Appendix 1. Multimedia PC Entertainment System Networking
Chapter Syllabus
Multimedia PC Entertainment System Components
Multimedia PC Entertainment System Functions
Networking a Multimedia PC Entertainment System
Summary
Key Technical Terms
Review Questions
An emerging PC application is multimedia PC entertainment. Such systems use a large flat-panel monitor, a multimedia PC with 5.1 surround sound, DVD drive, and a TV tuner graphics card to perform multimedia entertainment center functions. What is an executive office without a TV and music? So, as a bonus, we need to look at multimedia PC entertainment systems.
Multimedia PC entertainment systems display TV programs and DVD movies, surf the Web, encode and play MP3 music, and much more. Once you have a television controlled by a PC there is no going back to regular TV. It is convenient to be able to surf the Web and check the weather radar, or go to the NBC Web site for details on a TV story while at the same time watching TV. A 42-inch plasma monitor helps as well by providing sufficient space to view TV and Web sites simultaneously. The PC permits taking pictures from the TV, recording programs on disk for instant playback, writing e-mail while viewing, and other functions. This is a way too cool application of PC and SOHO LAN technologies.
Among the entertainment functions such a system performs are that it:
Plays television programs from a TV antenna or cable TV source
Records TV programs for later playback
Captures images from TV programs
Plays DVDs
Plays MP3 files
Plays CD audio discs
Rips CD audio discs into MP3 files
Surfs the Web
Acts as an e-mail system
Gets digital images from new digital cameras (requires digital camera)
Acts as a security monitoring system using new Web cameras (requires Web cameras and software)
Prints images in color (requires color printer)
Runs essential applications like Microsoft Streets 2002, Quicken, and more
These functions and the components that support them are examined in detail in this chapter. This chapter shows how to build and use such a multimedia entertainment PC. Connecting a multimedia entertainment center PC to the Internet using a SOHO network is discussed.