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General discussion

Sugestion Forum ?

Sep 25, 2007 7:23PM PDT

I have 3 quick questions:

How do I ask/submit a question for the community news letter?
(write to Lee?)

How do I request a product review of a product not yet covered?
(Saw this in another thread wit an answer of write the reviewers, but I still think a product review suggestion box/forum could be useful. The dark-side of this is you may get spammed from companies wanting free press)

How do I submit a request for a weekend project?

Discussion is locked

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Not sure about the last two, but
Sep 25, 2007 8:51PM PDT

to ask a question for the Community Newsletter you can use this email address; messageboards AT cnet.com

I've removed the formatting to avoid forum robots picking up the email address for spamming.

To recommend a product for review I found this, How to recommend a product. I don't know how helpful that would be.

What weekend project do you have in mind?

Mark

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Weekend home project - Build a budget media center
Sep 25, 2007 9:24PM PDT

I was thinking of something along the lines of how to build your own budget home media center PC.

I've got pretty low spec requirements for this because I don't want to break the bank.
a slim small suitable case would be a plus and other key features I would like it to have would be:
A Big HD for recording video >=500GB
either 512 or 1GB of Ram
A DVD Burner Drive
Bluetooth (for keyboard and mouse)
Some Video card that would take Video in (composite or S-Video)
Some Video card that would spit Video out (composite S-Vid or component. I don't own anything with HDMI so why bother/pay more)
Is there a combo card that does this?
Some chip, some mother board, some fan, some power supply

Now the tricky part it needs to have some sort of IR blaster and some sort of programmable EPG (electronic program guide)
I have Sat Box that is about 3-4 generations behind the rest of the world, the EPG that comes with it sucks. you can only see an hour into the future and you can't tell it to change channels for you, it will only pop up a reminder prompting you to.

So this IR blaster and software needs to tell the Sat box on Saturday Sept 29 at 2am tune the box to channel 57 and start recording for 2 hours.

Oh, I guess I'll need some sort of Media center like program for recording and playback too.

I don't need 27 point optical digitally enhanced surround sound.
i don't need HDMI.
I don't need to watch something else while it's recording.

What I basically need is a Digital VCR that will change the channel on my Sat Box and record for an amount of time.

Bonus points if this thing can set up weekly reoccurrences of recordings.

I'd mostly use it to tape things that are going on when I'm out of the house or in the middle of the night. I live in Thailand so Live events are frequently on at odd hours and I miss them.