DVD Drive: Asus DRW-1608P3S 16X DVD Writer (Rs. 2,450)
A DVD-writer is an important part of an HTPC and therefore care has to be taken while selecting your optical drive. In our case we choose Asus as this drive is an OEM product of Pioneer’s 111L drive and offers great compatibility with all kinds of DVD media. It can also be easily converted to a region free drive which will allow you to view any kind of DVD movie without any issue. As a writer, it has virtually no equals and will allow for seamless DVD authoring with a wide variety of media without quality issues.
TV Tuner: Compro VideoMate TV Gold Plus II (Rs 3,500)
Which HTPC is complete without a TV tuner? The answer in case you are still wondering is none. Though there are dozens of makes of TV tuners around, none of them quite have the feature set and performance of the Compro range of products.
The VideoMate TV Gold Plus II we have chosen here is a very comprehensive solution with a wide array of recording and playback functions. It not only tunes regular TV, it has support for FM too and plugins into the windows Media center overlay natively thereby making it a must have for our roundup. It even comes with an IR remote thereby eliminating the need for a dedicated HTPC remote.
Control: Microsoft Wireless Optical Keyboard and Mouse Combo (Rs. 1,500)
Though there are several media-center keyboard/mouse/remote combos, these are fairly expensive. Our choice of TV tuner, allows you to scroll through channels without any issues hence we have simply chosen to go with this wireless set which will give you that remote freedom you so desire
Cabinet: VIP ATX Cabinet with Integrated 400W PSU (Rs. 1,650)
There is not much to say here. VIP is a well known maker of ATX cabinets available in decent colors and well designed power supplies that are known for their reliability. It is an ideal product for building our HTPC on.
Windows Vista Home Premium (Rs. 15,500)
This is Microsoft’s latest OS and comes loaded with a new version of Media Center.







