lister007 wrote:I'm thinking multimedia pc is the way to go here, not only will it be easily upgradable spec wise if I get the money, but codec wise it is the best option, really just find alot of media conversion timely and costly (reducing quality) ( putting things on dvd from any format takes alot of time imo and converting to mp4 for other things seems to suck also, even the best multimedia players I've seen will not play an mkv or vp6 files) can't think of a better way to go than a media pc.
If you have some spare parts lying around, and assuming that they are up to snuff, a multimedia PC is the best solution. You'll probably want a quiet, small case to put it in. And the processor should be powerful enough to handle H.264 decoding for the increasing number of MP4 videos available that use that codec.
lister007 wrote:Just out of interest how programable is the ps3, like for codecs and os? if I get one how easy is it to make modifications?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#LinuxAmong other Linux distributions, Ubuntu, Fedora Core 5, Gentoo, Debian, and Yellow Dog have been run on the PS3.
http://www.t3.co.uk/news/247/games/play ... ns_windows
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 0606286092 
(Warning, the google video is long, at almost 16 minutes.)
If you want a bigger hard drive, you can easily swap out the internal one with a standard 2.5" SATA 'notebook' drive like a 200GB 4500 rpm Toshiba model or a 160GB 5400 rpm one from WD, Seagate, or Hitachi. It will also recognize external USB 2.0 hard drives.
lister007 wrote:Also is the 360 an option, trying to get away from windows though.
Unless you are willing to do some actual hacking, not really.
http://www.hackaday.com/2007/03/20/xbox ... -released/
Plus, if the Xbox 360 gets updated and patched (which happens every few months if you have it connected to the network, or load a recently released game), then you're boned.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6164515.html