Setup

The new computer we ordered came in today, so I thought I'd relay our setup. Keep this setup in mind as you make your decision about switching- you could easily tweak this setup to meet your needs/budget and get different results.

Dell Zino - This is an entry-level computer that Dell designed for media use. It has an HDMI output and a blu-ray player (optional). I upgraded the processor and video card to make sure media would play smoothly. I can give more specs if anyone is actually interested. ($640- this was with a big student discount and some significant upgrades including blu-ray which was $100. I think these computers start off under $300 and that would most likely be sufficient for decent quality video.)

Vizio 37" TV - basic flat screen tv (already owned)

Dell Keyboard (not wireless) & Microsoft wireless mouse - The keyboard came with the computer and the mouse is just the cheapest one I could find ($25). I wanted a wireless so we could basically use it as a remote.

Philips "amplified" HD antenna - This was about $25 at Wal-Mart. It gives us about 7 channels, 3-4 of which are HD. I got this so we'd still have local stations for news, sports, and special events (olympics, state of the union, etc). As far as I can tell, it works great.

So, all in, it cost us about $690. We'll save at least $48/mo and like I said, we were able to sell Amy's old computer to make our payback period about 4 months. You could definitely install a complete setup for much cheaper but you'd sacrifice some video quality. (Until now, we've been just plugging my laptop into a VGA cable running to the TV w/ another cable running for audio and it had worked great- the total cost for that was the cost of the VGA but we had no option for HD).

Feel free to e-mail me or just comment below if you have a question or thought (comments are automatically e-mailed to me). If you have a suggestion that would help me, that'd be great too.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on relaying my software setup which should be much more interesting as you could most likely replicate that on whatever computer you have now. After that, the posts should get much shorter.