In my house I have:

HD TV
Sky HD
PS3
Laptop
Ipods

Someone said it would be good to have a media centre as it would benefit everything above together.

Please answer in dummy terms, thanks:

1) What is a media centre? :confused:

2) Should I get one?

3) What are the benefits?

4) How easy are they to use?

5) Which ones?

6) Is the Apple TV a media centre?

Thanks everyone

So no-one on here knows what a media centre is?

Though this might sound a bit harsh: I bet google does. 24 hours and you haven't looked?

It's a PC that you use to play music/films etc through your TV and hifi, though it might also refer to Windows XP Media Center edition, which has the media center software that does all of the above.

Though this might sound a bit harsh: I bet google does. 24 hours and you haven't looked?

It's a PC that you use to play music/films etc through your TV and hifi, though it might also refer to Windows XP Media Center edition, which has the media center software that does all of the above.

Hi Orbrey. Google comes up with loads of information. As does other search engines. However not being very technically minded I dont understand half of it. :(

No worries, and fair enough. Basically all you need is a PC that would be kept in the living room near all the rest of your home entertainment stuff. You'd have a graphics card with TV out (or an HD TV with DVI inputs) so you can watch the films stored on the PC on the telly, and you'd have the sound going through your hifi so both films and music come from here.

Also you could use it as a central storage point for music etc, so all the ipods could connect to that to update/change music etc.

Apple TV isn't really a media centre, though it will play content from other networked PCs on your TV (also it looks a lot nicer than most PCs so won't look out of place in a living room). You won't be able to use it to play DVDs though (no drive).

As for the other questions, it depends... it's a PC so you can set it up how you like, so it's as easy to use as the software on it.

Hope that helps some,

A media centre or media player is a networked hard drive that stores your media files, there are alot around, I currently have a Ellion HMR 700a its been good to me over the last 3 years but is starting to give me problems, I've heard that a better but more difficult way to do it would be to use an origonal Xbox with Xbox media centre installed, there are 2 new Ellion media players comming which will both play 1080p HD MKV files one has an internal hard drive one doesn't, as for Apple TV as far as I am aware it doesn't have an internal hard drive so u would have to have a PC running all the time to watch films or pay to stream them from Itunes I have a problem with all Apple products because they use file types that can't be used on anything which doesn't have Itunes on it, I am currently looking for an origonal Xbox to replace my old Ellion with.

Oh I forgot as far as using a pc directly as a media centre Windows 7 comes with Windows media centre built in, also most fairly modern video cards have sound on them which is used when u plug a DVI to HDMI converter plug into them this is how I am using my ATI HD4870 card and it works well, but I will be glad when I have my 5.1 sound system working again and computer going through the SVGA socket as the focus is better through the SVGA socket at the higher resolutions, that might just be my TV as it was only £300 a couple of years ago.

LaCie's "LaCinema (http://www.lacie.com/uk/more/?id=10088)" range may be of interest. If so then don't buy directly from them as you'll get cheaper elsewhere.

What is your laptop running? If its Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 then it will probably already have Windows Media Centre installed.
So all you need to do is plug your laptop into your HDTV and you've got a media centre! You might also want to get a wireless mouse and possibly keyboard and maybe even a windows media centre remote like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emprex-3009URF-Windows-Center-Control/dp/B002A8HEFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1271588148&sr=8-1

Your PS3 and Sky HD don't really have anything to do with a media centre.
If you want to go the whole hog then you could get an AV receiver like this
http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/onkyo/txsr308/onky-txsr308-blk

and a set of surround speakers like this
http://www.richersounds.com/product/speaker-packages/q-acoustics/1010i-5.1/qaco-1010i-5.1-pack

Then you plug in your PS3, Sky HD and laptop and you've got a full on media centre set-up. Any games and films you play through your PS3 and PC will be hugely enhanced by the surround sound! :)

What is your laptop running? If its Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 then it will probably already have Windows Media Centre installed.
So all you need to do is plug your laptop into your HDTV and you've got a media centre! You might also want to get a wireless mouse and possibly keyboard and maybe even a windows media centre remote like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emprex-3009URF-Windows-Center-Control/dp/B002A8HEFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1271588148&sr=8-1

Your PS3 and Sky HD don't really have anything to do with a media centre.
If you want to go the whole hog then you could get an AV receiver like this
http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/onkyo/txsr308/onky-txsr308-blk

and a set of surround speakers like this
http://www.richersounds.com/product/speaker-packages/q-acoustics/1010i-5.1/qaco-1010i-5.1-pack

Then you plug in your PS3, Sky HD and laptop and you've got a full on media centre set-up. Any games and films you play through your PS3 and PC will be hugely enhanced by the surround sound! :)

the original post was back in 2007, its doubtful they will have Windows 7, they MAY have Vista but thats unlikely..

I've been doing research on media cetres for a while now, I even brought and took back an Emprex one they are not very good at all, I would stear well clear.

Sounds like an NDLA-compliant NAS would be a best-fit solution to the OP's requirements (date of post acknowledged and all).

Add inexpensive media players (WD TV-like affairs) as required, noting that most consoles (PS3/XB360) and a lot of medium-to-high-end TV sets now have built-in (NDLA) media players that would make these redundant anyway.

L00b, I think you mean DNLA, not NDLA ;)

Still, true... :)