Want to learn more about the technology?

What is a Home Theater PC?

A home theater PC uses your personal computer to bring all of your entertainment sources together to be displayed on your big-screen television using your surround sound system. Our media center PCs are stylishly designed and small, yet powerful enough to do it all. We put the units together and ship them to you. Integrated with your big-screen TV, you can:

• Stream Internet Content    • Play DVDs and Digital Music

• Play Photo Slideshows       • Record Television Programs

Media Center

A media center is a focused version of the home theater PC.  The operating system is designed specifically for the purpose of streaming internet content and rarely does any other work.  Like the HTPC it can stream movies and television, play music and show picture slideshows on your big screen TV.  Usually the Media Center does not have the ability to play DVDs or Blu-Rays but can play the “ripped” or digital versions such as MP4 or MKV files.  Also, the Media Center is normally a third or better the cost of an HTPC.

HDMI

is a digital video and audio cable. It is method for achieving HD quality video, but an audiophile will tell you that optical audio cables are still the best route for achieving quality audio streams. Read more about HDMI here on Wikipedia

S/PDIF

stands for Sony Phillips Digital Interconnect Format. This is the optical audio cable format used by most receivers and quality audio devices. Read more here on Wikipedia

QAM

stands for quadrature amplitude modulation, the format by which digital cable channels are encoded and transmitted via cable television providers. QAM tuners can be likened to the cable equivalent of an ATSC tuner which is required to receive over-the-air (OTA) digital channels broadcast by local television stations; many new cable-ready digital televisions support both of these standards. Although QAM uses the same 6 MHz bandwidth as ATSC, it carries about twice the data (38.47 Mbp/s @256QAM) due to the lack of error correction; however, this requires a significantly cleaner signal path, such as distribution through hybrid fiber-coax digital cable.  Read more here….