) or the 4870 if you want to go bigger. Check out tom's hardware guide, they have VGA charts that organize the best card under a certain price range. Make sure you get at least a 450W power supply though with good amperage on its rails, if youre getting a case Antec has a case. model number NSK something something that comes with a 430W power supply and thats what I used for my girlfriends setup and its working pretty well. Also a decent mid level motherboard would probably be the EP35-DS3L by Gigabyte. Good luck 500W PS Radeon HD X2600 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 2gb Ballistix 4-4-4-12 DDR2