Comment on Cord Cutters: Turn Your PC Into a Media Center by John

Another PC option is to buy a relatively inexpensive nettop optimized for use in a media center. I recently bought an Acer AspireRevo, which has an HDMI out jack, an Atom CPU, and an Nvidia video chip optimized to run video offloaded from the main CPU, such as Flash has done since version 10.1. It's about the size of a large router, and either stands on its end, or can be mounted on the back of your TV/monitor if mounting holes are present. I installed Boxee from the beginning, which has worked great for streaming various web videos, although it has been partially blocked from Hulu. I bought the 3200 model of the Revo for $300 right before it was phased out, but even the current 3700 is selling for only around $350. Admittedly, the much cheaper Boxee or Roku boxes would allow me access to much the same video content, but when there is a block for whatever reason, I've been able to revert to a regular browser and view to my heart's content. And with both Hulu and Netflix, the browser has been my main avenue of viewing. With Flash 10.1 and the Nvidia chip, I've had no problem viewing even high def videos. For a remote, I've installed both HippoRemote and the Boxee remote apps on my iPod Touch. Hippo has specialized setups for various apps and web sites, including Boxee, and I use it almost exclusively. The SAF (spouse acceptance factor) may limit our just yet cutting the cord, plus the fact shows like _Walking Dead_ have no free immediate streaming option, but it's definitely possible. Thanks for _Cord Cutters_!

Comment on Cord Cutters: Turn Your PC Into a Media Center by John

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