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[kstuart]

If I try to play video in MC20 while a TV program is recording on my main home theater PC, the PC sometimes hangs at the end of the video.  (My educated guess is that this is an overload problem, not a bug.)

So, I want to do the TV recording on a separate dedicated PC.  I tried this with an old laptop with a USB TV tuner and a USB external drive, but I found that if I used both devices at the same time, it created pixelation in the recordings.  (It worked without the external drive, but the internal drive is tiny.)  So the USB on the old laptop is also overloaded by doing both jobs at once.

So, in your experience OR opinion, what is the cheapest PC that will:

1) Run MC20 in Television mode
2) Run both USB tuner and USB external drive at the same time.

??

[Hilton]

Intel i3 NUCs: NUC5i3RYH or NUC5i3RYK or the previous 3rd Gen i3 NUCs. About $400 for new models and $350 for last gen without HDD/RAM and OS.

The Celeron DN2820FYKH NUC at half that price has just enough power to do it too but I haven't tested it enough to know for sure if its reliable.
It's certainly on the limit for playback using Red October Standard scaling 720 SD to 1080p HD.

You can also buy a complete standard desktop system EXCLUDING windows 8.1 for $400 with a Haswell Pentium G3240 that will do the job nicely.
ASUS Pentium G3240 3.1Ghz 4GB 1TB HD Computer PC - OR
Asus BT1AD-G32200212 Desktop Computer - Intel Pentium G3220 3 GHz - Ultra Small
(the Pentiums are neutered i3 with no hyper threading and only 2 cores but easily enough for the job.)

If you wait long enough the OEMs are starting to ship these same configs with the free Windows 8.1 Bing Desktop which makes them $100-$150 cheaper.

There's already some ugly looking HP NUC knockoffs with a Pentium.
http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/desktops/hp-pavilion-mini-desktop---300-020

I'm personally a fan of the Lenovo Tiny and use an older version of the Lenovo i7.
This one is the best config for the money that will easily do the job for $470 complete. These are the older 4th Gen Intel but are good value. The 5th gen must be due out in the next couple months though and probably with Windows 8.1 Bing to stay competitive. Will probably be cheaper too.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-tiny/m73/

[paul.raulerson]

A lot of times you can pick up extraordinary deals on PCs from BestBuy and/or Amazon.  I found an Acer with an I3-4160, 6mb RAM, 1TB spinning drive, licensed with Windows 8.1 for $149 delivered yesterday. One of their 4-Hour 'Flash' sales. 

That is, I feel, a pretty good deal, and plenty good enough to do video with MC.  You don't find those deals everyday, but they pop up much more often than one would think. Two or three times per week. There are apps that will monitor sites for the lowest prices too.

-Paul