G+_George Kozi Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Okay geeks, what do you think? Originally shared by George Kozi I am thinking of treating myself to a proper game PC next spring. If When I do that, the question arises what to do with my current PC. THe vague thought of making it into some sort of Home entertainment - house Media PC keeps surfacing in my head... What do you think? Dooable? Good idea, bad idea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will O'Meara Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Shouldn't be too dificult, that's what I did. I also set up steam big picture as an application in the media center (using WMC cause it has access to the things I want like Netflix AIV and Hulu) and steam in home streaming so that I can play my PC games from the couch if I want. Add a 360 controller and one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0U012R1729 And it will be better than any console you've ever used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Taylor Graham Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Chromecast and the like are so cheap/functional now, i think they've pretty much made HTPCs obsolete. Perhaps turn that old machine into a nas, install plex, and get a chromecast for your TV. You'll be able to stream all of your local content to your TV that way. If you don't have any local content, just get the chromcast. XBMC is still pretty cool though. You could give that a try as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Thomas Lambrecht Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 I'm running XBMC on a Raspberry Pi and it works lovely. I guess it would run even better on a desktop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_George Kozi Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Bryan Burnett How about making an episode showing us thu KH on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Thomas Lambrecht Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 I also had an old PC, this is how I still use it every day: http://i.imgur.com/qC8ItTE.jpg [That Pentium 4 makes my keys so much faster] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Adam EL-Idrissi Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 You could do a few things.a pfsense box or a Linux firewall. Nas and plex like was mentioned. A server of some sort. Home automation. Personally an htpc isn't a need. I have a note 4 that has mhl so I have netflix,hulu,etc. I preordered a fire stick so I can leave it in the tv. And lately I've been playing around with openelec on my raspberry pi. I tried xbmc on it but wouldn't play a certain file format,forgot what it is but openelec plays the video just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Taylor Graham Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 A firewall is a cool idea. I just put together an NG firewall box for work with a old dell core2 machine. It monitors usage and stores a cache of sites accessed. I dunno how much you would care for any of that at home, but you can check it out. Pfsense might be better for you, i haven't used it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jamie Campbell Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 1) You could install the Windows 10 beta on it. 2) You could build an Asterisk server and really take control of your VOIP. 3) Install a USB weather station (which will cost more than the PC) and contribute to the Weather Underground Personal Weather Station Network. 4) You could use it as an in-car recorder or an in car performance monitor (providing it is a laptop). 5) Set up a TOR node. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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