A brief history of home theater PCs

In a fit of nostalgia, Mike Garcen over at Missing Remote took a trip down memory lane and wrote up a brief history of HTPC technology.

If you're a long time tinkerer, you've probably been finding ways to watch TV on your PC since the late 90s. I'll never forget the thrill of installing my first ATI All-in-Wonder card, only to realize that garbage in = garbage out. I didn't have cable at the time, and trying to encode digital video from bunny ears wasn't the smartest move I'd ever made.

Ironically, 8 years later I've just picked up an HDTV antenna in the hopes of recording over-the-air high definition signals with a PCI TV tuner.

Garcen also takes a look at some early HTPC cases, remote controls, and HDTV sets you may have had your eye on back in 1996.