It’s been nearly 6 months since I’ve blogged any decent updates about my dealings with my Media Centre. 

I’m very happy to report that using my Media Centre to Host a Virtual Machine has worked really well.  I’ve nearly crunched the ~220 DVDs that I own into Divx.  I would have finished by now, except I keep buying new DVDs.  The VM has also assumed quite a few other roles since it’s inception, and I’ll probably come back and blog more about that.  But it’s working beautifully, I can run whatever I like within the VM and keep the Media Centre sterile.

I do/did have one concern though.  I’ve heard from a variety of sources that Readyboost and Media Centre make a really good combination.  I’m a little concerned though, I have this fear of breaking off a USB key (or the unpleasantness of it hanging out the front/side of my beautiful looking case).  So I did some research and found the “INNODISK 4GB USB 2.0 FLASH DRIVE” from  Aus PC-Market.  It looks perfect, just plug it into a USB header on the motherboard and no unsightly messiness.

If you are thinking of building a Media Center, Paul has a really good post on Silent PC Design Fundamentals, it pretty much ‘notes from the field’ that both of us used when building our own boxes.

Other than that, everything is sweet and I couldn’t possibly imagine life without a Media Centre — so now I need to sit back, relax and wait for the TV Internet goodness of Joost.