Media Center Hardware Requirements

Media Center requires a fair amount of firepower to sling all those video and audio bits around, plus you’ll need some extra equipment to take full advantage of all the Media Center features. Here’s the list:

• A powerful graphics card for smoothly displaying and buffering moving images, particularly DVDs, live TV, and recorded TV. Video memory is crucial here, so don’t skimp: your graphics card should have at least 256MB of onboard RAM, or even 512MB for high definition (HD) video.

• Video output jacks that are compatible with the video input jacks on your TV, assuming you want to display Media Center content on a nearby set. For standard video, this usually means component (red, green, and blue), composite ...

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