A Home Theatre PC (HTPC) or media centre PC is the centrepiece of the digital living room. The fact that it will reside in the living room puts unique demands on the device, such as an attractive design, being dead silent and being able to handle all common codecs.

You can install different OS'es on our Home Theatre PC system, such as Windows or Kodibuntu, a distribution with the popular media player software Kodi (the old XBMC) in its core. As a matter of fact, the choice for a 'real PC' offers more flexibility than you'll get with a Smart TV or media player. We keep it to the basics in this advice, but it's also possible to watch and record live TV with additional hardware.

Please note: the PC Buyer's Guide is compiled based on independent component tests performed by Hardware.Info. If no new, superior products are released that should replace one or more of the components, then the component(s) will remain the same as the previous month.