Today I made my first steps towards a Media Centre PC. AC Nielsen gave me a $100 gift card which I needed to use before April 2010, so I decided to buy something I probably wouldn’t have purchased otherwise. So I purchased a $99 Pinnacle Dazzle *TV 71e stick from Dick Smith. This stick doesn’t work on my laptop yet. The Release Candidate version of Windows 7 and Windows Media Center mustn’t support my stick, because it works fine on the final version of Windows 7 on other laptops in the house. So next week when I install Windows 7 Professional onto my system, It will work.

I’m also going to buy two 500GB hard drives and this will mean I can record and store shows on it. My sister wants me to record Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl (I can hear Caitlin and Ashlee cheering from here at the sound of those words :P) and then using Windows 7 Homegroups, share it directly to her Windows Media Center.

This is also the first time I’ll have digital TV in my house, access to 7Two, Go! and ABC2.  The other final thing I have to do is buy an extension aerial cable so I can use the roof aerial, because the little tiny one doesn’t give me the coverage sadly.

So yea – I’m excited, I’m basically getting a TiVO for $120 instead of $699 – screw that Freeview and your non recording ways! As Uncle Leo says “Screw You!”