This is only my second post to the Media Center channel. My first one was published after I had purchased my first Plasma TV. This one is to detail the further evolution of my entertainment system.

Call it creative re-use of old hardware, but I found something to do with an old Compaq Evo n400C laptop I had laying around. It’s a pretty pokey PC by today’s standards, but it runs, and I hated leaving it idle. At the same time, I’ve wanted to take advantage of the VGA-in on my Panasonic Plasma TV. So, ka-blam, my peanut butter got into my chocolate and the rest is history. What I mean to say is I used this old laptop in my home entertainment system. Mind you, this doesn’t give me really whiz-bang new capabilities, but it’s just another step in the evolution of my home entertainment system.

One of the reasons it took me a while to throw a PC into my media cabinet was the issue of how to use it from across the room. I had a Logitech wireless keyboard and trackball, but the cables and remote transceivers were rather ungainly and created more mess than they solved. Plus it was a full size keyboard and using it with a separate track ball was not very easy. I did some research and settled on the Belkin MediaPilot wireless keyboard.

The MediaPilot is a nifty wireless keyboard that has an integrated mouse in the form of a round directional pad (other side of the keyboard is a 3-button scroll wheel). It feels pretty natural to use, once you adjust to the pad and mouse-clicker combo. The laptop sized keyboard slides into a dock which connects to a USB port. While connected to the dock, the keyboard charges its internal NiMH batteries. Slide the keyboard out, and it communicates via 2.4GHz wireless RF, so it gets decent range. The keyboard can also be programmed to control a wide range of A/V components, which I won’t bother since I have that under control with my Logitech Harmony remote.

I had already done a proof-of-concept trial run with everything outside of the cabinet. The logical place to stash the Evo laptop was on top of my old VHS VCR (yes, VHS, and it is still flashing “12:00″ for nostalgia’s sake). I had already pulled the AC adapter and Cat5 cable through the back of the entertainment cabinet. Then I had to snake the VGA cable and Mini Stereo to RCA L/R cables through the cut out in the back of the cabinet and up underneath the front of the Plasma since the VGA and PC audio in connectors are on the front panel. The cables were just long enough to reach. The Belkin MediaPilot docking cradle sat right next to the laptop, nestled on top of my ReplayTV 5080 DVR.

Yes, I admit, this isn’t the slickest setup. But I now can stream media from all my other PCs into my living room, surf the net, you name it, on a full-fledged XP computer. While I can’t do any DVR functions on the PC, that was never a priority since I have two networked ReplayTV DVRs. I really wanted it for the media streaming and basic PC functionality, which it’s perfect for. I found the 1024 x 768 setting to be too hard to read, so I’ve set it to 800 x 600 for now. It’s cheesy, but I love to queue up some music in iTunes and turn on the visualization feature. Groovy baby.

I am debating about what my next step will be. Maybe some kind of ventilation system, because the heat build-up is getting noticable inside the cabinet. Perhaps just take the glass doors off the front? I am fascinated by the Slingbox by Sling Media. Have any of you tried one of those yet? The reviews are fairly positive so far. I’m also thinking about either building a full-fledged media PC in a small form factor box with SnapSteam BeyondTV, or just purchasing a Win MCE2005 box. Then again, I’m also considering getting a Mac Mini which I think would make a great media hub. But at least now, I can sit in my favorite chair and switch back and forth between channel surfing and web surfing.

What kind of interesting and creative media convergence projects have you all done?