HI Guys, I've just bought a 50'' HDTV Plasma Screen TV, I was think of using my laptop as a media centre for it as the back of the tv has vga input i.e as in a standard monitor and my laptop has no s-video or anything like that. I've plugged it in normally how it is now and the picture is sharp and it's just like a big monitor so I'm sorted there. However i want to use Media Centre Edition To It's Full Potential. So i was wondering how i could add a freeview adapter compatible with Media Centre Edition so i can pause, record live tv and watch downloaded movies and stuff also i was wondering about 5.1 surround sound from my laptop any chance like on desktop you can use line-in and mic as 5.1 channels or not thanks.

Current Specs
Intel Pentium M 1.4Ghz Banias
256MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
40GB 2.5 4200RPM ATA/100 Hard Drive
CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
64MB Intel Extreme 2 865G Mobile Graphics

And The Upgrades Will Be

At Least Pentium M 1.7Ghz Dothan
1GB PC2700 333MHZ DDR SDRAM
Freeview USB For MCE???
100GB Toshiba 2.5 4200RPM ATA 100 Hard Drive

If It Ain't Fix Broke Use It And Abuse It Somemore.

gewt a faster hard drive , 7200 rpm will be best . other than that looks okay . maybe a faster cpu if your going to do a lot of encoding

You're going to be mainly held back by your integrated video card. If you're going to spend all that money, you might as well just get a small-form factor (SFF) PC. That way you can upgrade the video card, get a TV-in card, and already have 5.1 surround built-in (assuming you get a case that's relatively new).

Sure, the 5.1 won't be top of the line, but it will definitely be better than the headphone jack of your laptop.

Also, you'll be to get a bigger, faster harddrive (because it doesn't have to be 2.5"). Then you can use all the money you saved to get a better CPU.

Then if you REALLY want to save some money, go with MythTV instead of Win MCE. There is a learning curve that goes with it but everything you'd learn while installing MythTV is invaluable. Plus you'll be able show off to your friends that you're running linux ;-)

Good luck.

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