Think about your ideal entertainment system. Underneath your thumb would be your DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, iTunes library, streaming Netflix connection, video games, cable TV, AM/FM radio, and, what the heck, Pandora. Underneath your other thumb is a giant bowl of raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream. You need everything to work through a single remote control and fire up quickly at the touch of a button, lest your Saturday morning breakfast melt away in a delicious mess.

Here’s the hardware I used to reach this goal*:

• Samsung HDTV. Based on what I saw in the store, this brand gives you the clearest quality for the price. If you’re going to shop around, pay attention to dynamic contrast ratios and how many HDMI inputs it has. Mine is a 40” 720p, which can be had for around $700 on Amazon. Expect to pay a little more if you want 1080p.
• Raspberry Rumble Ice Cream. The mere passing thought of this delectable combination if raspberries and chocolate chunks is enough to make a grown man babble incoherently, try as he might to hide his weakness in front of his coworkers. Excuse me while I discretely call up the Schwann man.
• Dell Zino HD. The size of a Mac Mini for less coin (these start at $229). I equipped mine with Blu-Ray, a graphics card, a sound card and extra ram for a total of $528. The Mac Mini has none of this and starts at $600. Easy decision.
• Panasonic audio system. The brand doesn’t matter as long as it’s high wattage (for a more rounded sound), supports 5.1 surround, upscales your DVDs and has an HDMI input.
• HDMI cables. Don’t get ‘em at the store, the markup is incredible. Here’s one currently at $0.21 (yes, that’s twenty-one cents).
• Router. You don’t want to send Pandora buffering when your roommate gets on ESPN 360, do you? Most routers handle traffic poorly, and I’ve never seen a Netgear or D-Link last over a year. Most of them have a high rate of packet loss, which happens behind-the-scenes and negatively affects your internet speed. With all those bits flying around, I can’t stress enough the importance of a high-speed and high-quality router. I recommend the Apple Airport Extreme.
• Logitech Harmony Remote. The universal remote wars are over, and Logitech won. I got mine for $40 refurbished. Plug this baby into your computer, enter in all your devices, and let it set up your “activities”. From then on, all you have to do is press “Play Xbox 360” and it fires up all your devices sets them to the right inputs for what you want to do. No more hunting down six different controllers and replacing all those batteries.
• Velcro cable ties. Nothing detracts from an otherwise slick-looking setup than a snake’s nest behind it all. Take the time to wrap everything in these so they’re easier to manage and don’t cause magnetic interference with each other.
• 3-Port HDMI Switch. If your TV doesn’t have enough HDMI ports to handle your cable box, game console, DVD player, Blu-Ray player and Media PC, grab one of these switches. Once you program it into your Logitech Harmony, throw the factory remote in a drawer somewhere and forget it even exists.
• iPhone / iPod Touch. This will come in handy when you want to have a deep level of control over your media PC – see “Air Mouse” below.
• USB IR Receiver. Allows your remote to control programs on your media PC. I haven’t actually bought one of these yet, instead using my iPhone to do the controlling.

Software you might need on your media PC:

• Air Mouse Pro. This turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a touchpad and touch keyboard for your media PC. Really, really cool – their web site has details. Hat tip to my brother for recommending this one.
• Boxee. Gives you a sweet full-screen interface for accessing tons of video and audio content, both on and off your PC. Includes an excellent Pandora application.
• Hulu Desktop. Incredible application for viewing all of Hulu in fullscreen from your couch.
• CartoonNetwork.com. Specifically, Adventure Time. Those hypnotic wavy arms pair nicely with a bowl of Lucky Charms, or a second heaping bowl of Raspberry Rumble Ice Cream from Schwann.
• CyberLink PowerDVD or other Blu-Ray software, if your media PC has a Blu-Ray drive. Windows won’t play your BD titles without it. Usually included if you have the drive factory-installed (like in the Zino).
• Windows 7 Ultimate. I’m not sure if you necessarily need Ultimate for a media PC, but I can vouch for 7’s quality – the video and audio drivers are rock-solid and the interface doesn’t get in your way. Turn off the power-saving features, screen saver and taskbar notifications and forget there’s even a PC playing your movie.
• TightVNC. Allows you to administer your media PC from another computer, for things like windows updates or software installations. For the mac, check out Chicken of the VNC, which needs to change its name.
• µTorrent. For all of those, you know, torrents.

There you have it, A/V nirvana. Just don’t ask a geek friend for help installing, unless it’s me, and you’re offering ice cream and cartoons.

* Disclaimer: the Amazon and iTunes links in this post are affiliate-linked. Support this blog by purchasing anything through them (at no additional cost to you), or feel free to delete the “gavinsstu-20” tag from your address bar on Amazon if you’d rather I eat Spam for supper.