Media 'Centre' Setup Pictures

[mobiusnz]

whats the deal with all these rebates in the US - is it some sort of Tax "hole" or something. I've never understood it - I've seen things for $39 - send in the voucher and get $39 back??? FREE, whats the deal.

[lonegeek]

Yeah, yeah but you're limited to how many you can post here..

why not just host them on imageshack.....then you can put as many pics in a thread as you want

[User]

I hate rebates, I wish they would just sell products for a price and be done with it. I avoid rebates if at all possible.

[sub]

How about no payments until the year 2007

That I'd hate. I like paying for thing when I get them. Nothing worse than paying for something that has massively devalued, or you no longer user.

[Torque]

I hate financing things... basically if I can't afford it, I don't buy it (with the exception of auto and house). My wife had picked out some living room furniture (revision 3.0 LOL) and we had to use the free financing because they couldn't get my debit card to run thru. I wasn't about to pay their delivery charge or drive all the way back the next day with the truck again. I think the guy "couldn't" run my card because he probably got some type of commission for signing me up for the one year same as cash deal. haha I bet they were pist when the first statement they sent out came back paid in full. :p

[daphatty]

I think the guy "couldn't" run my card because he probably got some type of commission for signing me up for the one year same as cash deal. haha I bet they were pist when the first statement they sent out came back paid in full. :p

I would have told them to forget the deal then. That usually brings unscrupulous sales people to their knees.

[Torque]

I would have told them to forget the deal then. That usually brings unscrupulous sales people to their knees.

"My wife had picked out some living room furniture" end of story.

Actually, I did just about walk out (and they weren't going to stop me) before thinking about having to drive all the way back there with the truck and trailer. Easier to just go ahead and finance it and then pay it off. I just hated having debt for soemthing like that

[daphatty]

"My wife had picked out some living room furniture" end of story.

Oh, believe me I know how that can be. I guess I took for granted that my wife would have probably lead the way out the door. We've trained ourselves to pay cash for everything (except the obvious of course.)

[dgeezer]

whats the deal with all these rebates in the US - is it some sort of Tax "hole" or something. I've never understood it - I've seen things for $39 - send in the voucher and get $39 back??? FREE, whats the deal.

I guess the main reason companies like them is that a certain percentage of people don't ever file for the rebate at all or do something wrong and don't get the rebate.

Rebates are a bit of a tax dodge if you own a small business and are buying office supplies, printer ink or computer repair parts ( big hard drives etc.) at the office supply store. This is probably why Staples and office depot are just full of rebates.

BTW, my wife finally gave in and we bought a new 42" TV at circuit city a coupkle weeks ago. As soon as the salesman started in on the extended warranty spiel I said OK. This made him happy and made the deal go very quick and smooth. I stopped by the store a few days later and got a full refund on the warranty with no questions asked in about 3 minutes.

[weisguy]

I am just a little bit humbled by some of the beautiful setups some of you have documented. Here are three views of mine:

A general overview: The PC case is situated behind the entertainment center. The only exposed pieces under normal circumstances are the infared sensor which runs just under the lower left edge of the television and the external DVD drive. One of the main selling points for me on GB-PVR was the integrated DVD player, which allowed me to get rid of the component DVD player and replace it with the small footprint of a DVD drive. The VCR has received 1 hours' use since I built the PVR but I keep it there to avoid an empty hole:



Because my entertainment center is a cheap put-it-together kit (and honestly on the ugly side) I didn't mind drilling a new hole in the back of one of the cubby's to hold a mini USB keyboard and optical mouse, which works surprisingly well on carpet. My office and living room share a wall with a coax cable outlet faceplate on each side, allowing me to sneak a CAT-5 under the edge of the faceplate to hard-wire the LAN. I explored wireless, but pulling 1.5 GB recordings off took too long. System administration can also be accomplished remotely (home PC or anywhere on the Internet) via UltraVNC. In fact once I was playing with the PVR while at work and my girlfriend had come home from work unexpectedly early. She was trying to watch TV and told me to cut it out. : )



Finally, the ugly view from behind. I have a Shuttle ST62K bare-bones case with integrated graphics. It has a fanless external power supply so's things stay very quiet. Of important technical note, the red paddle thing in front is a "snappy trainer" which, along with the elegant angled board, keeps the cats out of the nest of wires:




-wg