Home Entertainment PC Mod

Hughesey writes "With PC's beginning to enter the Home Entertainment scene, OC-Melbourne have come up with the perfect way to integrate a PC into your Home Theater setup. The OC-Melbourne HEPC. Quote From the Article: 'So now we have a PC that is capable of replacing many separate devices (such as a DVD player, and consoles), but lets admit it, that big beige case probably looks far worse than the hardware its replacing. Some people have gotten around this by using specialised cases such as those from Shuttle, or fancy aluminium cases such as those from LianLi. These cases, however, still don't integrate seamlessly into modern home theater systems, as they still maintain their "PC" look. Enter the OC-Melbourne HEPC...'"

Comments

Not to PC-looking case

[SigveK]

Check it out

PC Case

[af_robot]

that big beige case probably looks far worse than the hardware its replacing...

No problems for me, i never close my case anyway...

Re:PC Case

[Milalwi]

No problems for me, i never close my case anyway...

Obviously, you don't have any cats.

Milalwi

Re:PC Case

[KUHurdler]

Obviously, you don't have any cats.

Not anymore anyway.

Anyone remember those Intel cases?

[httpamphibio.us]

A couple years back when Intel had the guys in the anti-static suits doing their advertising I remember catching some pictures of some really awesome cases at some Intel show in Japan. There were a couple round ones in colors like bright orange and pink. Overall they were really great, but of course they were never mass produced. I'd love to get my hands on one, it at least pictures.

Am I the only one that remembers these?

Re:Anyone remember those Intel cases?

[I didn't]

Is it one of these concepts?

The case if the least of the issues

[PhotoGuy]

The box can be hidden. It's the poor integration of various bits of software that is the problem with integrating into a home theatre system.

Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things, poor flexibility in IR remotes for PCs (and their integration to software), having to reboot Windows when it gets grumpy, and so forth, are the reasons why it's painful to get a PC as a regular part of your home theatre. The box color or size is trivial as compared to those issues.

-me

Re:The case if the least of the issues

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things, poor flexibility in IR remotes for PCs (and their integration to software), having to reboot Windows when it gets grumpy, and so forth, are the reasons why it's painful to get a PC as a regular part of your home theatre.

You seem to know the issues. Hop on your nearest Open Source home entertainment project, test drive, comment, maybe even develop! It's easy to post to slashdot what's wrong it's PRODUCTIVE to point out errors to those who will FIX them. Help out, enjoy.

Re:The case if the least of the issues

[yatest5]

Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things, poor flexibility in IR remotes for PCs (and their integration to software), having to reboot Windows when it gets grumpy, and so forth, are the reasons why it's painful to get a PC as a regular part of your home theatre.

Yeah, I reckon someone should come up with dedicated boxes you can buy and link up to your tv.

Okay, but.. what about the noise

[91degrees]

How do we ditch the fan?

Even the quiet fan on a PS2 is clearly audible in quiet points of a DVD or CD. No audiophile will tolerate this sort of interference

Re:Okay, but.. what about the noise

[Lumpy]

first off an Audiophile DOES in fact deal with fan noise. Most high end amps have fans that come on when the device asks for it. Second audiophiles (real audiophiles) have all their equipment mounted in a 19 inch rack with custom trim plates for the faces of all the equipment therefore isolating the equipment's noise. And finally.. high end audiophiles have all the equipment in the projector room (a thin closet with a prjoector window where EVERYTHINg resides and is controlled via a nice AV control system from AMX or Panja.)

finally a real audiophile would NEVER own a PS2... they are busy spending their money on overpriced audio equipment and would be utterly appaled at the video quality out of any of these toys call console games. (the Xbox,PS2 and GC all suck horribly when blown up to a 10foot screen.)

so this is a non issue. and most "audiophiles" have at least 1 pc in their audio rack already. (rackmount case, no work and the air filters in the front behind the door muffles the fans nicely.)

so yes, audiophiles don't care one bit about fan noise, as we muffle it properly.

BTW, I am NOT an audiophile... anyone that calls themself that is only a poser that is trying to impress people with their lack-of-knowlege. (Ohhh you have to use $23.00 a foot speaker cable! I can hear the diference!)

Frozen Case

[duren686]

I wouldn't mind having one of these next to my TV.

Temple of Worship

[warmcat]

There's something about these 'Home Entertainment' systems that is deeply disturbing. They sit in a corner of your living space like a modern shrine, exciting in their adherents the same passivity and receptiveness as the old places of worship.

The worshipper sits before them slackjawed, Pringles are the Body of Christ and Sunny Delight their communion wine. The worshipper becomes the holy consumer, contributing nothing but willing to pay, and pay again for his 'entertainment' to any creature that can make them forget themselves for a while longer.

There is a strange social aspect to these systems, too. The size of your television is important to men. Self-loathing eats away like a cancer at the man who cannot afford a television at least as large as his friends; why, he is not only willing but eager to go into debt to avoid this Terrible Shame. And the man who buys his first DVD player knows he is someone.

Yes, someone who will be paying inflated prices for 'entertainment' on DVD from now on. For just like the Old Religions, there is a coinslot built into the edifice.

It doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to build it into your life day by day.

Slashdot enabled pages

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

How about letting someone know when they are going to make the slashdot site. They could make websites without the encumbersome banner ads, obligatory BIG images on every page. Then just maybe, I, with my T1 could actually see there page. Very unfortunate as I am truly interested in this piece.

PC in an old VCR case...

[Soulslayer]

...which has actually been done before. I have also seen PC's crammed into old CD Player cases. While a fairly nifty hack it is by no means what a home entertainment PC system should look like.

This is what a PC disguised as a cruddy VCR looks like.

Is it just me or are /. headlines becoming more and more full of hyperbole?

HTPC Link...

[Ringthane]

Here's a great resource for those wanting to buy or to build a Home Theater PC, complete with sleek, black cases for the do-it-yourselfers and some ultra-quiet pre-fab models:

http://www.digitalconnection.com/

We're trying, HELP us!

[fons]

at

http://davedina.apestaart.org

we're trying to make a linux-box that seamlessly integrates every bit of software needed for a multimedia box.

Development has been slowing down lately. But we HAVE a working model in our living room.

So give us a bit incentive to keep working on this project: subscribe to our sourceforge mailing-list and give us your comments/ideas.

Thanks!

Jukebox Hero

[turnstyle]

I keep an old PC hidden behind the couch, wired to my stereo. It's running Andromeda, which manages and serves MP3 collection. I remote control it via my laptop over Wi-Fi. It's pretty neat, actually...

HTPC case I've ordered...

[tinla]

There are heads of HTPC cases out there, if you look hard enough. All the shuttle cases still look like PCs, just PCs with plastic "chrome" on them. I managed to hunt down a case that came in Gold and more or less matches my Marantz 6200 AV Amp (a beast of a machine). Sure it costs a heap and has to be imported from Korea but check out the pictures...

http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=65
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=70&nnew=2
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=79&nnew=2
http://www.moddin.net/review.asp?ReviewID=45

I found it via the "Home Theater Computers" forum at:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/


Take the hint - look to Korea for cool cases.

The best way to do it?

[lute3]

I've been working on the whole HEPC/TVPC thing for a while.. Most of my 'work', of course, has consisted of tons and tons of research and drawings/schematics instead of purchasing/building much of anything.

I finally broke down and built a TV machine last summer.. I mainly used it to play Divx movies--both ones I ripped from my DVDs myself and ones I downloaded from Morpheus.

Remote Control:

1. I bought an IRman and got it working with Winamp's VidAmp..
2. At first, I kept no mouse or keyboard on the box. I opted instead to use the remote,
   TweakUI-configured auto-login, and VNC (from my laptop already wired-up in the living room.

Case:

1. I tore down a mid-tower case and buffered all of the metal joints with duct tape as I built it back up.
   This eliminated any inherent case rattle.
2. I layed the side and reconfigured my entertainment center's shelves to accommodate it.
3. The case had a interesting configuration of fans (combinations of Thermaltake "smart" fans and things)
   to try to keep the AthlonXP 1700+ and three Maxtor drives (one 30GB and two 80GB) cool.

What have I learned?

1. I *have* to have TiVo functionality and soon.
2. Morpheus/Kazaa and other online sources of movies are dying.
3. Drives fail quickly if not properly cooled.
4. Drives tend to fail anyway or have the remote possibility of very quickly losing 100 of your
   hard-earned movies in the event of failure.
5. Almost no matter what, a TV PC is going to be too loud to enjoy having in the living room.

What will I do differently next time?

1. I will build two different boxes--one bare and quiet set-top box or something in the living room and the other a
   nasty, tricked-out, noisy system to handle all of the grunt-work in another room.
2. IDE RAID. 'nuff said.
3. Linux--as much as possible. I will actually make the full effort to get away from Windows and build
   On-Screen Display menus and things.. One of the bottom lines of my experience is that Windows/FAT32
   *kills* drives.
4. I *have* to have TiVo/PVR/DVB/DVR/VDR functionality.. I could theoretically
   have one DVB card in the
   STB to add pause-live-TV functionality. For the setup and recording of other scheduled TV programs and movies, the "big box" in the other room that will have somewhere in the
   neighborhood of 4 or 5 DVB cards. This is fine for Digital Cable.. If I had a dish, it would
   likely be very different.
5. Rip, rip, rip. Get those DVDs archived onto file and quit letting other peoples' copies be sufficient.
   I really didn't do all *that* bad.. I had ripped somewhere around 60 of the DVDs myself.
   I've really got to say this--AVI-archived DVDs beats the friggin bug juice out of any multi-DVD player.

Here are some more related links..
LinuxDVB
VDR

Get over yourself

[x mani x]

There's nothing like blurting out religious metaphors about home theater enthusiasts to score a little karma! You know our geek community is getting bad when there are sociology majors trolling in our forums.

You're a very poetic troll indeed, but a troll is a troll and it's unfortunate you weren't moderated as such.

People just want to replicate the movie experience at home, nothing more, nothing less. It's a money pit, a dubious one at that, but what hobby isn't?

Cheers.

Shuttle SV24

[carambola5]

So, I bought one of these and it's sitting in pieces on top of my current 'puter. But after move-in, it will have a tremendous job ahead of it:

It will serve as one of these HEPC or whatever you call it. It has S-video out, decent sound (my standalone DVD player will take care of good sound requirements), and best of all, it has 2 fans... nothing else. No hard drive, no floppy, no cd-rom. Nothing.

That said, it is quite obvious that it will be functioning as a diskless client, booting off a server. This server will provide everything via NFS (yes, I'm behind a firewall, so don't bother trying to hack). Hopefully, in time I will produce some software that is basically an OSD similar to that of the TV guide with Time Warner's digital cable. That way, there is no need to move a pseudo-mouse with the numbers on the remote. The last step of the project will be to create a CD-archiver that mechanically loads/unloads CDs remotely. mmmm, laziness

Call your senator! I did