One of the other things I wanted to write about was the low cost HTPC I am helping my brother-in-law build.  Not only is cost a factor, but also connectivity.  He’s got a wireless router and could have a hard line ethernet to his entertainment center, but we ain’t there just yet.

I took his PC home to download and install some of the things I talked about before.  This is a really old PC; it doesn’t have any USB or ethernet on it.  I’ll be curious to see what speed processor it is.   It doesn’t even had AGP so I have an older PCI card with RCA video out on it.  I guess that will work.  I plan on building it and trying it out.

The other option I pitched to him was to get an old XBOX and use XBMC.  With the softmods available, it would be easy to hack for that purpose.  He’s not a gamer in the least bit, so an old xbox with XBMC might be the best. Then he’ll just have to worry about connectivity.  I’ll update my progress as I begin.  It will probably be tomorrow or the next night when I have a chance to start hammering on it.