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HTPC

A Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC) is a computer with components added that combine home theater functions into one box. Whereas most PCs are designed to output audio and video to their own monitors and speaker systems, HTPCs are designed to connect directly to home audio arrays and TVs. For example, most standard PCs would include only a VGA or DVI interface for outputting video to a monitor, but an HTPC would likely also have one or more HDMI ports to send HD video to an HDTV and 7.1 surround sound to a sound system. Home theater applications that can be taken on by an HTPC can include functioning as a DVD and/or Blu-ray player, cable box, DVR, and media server.

The main drawback to these machines is price point – each of these functions requires additional hardware to be added to the box. Also, if the user expects to store a lot of HD video for playback, the HTPC would need as much storage space as it could get; some manufactures include up to a terabyte of hard drive space. These additions are all on top of the high-end parts needed if the HTPC is intended to be both a media center and a high performance PC.

To get the most of an HTPC, it would have to be connected to an HDTV, which may be impractical for home office use. Many HTPCs can communicate to several different screens, but that requires either cables to be strung to it or wireless media center extenders. However, streaming large files like HD video to several screens at once can hamper performance. On the upside, many HTPCs also include their own remote controls and interfaces that run alongside their computer operating systems.

 

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