I want to buy a Media Center PC to record television programmes. How much hard disk space should it have?
AnswerLike any kind of video recording, recorded television takes up plenty of disk space. Exactly how much space is used depends on the quality of the recording. You can select Good, Better, or Best quality. Media Center uses 3GB per hour at the Best setting, 2GB per hour for Better, and 1GB per hour for Best.Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 – Recording quality: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/…/guide/recordset.mspxA 160GB hard drive has approximately 140GB free space after Windows is installed and space has been reserved for the Pause TV function. That much free space provides 47 hours of recorded TV at the Best setting. That should be sufficient for most needs given that most people will delete most of the recorded programmes after they have been watched. Instead of deleting the programmes you want to keep, you can burn them to DVD discs, so make sure that the Media Center PC comes with a DVD writer that supports double-layer DVD+R DL or DVD-R DL (double-layer) di
