Besides the regular keyboard, mouse, monitor and speaker setups, you have to consider things like hooking up the FM antenna, infrared receivers, as well as connecting the machine to an antenna, cable or a satellite box for television signals. A Media Centre computer is a more elaborate machine to install than a standard PC, but HP provides a walkthrough chart with diagrams of where each cable has to be plugged in, so it's hard to get things mixed up. It does everything a high-end desktop computer should - as well as many things the average high-end desktop can't - and has a wealth of multimedia features. I checked out the HP Photosmart Media Center PC model m380n, and overall I was impressed with this computer. Hewlett-Packard's Media Center PCs are a boon to techies with a penchant for multimedia, but we still haven't reached the point where a computer can easily meet all the living room needs of the average couch-dweller. The Verdict: A machine that can handle gaming, just about any type of desktop work, as well as act as a multimedia centre, but it's still a bit complex for the average living room.

The Bad: Noisy long boot time still a Windows XP computer underneath it all, not a simple-to-use home entertainment appliance lots of pre-loaded services mean hard-core gamers will have to do some streamlining to the boot file to get the most performance out of the system.The Good: Wealth of multimedia features fabulous personal video recorder functions works as both and entertainment centre and a high-end work/gaming machine.

Hp media player software