Slashdot Mirror

I am currently testing SageTV as well, and I'm very tempted to buy the package. It does require some extensive tweaking and adjustments. But by and large it's EPG is non subscription and it's intelligent recording has already guessed that I like Family Guy and Futurama. (Neither I have chosen to record with it yet.)

As I understand it there is also a fairly worthy package called Meedio Pro, who's technology was purchased by Yahoo. http://www.meedio.com/home.html I haven't
tested it yet, but I will before I decide which to buy.

Seeing as I had Meedio before it was taken by Yahoo and beaten into submission, I would like to comment on how it has changed and why it's useless. First, I preface all this by saying it is still labeled beta and unless they stripped out the customization code (which I highly doubt), it may find its way back in there. In that same breath however, I doubt that they will allow the type of customization Meedio allowed. Customization such as rearranging the menu, adding your own submenus, themes, customizing a certain screen of a theme, editing the library file dbs so you could manually add a field and then build a view to use in a theme. Beautiful things Meedio did. It had a USB-UIRT plugin that worked beautifully with my Harmony Remote and all was well.

Now Yahoo got their grubby paws on it and destroyed. Although the interface itself is indeed faster than Meedio was, the customization is completely gone and as was mentioned, it destroys some functionality.

NOTE: Those yucks at Yahoo must have left registry keys the same as Meedio because Go! destroyed my Meedio install so that I had to do a clean install, and even after that, my weather section is perpetually screwed (I have to find the key or something that is causing it to crash)

For all you out there....I am SURE now that Meedio has stopped releasing new versions, you will be able to find a hacked copy of Meedio out there. I suggest you do and try it out, you'll be impressed. I stress the urgency because the forums and the 3rd party plugin site is still up and running although I don't know for how long. http://www.meedio.com/MAID and http://www.meedio.com/forum.

Thanks for screwing up a good thing Yahoo!, yet another reason I will not touch your crap with a 12 foot pole.

Seeing as I had Meedio before it was taken by Yahoo and beaten into submission, I would like to comment on how it has changed and why it's useless. First, I preface all this by saying it is still labeled beta and unless they stripped out the customization code (which I highly doubt), it may find its way back in there. In that same breath however, I doubt that they will allow the type of customization Meedio allowed. Customization such as rearranging the menu, adding your own submenus, themes, customizing a certain screen of a theme, editing the library file dbs so you could manually add a field and then build a view to use in a theme. Beautiful things Meedio did. It had a USB-UIRT plugin that worked beautifully with my Harmony Remote and all was well.

Now Yahoo got their grubby paws on it and destroyed. Although the interface itself is indeed faster than Meedio was, the customization is completely gone and as was mentioned, it destroys some functionality.

NOTE: Those yucks at Yahoo must have left registry keys the same as Meedio because Go! destroyed my Meedio install so that I had to do a clean install, and even after that, my weather section is perpetually screwed (I have to find the key or something that is causing it to crash)

For all you out there....I am SURE now that Meedio has stopped releasing new versions, you will be able to find a hacked copy of Meedio out there. I suggest you do and try it out, you'll be impressed. I stress the urgency because the forums and the 3rd party plugin site is still up and running although I don't know for how long. http://www.meedio.com/MAID and http://www.meedio.com/forum.

Thanks for screwing up a good thing Yahoo!, yet another reason I will not touch your crap with a 12 foot pole.

If you want freeview going through a pc (the DIY part) then get a freeview pci card or usb box and plug it in. You can use Myth on Linux, or various solutions on Windows XP such MS Media centre, Media Portal, (I was going to add Meedio, but it seems they've been bought out by Yahoo), Snapstreams "Beyond TV".

If you're on linux, then you could use the Hardware compatibility list at LinuxQuestions to help in choosing a card.

There is a nice selection of DVB-T cards available at DVBSHOP in Germany, which I have used, and they are pretty good with quick orders. They also sell Common Interfaces for some of the DVB-T cards so you can add a TopUp TV CAM and smart card and get subscriber stuff.

Ok, so you have to build the box yourself, but that's DIY for ya !

If you can be bothered, here's a list of my media centre related bookmarks -

Bookmarks

media centre

If you want freeview going through a pc (the DIY part) then get a freeview pci card or usb box and plug it in. You can use Myth on Linux, or various solutions on Windows XP such MS Media centre, Media Portal, (I was going to add Meedio, but it seems they've been bought out by Yahoo), Snapstreams "Beyond TV".

If you're on linux, then you could use the Hardware compatibility list at LinuxQuestions to help in choosing a card.

There is a nice selection of DVB-T cards available at DVBSHOP in Germany, which I have used, and they are pretty good with quick orders. They also sell Common Interfaces for some of the DVB-T cards so you can add a TopUp TV CAM and smart card and get subscriber stuff.

Ok, so you have to build the box yourself, but that's DIY for ya !

If you can be bothered, here's a list of my media centre related bookmarks -

Bookmarks

media centre

• Coolermaster Cavalier 2 case
  
• ABIT KV8 ATX AMD Motherboard (any motherboard with SPDIF out works fine)
  
• AMD Sempron 2600+
  
• Corsair Value Select 512mb (I've since added another 512)
  
• Any Radeon 9600 or higher. Must support ATI dongle. I have a Radeon 9600 SE.
  
• ATI Component Video Dongle (there are better options for video now)
  
• 2 Logitech Rumblepad 2 game controllers
  
• Windows XP (or Linux)
  
• Meedio (or MythTV)
  

There's a number of options for frontend and OS. There's obviously MythTV on Linux, Windows Media Center on Windows XP, etc. I'm personally running Meedio on Windows XP.

Before people start talking about how a Tivo and DVD player will do all the same stuff, keep in mind that there's far more applications for a HTPC. There's plugins to check weather, play games (emulation), look at traffic reports, get sports scores and highlights, and much more.

I built my HTPC for around $400 plus hard drives (I'm around 1.5TB, which holds all the TV shows I want and the movies that I own). I just built one for a friend for $1000 which included 600GB of hard drive space and 2 wireless controllers (Logitech Rumblepad 2's work great for controlling the system and playing most emulator games). The really cool part is you can upscale movies if you want. I'd like to see someone get a Tivo (+ lifetime subscription) and DVD player capable of upscaling for $1000, completely ignoring the fact that it can do so many other things.

I've seen tom's being used for HTPC articles on /. before. But fact is there are better more in depth sources of HTPC information online. These sites and software are dedicated to HTPC and all the of the options associated.

Check these out:
http://www.htpcnews.com/

In particular their forums:
http://www.htpcnews.com/forums/index.php

Some great software:
http://www.meedio.com/
http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/

In response to the question asking if you can build this for under $200? I have a friend that used a 733mhz P2 with a lower end capture card, the two pieces of software above, a firefily remote (http://www.snapstream.com/products/firefly/) and a bit of reading on those forums.

In short he has an HTPC up and running that cost less than $200 CDN and has more tweakability (is that a word?) than most tivos.

A.C.

• The ability to download shows and run them from the HTPC, similar to the DVR but without requiring a capture card. Also provides a nice interface to give show/season/episode info.
  
• The ability to load all my movies onto the server (I encode as xvid to save storage). Browse movies by genre, title, etc and have the cover image on screen. No need to load a disk.
  
• Weather info
  
• Emulators. Mine has NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64, but there's many more. I have 2 wireless controllers and can play any game I want, at any time, without having to hunt down the actual cartridge.
  
• Home Automation. You know, controlling lights, thermostat, cameras, etc.
  
• RSS feeds for news, sports scores, etc.
  
• Streaming Shoutcast stations for a wide variety of audio.
  
• Neat tricks like having callerID info pop up onscreen so you don't have to look at the phone itself.
  
• Email. You can read/send via POP/SMTP or Exchange.
  
• Lots more.
  

• The ability to download shows and run them from the HTPC, similar to the DVR but without requiring a capture card. Also provides a nice interface to give show/season/episode info.
  
• The ability to load all my movies onto the server (I encode as xvid to save storage). Browse movies by genre, title, etc and have the cover image on screen. No need to load a disk.
  
• Weather info
  
• Emulators. Mine has NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64, but there's many more. I have 2 wireless controllers and can play any game I want, at any time, without having to hunt down the actual cartridge.
  
• Home Automation. You know, controlling lights, thermostat, cameras, etc.
  
• RSS feeds for news, sports scores, etc.
  
• Streaming Shoutcast stations for a wide variety of audio.
  
• Neat tricks like having callerID info pop up onscreen so you don't have to look at the phone itself.
  
• Email. You can read/send via POP/SMTP or Exchange.
  
• Lots more.
  

Commercial Products and Services:

ReplayTV: TiVo's ancient nemesis, it also 'just works'. I can't say whether it is more user friendly than TiVo, but it is far more customer friendly.

Windows XP Media Center Edition: Yes, them. Choose from multiple manufacturers but expect to face Microsoft Corp's version of the 'personal' computing experience.

Hardware vendors are now pushing DVD/HD Recording devices quite a bit. RCA, Motorola and Panasonic have products available.

Service Providers like Comcast and DishTV are now providing time shifting hardware and tv-on-demand solutions. Check with your choice of cable or satellite service provider.

Hobbyist Solutions:

MythTV: The Open Source, Do-It-Yourself DVR. Expect to build your own machine and play around a bit before it works the way you want. (Linux)

Freevo: MythTV, but not. (Linux)

MediaPortal: Who ever said Open Source was limited to Linux software? (Windows)

Meedio: It was a community based freeware product (myHTPC) that morphed into a commercial product without warning. Still a reasonable alternative to Microsoft for PVR function on the Windows platform. (Windows)

eyeTV: This Mac product has me seriously considering picking up a Mini-Mac to use as a media center. (Apple)

SnapStream (Windows)

SageTV (Windows)

Chris-TV (Windows)

ShowShifter (Windows)

On a personal note, I purchased the ReplayTV when it was first released and am entirely satisfied with it. Plus, by purchasing early I have never had to pay a subscription fee for data that is freely available elsewhere. If there had been a subscription fee I would not have purchased it.

Dan

Well, I can't recommend a self contained unit because I have yet to find one that meets my needs. Nothing seems to play ALL the stuff I have and most importantly, many of the solutions out there are difficult to use or have significant limitations. I can, however, recommend a piece of software that can be "hacked" to make it whatever you want.

My network setup is simple. I have a server on my network that holds (4) categories of media. Pictures, movies (SVCD, DiVX, XViD, etc), TV shows (same as movies), and Music collection (mp3). I also play the occasional internet radio station. I wanted ONE box next to my TV that allows me to play all of the above through my home theatre, thus freeing me from burning DVD's to play on my Philips 642.

So anyway, I decided to use a standard computer with S-video out and digital audio out. Both video and audio go directly into my home theatre receiver. The HTPC computer is controlled by a $29 streamzap remote control. Now the trick to this whole deal is finding an interface that I can use with a remote (this is the wife test!). I don't want to use a mouse or keyboard at all. (sidenote: have you ever tried to use windows using nothing more than a remote? good luck.)

After, literally, 6 months of searching, I accidentally found this. I am not associated with these guys in any way shape or form but I can say that their software is pretty slick. Basically, it's a Tivo-like frontend that you can customize A LOT. There are plug-ins to do all kinds of things, like weather and news. And best of all, it's designed for use with a remote so you don't need a mouse or keyboard at all. So after about 4 hours of customizing, I have it setup to do the following:

- everyday (at 4am), it goes out to my shared media folders and imports any new items in those folders into the Meedio library. Movies, TV shows, pictures, and music. Note: it only imports new items since the last import. And for movies, I have many movies that are (2) files. Meedio will combine the two files into one entry, which is nice.

- for movies, it goes out and auto-downloads cover art and IMDB info

- everyday, it downloads weather info (including animated radar)

- everyday, it downloads the Streamcast radio stations and organizes them by genre and bitrate

- While I don't have it setup, you can also install a TV module and make it a PVR. I have TiVo so I didn't need this functionality. But it's there if you want it.


The net result is that I have ALL of my stuff integrated into Meedio. So when I run Meedio, I can play ANY of my media on my network shares. And Meedio will use the codecs installed on the local machine so playback is not an issue. Since everything I want to play is inside the Meedio library (which updates everyday, per above), I haven't needed to burn a DVD or transfer a file since I installed it.

All in all, it's a pretty cool setup and I don't forsee needing to change it for quite sometime. I have yet to find a "glitch" with it except that some of the navigation within Meedio is counter-intuitive. But fixing that is as simple as editing an xml-based config file. And this shouldn't be a problem for anyone who is a power-user or better.

FWIW besides Windows MCE 2005 the other windows PVR/HTPC solutions don't have any DRM (just mpeg2 goodness)

i.e. the free as in beer gbpvr, the not so free (except for the trial) BeyondTV, SageTV, and Meedio (there's more but i'm tired of typing in URL's already =) )

e.

No, it's not opensource-yadda-yadda. Yes, I paid for my license. Yes, I'm loving the hell out of it for a general-purpose video-and-music playback machine for my living room. No, I'm not using it as a PVR, so I can't speak to that aspect of it. So... YMMV and all that. I just wanted to offer up another option.

One interesting HTPC software for windows that's up and comming is Meedio. It's the commercial version 2.x of what was the free myHTPC version 1.

It's an excellent framework, with a huge community, tons of plugin/mods/skins, and they've got a PVR/tuner plugin/module in beta last I looked.

To give you an idea: BeyondTV is a very good PVR application, but doesn't do much of the HTPC stuff (that's why they came out with a partner product call beyond media, but i digress)...

SageTV is a good PVR application with a blend of HTPC functions.

Meedio is a full/flexible HTPC framework, with a PVR module added.

at least that's my take =)

e.

I dunno where Intel is going with this, but I don't think that specialized technology is needed for it. MythTV or other offerings (for all sorts of platforms) are all that's really required.

They make an excellent HTPC software, but along with that they have Meedio Housebot. Its really a central control panel to control home automation stuff. Perhaps some newer version of X10 can transfer music? Or maybe have a Airport express plugin.

For anybody interested in making your own HTPC, I found Meedio Essentials http://www.meedio.com/ combined with Meedio TV to awesome software. Check it out- trust me, you'll like it.

" I still think Beyond TV snapstream is the only logical option on windows XP due to price and the fact that it runs on virtually all cards. MythTV and other open source projects seem so raw still"

plug I just posted a review of BeyondTV 3.5 on my site. There's also SageTV on windoze that's good. (sage tv review)

GBPVR is free as in beer and although an independent project hangs pretty well with the commercial apps in most respects, from what I understand.

Also commercial is Meedio HTPC which used to be myHTPC which has a beta PVR plugin that should be not beta pretty soon.

GotTV (no link handy sorry) recently spun into something else, and is also windows and "free" (not sure if it's FOSS or not...)

Have you used mythTV lately? I'm not sure you are giving it a fair shake. I think the issue is more the complexity of the install/linux learning curve than usability/look and feel issues... (hopefuly efforts like knoppmyth mitigate that a little bit)

*shrug* that said, I do like the polish and all the features of BTV, but there's a lot of options out there, and i'm glad to see media portal's (and xmbc's) progressing nicely)

e.

The point is:
* The VAST majority of computer users are using Windows ie... they've already paid for it, so it's not an issue (ie. it came with their computer or whatever)
* They don't want to wipe it out completely to install a media center
* Things like this can exist harmoniously with Windows, and can be tried before wiping it all out... or you can use the computer for both purposes (htpc and normal)

There is another free (not open source) windows based media pc solution... It's called myHTPC.

Now, it's since turned into a paid product called Meedio, however you can still get the free version and have access to a gazillion (oh yeah baby, that's a number) plugins for it.

The point is:
* The VAST majority of computer users are using Windows ie... they've already paid for it, so it's not an issue (ie. it came with their computer or whatever)
* They don't want to wipe it out completely to install a media center
* Things like this can exist harmoniously with Windows, and can be tried before wiping it all out... or you can use the computer for both purposes (htpc and normal)

There is another free (not open source) windows based media pc solution... It's called myHTPC.

Now, it's since turned into a paid product called Meedio, however you can still get the free version and have access to a gazillion (oh yeah baby, that's a number) plugins for it.

sorry... http://www.meedio.com/

Don't forget Meedio.

Take a look at Meedio.

At the moment it does everything other than PVR functionality (DVD, video, music, pictures, weather etc.), but the TV component is due in the near future. There is a large user base and great community support on their forums.

Take a look at Meedio.

At the moment it does everything other than PVR functionality (DVD, video, music, pictures, weather etc.), but the TV component is due in the near future. There is a large user base and great community support on their forums.

the analogy of:

...The BMW runs like a dream, works without fault, didn't require any specialist knowledge to set up.

...The kit car, while resulting in a supurb vehicle when finished, took months to build, required a degree in engineering, an assumed knowledge of how to install and use the individual pre-requisite components, and an ongoing desire to tinker under the bonnet to keep it humming along smoothly.

I mean, really... have you looked at the documentation? And that's just about the PRE-REQUISITES!

Geeze!

I looked at that about a year ago.. balked, and looked for an easier option... which I found in MyHTPC... which was a free product (still is), but has been supersceded by the pay-for product called Meedio. Although you can still get your hands on MyHTPC here.

Let's see... what do you have to do there?
* Boot Windows X (I haven't checked how far back it works, but 2000 and XP are fine)
* Run Setup
* Use the point and click configure

Um... you're done.

Gee, that was tough.

Again I say: It's all well and good for there to be these great things out there for Linux, and they're free and wonderfully Open Sourced etc... gotta love that... but as long as the instructions for just getting the thing running are many, many pages long, and expect you to have to run off and do all sorts of other dependancy installs etc... I'm sticking with Windows and free products that have a 'setup.exe' thanks.

the analogy of:

...The BMW runs like a dream, works without fault, didn't require any specialist knowledge to set up.

...The kit car, while resulting in a supurb vehicle when finished, took months to build, required a degree in engineering, an assumed knowledge of how to install and use the individual pre-requisite components, and an ongoing desire to tinker under the bonnet to keep it humming along smoothly.

I mean, really... have you looked at the documentation? And that's just about the PRE-REQUISITES!

Geeze!

I looked at that about a year ago.. balked, and looked for an easier option... which I found in MyHTPC... which was a free product (still is), but has been supersceded by the pay-for product called Meedio. Although you can still get your hands on MyHTPC here.

Let's see... what do you have to do there?
* Boot Windows X (I haven't checked how far back it works, but 2000 and XP are fine)
* Run Setup
* Use the point and click configure

Um... you're done.

Gee, that was tough.

Again I say: It's all well and good for there to be these great things out there for Linux, and they're free and wonderfully Open Sourced etc... gotta love that... but as long as the instructions for just getting the thing running are many, many pages long, and expect you to have to run off and do all sorts of other dependancy installs etc... I'm sticking with Windows and free products that have a 'setup.exe' thanks.

I suggest checking out Meedio