Unboxing a 10 year old Home Theater PC

Last updated December 22, 2025

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Concepts
My Final Configuration

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As an avid personal computer (PC) enthusiast, I was quick to adopt the idea of using a computer to serve multimedia content to a large TV for family use over 12 years ago. There were no Apple TV or Mac Mini boxes back then. The idea was to have a PC with multimedia hardware and emulate what a smart TV might provide you now.

Companies had hoped consumers would adopt multimedia PCs for their entertainment centers for awhile. Back in 1998, Gateway introduced the Destination, combining a 27" (tube) television with a Celeron PC for $2000. A higher end unit had a 36" TV with a Pentium II for $4999.

With Windows XP in 2002, Microsoft decided to embrace the multimedia aspects of their operating system. Extensions called the Windows Media Center provided a "10-foot interface" common to today's smart TV users. This worked best with a TV capture card and a computer outputting decent graphics and sound. It had limited success, available for Windows 7 and 8 also, but not popular enough to be kept in Windows 10.

Concepts

Here were ideas for a good multimedia PC of the era (12 to 14 years ago):

A decent CPU (dual core or better) but one that ran cool so noisy fans could be mimimized.
A good amount of RAM for Windows Media Center
A motherboard with several PCI slots
A mid to middle high end graphics card. Too slow it wouldn't output fast enough, too fast and the heat would require lots of fans. Passively cooled is optimal. Output in HDMI was high end, VGA and DVI was ok.
A TV capture and tuining card
A DVD player. A DVD recorder is better, Blu-Ray is a bonus
Premium sound card
Fast storage. SSDs were kind of new but one at least for boot and short term storage is great.
Firewire for video camera capture is a bonus
Fast networking to a home server for long term storage. Alternatively a fast hard drive.
An infrared or RF keyboard with integrated trackpad or trackball
A Windows Media Center remote control
A front display, LCD or VFD, is a bonus
SD card reader
A horizontal cabinet to blend in to the home theater

You'll notice that a fair amount of the content was coming over the television line as online streaming services were limited (Netflix came as DVDs in red envelopes in the mail).

While this would look perfect on my OLED TV, for demonstration I have it with a generic monitor

My Final Configuration

I pieced together, between 2012 and 2014 the following system:

Athlon X2 Dual Core BE2150 power conserving CPU
4 GB (2 2GB sticks, 2 extra slots)
Gigabyte Motherboard with PCI slots
Passively cooled video card with HDMI, VGA and DVI connections
Hauppauge WinTV-HDR-2250 capture card
LG BluRap/HD-DVD/DVD/CD combo drive
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card with 5.25" front control panel
Corsair 240GB SSD drive partitioned 67GB boot (C) and 173GB storage (D)
Firewire front and back
Realtek Gigabit Ethernet
IOGEAR RF keyboard and trackpad
Windows Media Center infrared remote control
Front VFD display with LCD Smartie software
SilverStone Technology HTPC cabinet
Combination 3.5" floppy drive and CF/SM/Memory Stick/SD card reader
Windows 7 Home Premium with Windows Media Center

The system with the front access doors closed

The system with both front doors open. They have a geared mechanism to open slowly.

The back. The motherboard has video but the system has a better video card. The TV capture card is to the left of the video card and the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS is to the right of the video card.

The VFD can go through various animations to show system data via the LCD Cutie program.

Here is my appearance on Adafruit Show and Tell September 5, 2024 with the HTPC:

This PC was sold at VCF Midwest, summer 2025.

This page (Unboxing a 10 year old Home Theater PC) was last updated on December 22, 2025.