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How Do You Handle Home Media?
carpoolio writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday has an interesting series on bridging the PC/home entertainment gap. The solutions are fairly complicated, and very Windows-centric. As I store more media on my PowerBook, I'm finding more ways I can't listen to or view it on my stereo and TV. One example: TiVo Desktop won't stream AAC files - only MP3s - from iTunes to TiVo. That's an easy fix, but still: how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?"
http://www.xboxmediacenter.de
By jacking the audio out from my computer into an AUX audio in on my home theater. I play my music loud enough that the noisy pc fans aren't a problem. Video out is another story. My mini-ITX box combined with Windows XP provided horrible results.
It's all Hood
www.mythtv.org
Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro w/TV out (composite & svideo). A coax line runs composite -> the TV in line of my receiver.
Audio: Audigy 2 card with coax running from the SPDIF connector to the receiver's digital TV in.
To control it all: an ATI Remote Wonder remote control. It works by RF with ~10M of range so the source computer makes its noise in another room.
The Remote Wonder works well under Linux and MacOSX although you may have to google for drivers.
Trolling is a art,
This is a response to your question about 'How Do You Handle Home Media?'.
In reading the question, you have actually answered the solution yourself. As you point at problems simply eliminate that area. You pointed to Tivo not streaming then eliminate that component from the problem.
There is nothing preventing you from hooking the computer to a stereo tuner solving the issue or hooking a composite video card to a TV (better would be a DVI input directly to a flat panel). If the component doesn't suite your needs then that component is not part of the solution. That goes for the Windows Centric issue you addressed; if it doesn't solve the need than there are non-proprietary solutions, I think the name start with L or something someone.
Really, Tivo and other you named are fighting a battle that may be hard won. The proprietary market seems to have slowed in response, yet the onslaught of FOSS solutions hasn't eroded over the years. The FOSS solutions seem to now fit needs faster than their proprietary relatives. Now if the true lower level hardware could be non-proprietary so you could order a manufacture to assemble components you designed in a collective community. Don't like Intel great IBM has some neat PowerPC chips don't like the video card drivers great we'll build it to your specs - this is a dream not achievable just yet.
TV-out with an old Voodoo3 3000 and a simple 16 bit cheap SoundBlaster from 10 years ago to cheap cables. I mean, after all, it's mostly divx or another format for downloaded movies.
;)
For serious music I usually burn the SHNs/FLACs to CD and play them in my stereo.
I have tried using my Tivo for MP3s but I just don't see the point. Maybe if I could use it for video I would. That would be a lot easier than screwing around with TV-out and waiting for the screen to resize, etc. I have a feeling that won't come to fruition from Tivo though
I bought a low-end Dell server with room for a lot of disk space, a 160gb drive (for now), and a $5 sound card. Converted all my CD's using EAC and FLAC and at the moment am using flac123 to play them. Sound out the server, up the wall, across the ceiling, up through the ceiling into the livingroom and into the stereo.
Works great. One of these days I'll put a web interface on it and be done with it.
how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?
I don't. The computer works fine for playing everything.
Have you tried a cable running from your computer to the stereo?
I mean, come on.
rsync
~dijjnn
I have one of those Comcast HD DVRs and I can't get any of the recordings OFF of it to burn on to DVD (Red Sox playoff game I was at).
Why can't this be done?
Why is it such a pain to share material across devices?!?!
I have a networked computer in my living room with these things plugged into it:
:P
1) TV
2) Stereo
3) Wireless Keyboard / Mouse
It works. I'm really not sure what the issue is here.
The money you spent on a TV and stereo should have been spent on a BETTER PC SOLUTION.
The old-fashioned way... with cables. Video card with S-Video out, miniport-to-RCA audio cables.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/
Yes, MS centric as well, but with a twist that Slashdot readers seem to relish.
this has been an issue I (we all) have been fighting for a while. I recently saw an interesting system called sonos (www.sonos.com). It's an amp with built in mp3 decoder and wifi/wired connections. It comes with an ipod-with-screen based remote. You can connect them together and use one as a standard RCA input (for things like a tuner, dvd, etc) and all other amps share that central source. All amps play mp3s and stream web radio. This does not come out until later this year.
For now, I'm using Tivo home media and not really loving it.
I am running into similar problems with getting my media from my PC to my entertainment center. The best solution I have seen to date is to build my own PVR. I have even managed to find ATX cases that look just like the stereo components I have, with little LCD displays and all. The hardest question I am having is which software to run? Windows Media Center is the best option so far and I am not thrilled with it.
For $130, you can plug it in anywhere in your house, and play anything that iTunes can play from any computer. As a bonus, its also a 802.11g extender and printer server.
...with care.
A lot of thise home media devices from people like linuksys and dlink just plain suck ass in terms of media support and options. Wehere as my chipped xbox (which ends up being cheaper than the brand name stand alone media devices) serves my needs very well. My 1 TB NAS servers DVD's all day
I have a fairly complex halloween decorations and christmas lights setup (includes X10 controls for the lights and a webcam), but I leave the VCR programming up to my wife.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I use MythTV, of course! Actually, I use KnoppMyth, but -- same thing.
FABULOUS TiVo replacement, but sometimes a bit hard to get working, especially if you only have seemingly random hardware, or just whatever is laying arround. The machine I dedicate for this is piped into my TV, stereo, local network, and it is convenient to drag-and-drop whatever media files I want (including MAME ROMs!) onto the MythTV box, and play away! Check it out, it really is worth it. Use an MPEG tuner card if you can.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
My computer is my TV/stereo. I got a cheap TV tuner a couple years ago and it works fine, and I have my computer connected to my stereo. As a cheap college student, this is especially good as it also saves cash (TV tuners are much cheaper than TVs and I don't have to buy a seperate set of PC speakers) and space.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I have a notebook setup just for this. The bad thing is that it has an ATI card in there for TV out which is a pain to get working with Linux, so for now I'm just using Windows. I can play vids for the kids and stream my favorite radio stations.
The next step is to get MythTV running on the box, which has a much easier interface and can do more, such as image galleries, etc...
The biggest problem I have is input. Right now the notebook is on top of the entertainment center because of the aforementioned kids. And it's running windows so things like forcing video out is a pain, plus my wife doesn't know how to work it. And what idiot decided that play/pause in media player should be Control-P instead of space.
My main mythtv box has a remote controller for the video capture card, but I have nothing to hook to the notebook. I guess I need to bite the bullet and either buy some cheap IR receiver for use with lirc or threaten to burn the house down by building my own.
I'm surprised no company has come out with a USB based IR receiver that can be taught so you can control all your apps with it. Seems like a simple little item, not much needed to make and could be sold cheap enough to return a decent product and get lots of people to buy.
I bought a Shuttle XPC and connected a wireless Keyboard/Mouse to it. I've tried various programs to integrate TV/Audio/Video, but have had no luck. InterVideo's HomeTheatre has promise (especially the DVD bookmarks) and I may register my expired demo. I still never got MythTV running, though.
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
XBOX Media Center
With my XBOX networked with my PC I stream movies/music/pictures with the greatest of ease.
I have my Myth box handling all my video, photos, and music.
In general, you have to deal with two sides of the issue: the format you get your media in, and the formats that your output device can handle. For me, that means I can do just about anything that doesn't have DRM involved. If instead of running your own system directly connected to you media setup, you rely on some consumer electronic solution (TiVo, etc.), you're going to have to deal with the formats accepted by that system. This is one reason a roll-your-own approach is so enticing.
MythTV
No AAC support that I know of but is does support FLAC and Ogg.
http://www.mythtv.org/
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
Aiport + iTunes + Stereo anyone?
Gotta buy me one.
I've not conquered the video thing yet. I like the idea of having easy access to the digital media, but I don't like the idea of having a computer in the family room. Computers go in the office, where there's a desk and a proper work environment.
Since you own a PowerBook anyway, the Apple method would be to invest in an Airport card and a wireless Airport Express to send iTunes music to your stereo.
Apple's Airport Express has been the perfect solution to play music from my computer. It would be nice if you could play more than just stuff from iTunes, but it's a really great product and great for vacations too.
I'd love to see something like this that you could use to broadcast Video too, but for that I'll have to wait I guess.
--
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo | It really works!
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Shuttle pc connected to the plasma/stereo.
http://gordianknot.sourceforge.net for ripping dvd's to high quality divx
i te=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
p =7
+
$60 DVD burner (fits 6 divx movies per dvd):
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4105013?s
+
$80 divx/dvd player:
http://www.divx.com/hardware/detail.php?
=
finally!
Very carefully. That shit's expensive.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
I connect my laptop to my TV via S-video (no HDTV yet) and to the stereo with a conventional 1/8" jack.
For movies, I mount a fileshare and stream DivX recordings of DVDs over wireless, with the laptop using the TV as a "second monitor".
For audio, my main stereo is already connected to my desktop PC, which streams my FLAC and MP3 files from the same file server.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have a JVC receiver with a USB input, which "just works" with my Fedora system. I had 13 inch TV, which was sitting right by my 18 inch LCD. Got rid of the TV, got a tuner card for the PC (which I really only use for the PS2 and the old VCR). mplayer and tvtime cover all my needs.
-Peter
Line out on sound card (or optical out) to Sterio system. All the line out needs is a plug adapter from 3/8" stereo to Dual RCA Mono (Composite?) connectors. Video either from RGB/DVI out to TV or through S-Video/Composite out on the Video card. Of course, usually I just watch whatever it is on my monitor anyways.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I use a chipped xbox whith Xbox Media Center for my media needs. It is really all you'll ever need. (well, almost)
I burn mp3s to a CD and play that in my 5 disk DVD/CD/MP3 changer. I dont mess with video from my computer and dont care what is on TV.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Damn fucking moderators need to take it in the ass for once.
Xbox Media Center.
Works great with SMB Shares for music or pictures or Video.
'I have a networked computer in my living room with these things plugged into it:
:P'
1) TV
2) Stereo
3) Wireless Keyboard / Mouse
It works. I'm really not sure what the issue is here.
agreed
1x mdk 10 box with 2 video cards 1 with tv out (3 screens) audio split to amp and tv
eh volia
nowt fancy it just works
ok so i got to squit a bit to see the tv out put but hey
I don't own a TV.
I have a 15" Powerbook hooked up to nice speakers for iTunes and DVDs.
When I have company or if I'm going over to a friends house I just use my DLP projector and have a huge screen.
It's hooked up directly to my amp and sound system. Any CD I buy is immediately OGG'd and the original put in a safe place. Other than that I prefer watching video on a proper TV, the image just seems a lot clearer on a TV rather than an LCD screen. And I have no interest in piping a TV signal into my machine to encode it badly and take up a whole chunk of disk space.
That pulls/plays content from it's local drives and from over the network. My buddy uses a MediaMVP to good effect for pulling mpeg2, mp3, photo's, etc content over a wired network to his TV.
That and some ball bearings, and prestone antifreeze...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I run everything through my PC.
Sound-out from all the appliances goes into the PC's line-in port using a $4 RCA-to-miniplug adapter from Radio Shack. The PC spits it out through two sets of Klipsch Promedia 2.1s (the microphone port is rerouted to act as a speaker port thanks to the motherboard software).
Video from the PC/DVD player isn't a problem; the S-Video out jack from the GeForce 5200 card routes that to the TV while sound goes through the Klipsches. This creates some interesting situations; I can mute a DVD and play music over it or watch video footage while I work on it.
Other devices are routed through an S-video/A-V switch into the PC or TV as needed
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Very media centric multimedia system for linux: http://mms.sunsite.dk/
I keep all of my music (1400 tracks) on my computer and play them with juk. I don't bother to play them on the stereo at all. I have a powered subwoofer and four speakers on my pc which can put out far better sound then my small aiwa 3 disc changer, with two non powered speakers.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
It can get media off your powerbook. Check out the initial reaction via gizmodo - http://blog.giantchoad.com/blogtonia/2004/11/media _center_20.html for HP z545 initial impressions
modded Xbox, Xbox Media Center. Even reads iTunes music store AACs if you un-DRM them with hymn.
acquire through giftd, giftcurs on loonix
share through samba on same box
play media via download (httpd) on windows box at work
in living room, use modded xbox with ed's debian (soon to be using xbmc), via smbfs mount of file server
I use MythTV as my home theater PC. Of course it does the TiVo-like PVR stuff with TV shows, but I also have ripped all of my CDs onto it and use the MythMusic module to play tunes through my stereo. with a nice front-end. I have several other computers around the house that simply NFS-mount the music dir so I can get the tracks onto my iPod, etc.
There's not much better than a Myth PC hooked up to a HDTV and a nice stereo system.... I highly recommend it. It's a nice way to control your home media without any Windows stuff.
--- witty signature
Hauppauge MediaMVP
e t/projects/mvpbtv/o ftware.html? pg=mainp ?f=38
it runs linux, and is hackable:
http://www.visi.com/~erl/
http://sourceforge.n
http://www.dforsyth.net/mvp/s
http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/idx.php
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewforum.ph
http://www.rst38.org.uk/vdr/mediamvp/
I don't have a TV or a stereo, and I don't listen to music or watch movies, but I do have a laptop, and it is very easy to connect it to a very large plasma or an lcd screen. Or a projector. It is also very easy to connect a sound system to the laptop. So a laptop can be your entertainment center.
You can't handle the truth.
I stream audio from windows and mac to my stereo using Airport Express. It Just Works.
With the way things are going, making some homegrown solution with some OSS will be the only viable option for a media center.
I already don't want to buy a Tivo with the way they're pandering to those corporate girlie men.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this. But there is a product for the Playstation 2 called Gameshark Media Player which allows you to connect to a PC server (running windows or linux) and stream video, music, or even pictures to your television.
I've only played with it a little bit, but so far it seems to be very usable.
For audio, I have a device called the Audiotron from Turtle Beach. It can stream MP3's and full size wav files from Windows or SMB shares, and is really easy to use. It can also stream from some Internet radio stations. Very cool device, and it fits in perfectly with the rest of my black stereo stuff.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
Not to pick nits. ;)
I have an old Power Mac G4 as a media server, that is connected to my TV through DVI. For audio, I have an M-Audio Transit USB, that gives 5.1 channel optical audio output, which is connected to my receiver. For storage I have a firewire enclosure with 1TB of space.
HTMac
Pictures
you insensitive clod!. But on a more serious note...I find it very convenient to use one setup for all my "entertainment needs".
A TV Tuner card and capture software nicely double up as TV, VCR and (albeit rudimentary) TiVo, while a 5.1 surround sound system provides the desired audio capability. Don't need no fancy-schmancy "bridging PC/home entertainment" crap when everything's a PC.
The only thing lacking in my setup is a way to streaming audio to my car....a CD burner serves the purpose in the interim (Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pack of CDs riding in your back pocked :))
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I use a windows pc with a SVIDEO out to my tv. It works well, but it's kinda a hastle is someone else wants to use the computer.
That's why I'm putting linux on my xbox. I nearly got Xebian on there. Problem is my xboxs optical drive is nearly bit and I can't boot from the Xebian install CD. I managed to copy the iso, and mount them from emergeny-linux ala the mech assault save game exploit. But I'm kinda lost how to install xebian after I've mounted the iso on the hard drive...
Evil, evil Wal-mart has the philips dvp642 for like $80 or less. It is a dvd player that plays divx and a million other formats. I can fit 9 hours or so of reasonable quality mpeg4 (divx) video on a dvd-rom. At 9 hours a disk it isn't the best quality but it is good enough to get 18 episodes of teletubies and boohbah on a disk -- which keeps my 7 month old happy for quite a long time :^) Certainly the cheapest way to go especially if you need a new dvd player anyway.
Someone I know went a step further and uses a projector & a real HI-FI with his PC.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
I ended up building a mini-itx 2ghz athlon nforce2 machine using a coolermaster case that looked just like a stereo component.
For software I deicded to use gentoo and freevo. For input I have a standard remote, a wireless keyboard, and a wireless game controller.
the box
on the rack
playing tapper
I already have a Tivo so I didn't bother setting up the TV features, but it works great as an all purpose media player.
My approach is from the low-tech-but-works dept.
I have a DVD-RW drive, a number of DVD-Rs and DVD-RWs, and CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Depending on what the media format is, I convert it to something appropriate, write it onto a DVD, VideoCD or MP3-CD, and play it on my DVD player.
It works for me, YMMV.
need more focusin.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
whats with everyone wanting to use televisions? especially those running homebrew dvr's - i dont get it. Tv quality is total crap, why not use a computer monitor? Either run it through a decent hauppage card or pick up one of the excellent micromsoft boxes like the xrgb2 or x-select d4 for you hdtv buffs. 320x240 is dead..
My computer has Fiber-Optic onboard audio in/out, so I run the fiber out cable to my reciever (Onkyo TX-SR601 if you need a start)... Simply hit "Video 1" on the remote, and my home theater system switches to my computer..
My Video card also supports DVI output, which many new TV's support.. but currently my TV doesn't.. Since my TV doesn't really support computer's (output) well at all.. I really just stick to my LCD, and only have the audio running to the reciever....
The Reciever remote is amazing, too, I can control my TV, the reciever, my XBox, and cable TV all from the remote, easily.. no remote swaping.. so no cumbersome fumbling like you get with a lot of TV systems
... get an airport:
S tore.woa/71705/wo/pf1PRfYU8qTX2sApRg82VXbDCt5/0.0. 11.1.0.6.21.1.9.1.0.0.0.1.0
http://store.apple.com/AppleStore/WebObjects/BEPP
works great.
(stupid apple URLs)
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
For streaming sound to anywhere in the house, I have my Rio Karma (the ultimate geek music player) plugged into my stereo (the Karma dock has RCA out and the base glows blue and pulses to the music), as well as the ethernet wall socket just behind the stereo (the Karma has 100Mb ethernet on the dock).
;) but a mate of mine tells me that VideoLAN is good for that sort of thing and it might be what you're looking for.
I can upload music to the Karma from any one of my various Linux boxen scattered throughout the house (the Karma has a built-in web server that you can download the Java applet to access it from, which is fully Linux- and MacOS-compatible) as well as from my laptop via WiFi.
I don't do any video streaming, other than when I use "mplayer -vo aa" in an SSH terminal to stream video in ASCII art
WiFi is handy, but sometimes you can't get full reception everywhere in the house, and 11Mb mightn't be enuogh to stream certain video formats, so when my house was rennovated recently, I ceased the opportunity to wire up CAT5 to every room, which is all run back to a central place (a cupboard in the middle of the house) which all plug into an ethernet switch, which is plugged into the ADSL modem and the WiFi AP.
I highly reccomend decking out your house with trusty old CAT5 if you have the chance.
Instead of putting your PC in your stereo/home theater stack why not a simple control box with IR in, an LCD, IR OUT and an Ethernet jack? You could use something like an EZ80 from Zilog and then run your Video and Audio cables back to your server closet or home office to your noisy ultra mega server. A real hardware person might be able to hack in support for an ATA CDROM/DVD Drive into the controller and have it attach to the server through TCP/IP so you could have a convenient optical drive. Maybe a CF card slot, MMC, XD, and Smartmedia interface for loading your digital pictures as well.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
got a test box of Windows Media Center 2005. Works great with all audio files and even plays/records High Def TV :) It handles hi-def signal from the roof antena and the sat system. Provides Dolby digital optical output directly to my receiver.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
One RCA plug going from my PVR computer to my TV. One 1/8 male stereo to two male RCA plugs going to my TV. A second such cord going to my stereo.
Any other questions?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Using a 1-watt fm radio transmitter like this one:
m l
http://www.hobbytron.com/1-watt-fm-transmitter.ht
Usefull resource: www.thegreenbutton.com It's all about Media Center and includes downloads, knowledge base and howto's. That's how I set up my Media Box. I use a Antec Aria case with a Athlon64 3200+ and 1gb of RAM. It has a hauppauge 32552 tv tuner and a ATI 9600 graphics card. I run XP Media Center 2005. I have the audio output hooked to a stereo head unit type thing which runs to two speakers. Obviously I went with a nice 19" LCD for this and haven't had a problem yet. It's actually pretty impressive to see this for the first time when most people walk in and ask where my TV is or where that sound is coming from :P
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer.
Pick up a sweet looking case like the Arisetec HT400. http://www.arisetec.com/products/HT-400.htm/
Pick a nice front end. I'm using Xlobby cause it's free. Connect audio digital out to dolby digital reciever. Connect dvi out from a decent video card to your DVI or HDMI on your HDTV. Use powerstrip to adjust your display settings precisely so that your picture looks fabulous. Use nvidia NVDVD decoders with the software dvd player of your choice, as long as it can handle post processing so that you can use FFDShow to upscale your dvds and other recorded video to 1080i resolution. Turn up the volume and enjoy! Game, Listen, and Watch to your hearts content.
"My computer is my TV/stereo. I got a cheap TV tuner a couple years ago and it works fine, and I have my computer connected to my stereo. As a cheap college student, this is especially good as it also saves cash (TV tuners are much cheaper than TVs and I don't have to buy a seperate set of PC speakers) and space."
There's one difference I've noted between TVs and TV Tuners. The TV has greater sensitivity to an incoming signal. I've ran an identical signal, and the TV picked up more stations than the TV Tuner.
i have 3 pc's: one with 3 HDD's holding 10,000+ mp3's(at 320 kpbs) and all my divx films. one (mine) with 2 HDD's holding a backup of my mp3's. and one (my g/f's) holding a backup of the divx.
normally, we access the main pc's mp3's using itunes sharing, and watch vid's on the 52" from the main pc.
it's not ideal (i keep having to explain how to use vnc...) but as far as music on demand goes, it rocks.
for tv, we use satellite. until there's a tv card that (legally) unscrambles sat signals, we won't be changing.
for movies, i've backed up all our *legally purchased* dvd's using dvd shrink and we play them as needed on the pc's or on dvd players, as appropriate.
It cost me $5.
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
We have an old laptop running XP in our entertainment center in a component slot. Hooked up to it is a wireless keyboard, which floats around the living room sofas with the same random Brownian motion of the rest of the remotes, with the exception of never getting lost between the cushions.
It's a bit of a pain to use, because it's old and slow, but it gets the job done. I think part of the problem is that it's very difficult to cool--we tried running one of those fan-pads underneath it, but it was rather noisier than we wanted in our AV setup...
Apparently, there aren't too many old school programmers here who believe in KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). All sound goes to my stereo by way of this very expensive, complicated device.
Games & movies go in the PS2. Done.
I don't respond to AC's.
I do everything with Ogg Vorbis... be it my iRiver portable player, desktop, or whatever. I realize this limits my choices, but at least I'm using an open format that is controled by the people.
uphill both ways through 4 foot snow drifts...
and not no wimpy DVD either... i'm talking heavy laserdiscs!
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
MythTV plays my OGG's just fine, as does my wife's Rio Karma. Given the openness and Freedom of OGG (not to mention quality) versus MP3 and AAC, any new device I am going to use must be able to play OGG. I regret that I got my Aiwa MP3 car stereo before I knew about OGG, but at least it has a line in for things like the Karma. Or, I might just replace it with a Linux based deck.
Nathan's blog
I have 2 cables
1 x audio
1 x s-vhs-scart
plug into ANY pc setup and you can view what is on your screen on the TV and listen to sound through your stereo.
I have an old ibm thinkpad t21 with a wifi card which sits under my tv and acts as the home media centre.
pretty simple really, and I've been doing it for 7 years!
I'm using Freevo and Redhat 9 on my DVR. With 2 120G Hard drives theres plenty of room for all my mp3's, recorded tv shows, Pictures, and Divx movies. All these are of course accessed using Freevo's interface. I havn't used MythTv so I can't compare the two. I'm sure others will be able to.
Really hate the idea of mixing intelligent media with the dumbed-down TV. Leads to too many lost brain cells.
Keep those things separate or they'll multiply and take over!
I used to connect my XP-box to my projector (Sony VW12HT) with PowerStrip to generate an HDTV-signal. Audio went through an spdiff-cable to my receiver. WinAmp and Zoomplayer were used for playing media. A wireless Gyration keyboard and mouse were used for operating the system from the sofa. But that's more than two years ago.
:)
The XP-box now burns DVDRs (mainly containing DVD-video) and cd's with MP3, which I can play using my progressive scan DVD-player. Even my girlfriend can now watch movies on the projector, partly due to my Pronto Neo with a gf-friendly interface.
The only thing I miss sometimes is playing games on the projector. Need for Speed on a big screen is funny, especially with the subwoofer on
I just bought one on ebay for $120.
;-)
http://www.prismiq.com/
It handles video (MPEG1/2/4, Motion MPEG, AVI and Divx), audio (MP3, WMA and WAV), images (JPEG, GIF, PNG), etc. It has both a Winblows and a Linux Media Server and can be connected via a wireless or wired connection.
Best thing is that it runs Linux.
mp3's, wma's, and uncompressed WAV files go to the audiotron. it sounds better than any other digital music player out there.
view my Divx's? I can not think of the model but my GoVideo DVD player has a pcmcia slot in the back that I put in a ethernet card so I can watch Divx mpeg1 and mpeg2 files from my media server.
finally, mpeg1 and mpeg2 can easily be converted for my replayTV to playback.
instead of som hokey configuration of a laptop or pc sitting in the living room I have hardware that will do what I need.
it's not the cheapest route but its the simplest for the rest of the people living here.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I use my new Philips DVP642 that plays not only standard DVDs but also MP3s, JPEG slideshows, and DivX files burned onto CDRs/DVDRs.
You've got to back up your files anyway, right?
and with the upcoming native dvd playback on xbmc i can get rid of my dvd player forever. http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/
No Tivo, xbox or PS2 here. Home-brew PVR records direct to DivX, all files uploaded to SMB shares on server, and all PCs have the K++ mega-codec pack installed so they can all read almost any type of encoded media.
Windows Media Player then runs everything from the server's shares.
Works for me, and I find DivX is great for size and quality balance.
Here's my HTPC (home theater PC) setup:
The core: Athlon XP 2800+, 160GB HD, ATI Radeon 9600, Hauppauge WinDVR-250MCE, DVD-ROM, CDROM
OS: WinXP Pro
Software: PowerDVD 5.0, SageTV 2.1
Network: Netgear Powerline Networking
Video Output: 27" TV, InFocus SP4805 Projector (to 76" screen)
Audio Output: harmon/kardon Dolby Pro-Logic 5.1 system
About the only thing I wish I had was Ethernet (so I don't have to dump movies onto a DVD-RW), but I'm in an old house (circa 1844) and the prospect of running cable just doesn't really jibe. I tried wireless with a repeater, but it kept dropping, so Powerline was the way to go. It's been very solid, with a power cycle needed once a week or so.
I can do just about everything with this machine: watch DVDs (SP4805 projector is just breathtaking) and divxes, listen to MP3s, etc. Sage 2.1 is a fantastic product, great userbase, highly recommended.
Monkeys. Lots, and lots, of monkeys.
Can I get a "DUHHHHH"
I've built a home server.
500mhz fanless mini-epia board
120gb HDD
DVD-ROM
Debian
And setup all my PCs on a wireless network.
All my digital pictures, MP3s, Divxs get put on the server and I use Slimserver for streaming mp3, Scry as a photo album, and stream Divx over an NFS mount.
I can access all the files from my laptop and desktop, and have an iPlayer on the TV so that I can stream MP3s through the stereo and see pictures on the TV.
I havn't got the power to videlan-cast DivX as MPG realtime to the iPlayer, but Divx playing is in development.
All in all, it works well and the fanless design doesn't use much power and is very quiet.
It also has the advantage that I can setup various CGI scripts and the like to carry out those little tasks.
D.
I hacked a custom solution to serve up my mp3 collection on my big-speakered stereo.
Here's how you can do it, too.
1. Go to Radio Shack and buy 100 ft of speaker wire. 2. Cut it to the appropriate length so that it will reach from the computer to the stereo.
3. Solder on RCA plugs
4. Connect to line out of sound card
5. Connect to AUX IN of stereo
and VOILA! stream any audio to your kickass home stereo system.
I thought of doing the same with the TV-out of my video card, but since my monitor is bigger than my TV it didn't really seem worth it.
I currently use an old laptop running FC2 with an 802.11b connection back to my "linux server" where all our music CD's have been ripped. The laptop connects to the USB speaker input on the surround sound receiver. Works rather well for setting up playlists, and not needing to swap CD's in and out of the real CD player magazine.
Two issues with this setup: (1) 2.4Ghz microwave over, and (2) 2.4Ghz cordless phone. You can't make popcorn or talk on the phone and stream the music at the same time! I suppose it's sort of a "mute" feature....
-- Rick
I have a Fedora Core 2 box (800mhz w/ 512 megs of ram) acting as a Samba server, with 2 200gig drives in it.
In the living room connected to a 5.1 surround sounc system and 32" TV, I have a 1.4ghz Tbird w/ 256 megs of ram running winXP. It runs a program named "Media Portal" that I found on Source Forge that looks almost exactly like Windows Media Centre, except its free, and is a bit more customizable. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse to control it, and If I have to do anything major, I use VNC from one of my desktops.
It works rather nicely, I have almost 200 movies ripped, along with thousands of hours of music. I can play DVDs, watch Xvid rips, listen to music, chech the news, weather, things like that, go through my photo albums, and play MAME games, all from the comfort of my couch.
Oh, and did I mention this is in my dorm apartment at school? It tends to make you the rather popular person when you have one of the nicest clearest and loudest sound systems on campus, and enough entertainment to watch 2 movies a night for a quarter and never see the same thing twice.
Since you mentioned getting files from your PowerBook, I'll offer two good Mac-centric solutions:
1) Audio only. Simple. Use an Airport Express. Setup is easy, it acts as a Wi-Fi access point, and you can stream music from iTunes to the built-in audio out port. Run an RCA stereo adapter cable from the Airport Express to your stereo's inputs and bang - streaming music solution. Price $130.
2) Audio and video. Also simple. Get an EyeHome from Elgato, install the server software on your Mac, and then stream your MP3's, AAC's, DivX movies, MPEG2 movies, etc. to your TV or home theater receiver. Price $200.
I own both of these products, and both are very solid, and great at bridging the media gap between the computer and the TV/stereo.
I don't have a teevee or a stereo, you insensitve clod! Just an iBook.
Whatever.
Centralize all photos on mini-ITX based home server (small, silent) running Fedora Core 2. Manage and share photos from any client on the home network by using Pixory, which has pure web interface. http://www.pixory.org
By launching a browser on a computer on the same network as the xbox running xbmc, you can remotely add songs and video to the playlist. If done right, your friends would have a jukebox kiosk to add songs to the queue from when they come over for parties, but you are on slashdot, so you have no friends. GNAA
A true geek is never happy with their current setup and I know mine could use some improvement, but for the record:
I was too lazy to run Cat5 downstairs (explaination below), so my downstairs Panasonic HDTV (projection) has my cable modem and 802.11g router by it. I have a Hauppage MediaMVP connected to the TV and 5.1 surround sound system and wired into the wireless router. I had three choices -- run cable from my upstairs computer, use a wireless bridge (I was too cheap to buy one), or go this route. Actually, I'm happy with the wireless hub here since it gives me good coverage on the front porch, kitchen, library, and back deck when I'm using my laptop.
Upstairs in my computer room/study I have a modest desktop machine with an ATI TV tuner card running Beyond TV. The machine has 200+ GB of disk space. My kids use this as a computer as well as a TV. I use Beyond TV's PVR software to schedule recordings which I can then watch on the computer or stream to the MediaMVP downstairs on the real TV. I can also access my MP3 collection through MediaMVP and play on the stereo system, as well as listen to internet radio stations. Note that while the MediaMVP is cabled to the router, my media files are accessed wirelessly from my PC.
I'm reasonably happy with the MediaMVP and with Beyond TV. Beyond TV lets me remotely set recordings through Snapstream.com, which is nice for a no service contract site. There are some hacks which I have not explored that allow you some web access (weather and news tickers) and the ability to control and set recordings through the MediaMVP, but I haven't explored them yet.
I recently upgraded Beyond TV and found that while the features and interface are improved, it is less responsive than it used to be. I have an ATI TV-Wonder VE (Value Edition) which doesn't have a hardware mpeg encoder and I think that is the slowdown -- I'm going to upgrade tuners and see what happens.
I can also access my video, audio, and pictures (as well as watch live TV) through a web browser on my laptop anywhere in the house.
What I don't like:
My daughter is an iTunes fanatic and I can't play non-WMP DRM content through the MediaMVP, so I have to download, burn to CD, then rip to MP3 (which I usually do anyway so I can use my Rio MP3 player).
I want to schedule recordings through my TV. Hacks may exist for this, but they seem buggy. I can use my laptop downstairs, but that is the long way around.
200 GB of disk space gives me a pretty good record time, but I need to set up a "click and burn" solution for backing up shows I want to keep to DVD-R or SVCD (which is about the quality I record the shows at -- they are good enough to watch, but obviously not DVD, or even cable broadcast quality).
I really want digital cable or dish satellite for the HDTV broadcasts, but throwing in multiple set-top boxes with external tuners bugs me. I've already got three TVs and a computer hooked up to cable, and on my TV I've got a DVD player, the MediaMVP, a VHS VCR, and, occassionally, a PS2, so it's already a wiring and remote control nightmare. I have expanded basic analog cable (no pay channels) so I don't have any set top boxes in the mix.
Finally, I picked up a QCast disk for my PS2 and I'm going to experiment with it to turn my other upstairs TV/video game area into a media center. If the quality is good, I might consider permanently moving the PS2 and replacing the MediaMVP with it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Oh yeah, I also just ordered a GBA video player for the kids. We've got a portable DVD player, but my son keeps wanting a Video Now or Juicebox player and I refuse to spend the money for a device which only plays proprietary media. The video player (ordered from Lik Sang) lets you downconvert a number of different formats to a format that you can copy to a Compact Flash card and watch on the GBA -- also supports music, JPGs, TXT file "ebooks" and (with a flash upgrade) a quasi-legal NES emulator.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
I acquired a "broken" Neoware thin client which serves this purpose quite well. I simply netboot it from my main box, have it run X and esd, and connect its sound output to my stereo system. Its built-in sound isn't so great, but it's got a free PCI slot, so I can plug in just about any sound card I want.
...yes, it's another MythTV solution. Personally, I use KnoppMyth for its utterly trivial installation.
MythTV obviously does TiVo-like functionality, and it does it extraordinarily well, i might add. MythDVD (using Xine for menu support) for DVDs. My whole music collection is in mp3 format anyway, so MythMusic is fine for me.
I used to have the mp3's all on the MythTV box, but once I got my iPod it seemed silly to have a IEEE1394 connection from the iPod to the WindowsXP box, and a piddling 100Mb/s from the XP box to my iTunes folder, which was just NFS-mounted on the MythTV box. So to facilitate speed in synching, I moved the music folder to the XP box and just mounted the iTunes folder from the MythTV box. Works great.
Oh, and photos and videos, too.
Howski
mythtv.
this is easily one of the greatest open source projects ever. easy setup, incredible documentation, insanely stable....the only time i've had to shut the box down was to add a dvd drive. if you add the extra components, you get a dvd player, an ok mp3 player, weather, news feeds a total media package.
I have a squeezebox (slimp3.com) for streaming mp3's from my linux box to my receiver downstairs. Now what I want to add is another box just like it that will do video. It must be open source, support all the codecs, run under linux and allow me to dump the contents of a dvd to a hard drive and stream it across to the box to play on the tv. I want to be able to dump all my dvd's to a massive set of hard drives and have it all accessible at the touch of a button. This kind of thing just doesn't exist yet. I don't want to put a full blown PC downstairs next to my tv to do this either.
There's another problem with that solution. I'm parked right next to some TV towers. Boosting the weak signals to the same level that the TV tuner's "pick up" performance would be equal to the TV. Means that one channel will go into overload.
Most amps boost equally across channels. However a good TV with a good input stage will pick up the weak, and strong signals because of the AGC circuits in them.
Also as you noted, it will amplify noise as well. The only economic solution there is a good antenna. However living in an apartment means one is limited in that regard. Especially with HDTV.
I have been thinking of this over the last few days myself. Ideally I would setup a machine with the power of a hi end Intel or Athlon that would serve as the hub of a media center. To get addtional good use out of this hardware I would also setup diskless thin clients with about a 1G of memory that would network boot off the media server so I could either manage the media center or run other applications.
Linux would be the OS for the media server itself, but I see no reason why the diskless stations could not also boot into some other OS as well.
This way you get total convergence. Media center, ability to run applications, firewall,internet gateway,etc.
The biggest problem I see with this type of configuration is that you would be continously running a big machine sucking down all this power just to have a little bit of convenience when you happen to be home or want something recorded.
I bought a couple of old iMacs on ebay for $200 each (400MHz G3s), and am using one next to my stereo to run iTunes. This works far better than the Gateway connected DVD player I bought specifically for that purpose.
A remote would be nice, but I'm too cheap to buy the one that's specifically designed for iTunes. I'd rather find some kind of IR USB dongle that can receive the codes from the remotes I already have on my coffee table, and tie that to iTunes with some applescript. I haven't found one yet. In the mean time, I can just VNC to it from my powerbook, or the other old iMac in my kitchen.
The iMac DV has a VGA port that mirrors the build-in display. Converters are available that go from VGA to svideo. I got one of those for $20 on ebay, but I think I fried it trying to find the right power supply. If that ever works, I'm hoping to use it to show home movies. I already have TiVos, so I don't need tuners in this.
The iMac would be silent but for its aging hard disk. Newer disks are much quieter. This problem will eventually solve itself.
The 'net is your hard drive. Delete, I say. Let the winds blow to you what they will.
You don't need 8gigs of TV show. It isn't actually doing you any good to hoard all this so-called 'valuable content'. Some would consider it a kind of cancer
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Video via Snapstream PVR
Records to MPEG2
Some shows I watch in MPEG2 on my monitor or streamed to TV via a RCA wireless video sender.
Some shows are set to auto-transcode to wmv, whereby a little app I wrote detects them and transfers them to my website.
Basically so I can watch a stream of the Daily Show at lunch.
MP3 via Winamp
MP3's on a common server...can reach (wirelessly) via winamp from office, laptop, or machine next to home theatre setup. Like everyone else.
For all the comp systems or wirless laptops around the house I pretty much just stream music using Netjuke. To actually port stuff to the entertainment centers I use a GoVideo Networked DVD player . It supports wireless or wired networking. Although the OEM software is windows based it will talk to any UPNP media server. There are free or cheap (5$) UPNP media severs for both Linux and Mac's. Also using DVArchive I can pull shows off of my Replay and then stream movies to any pc or the two TV's in my house vi the Govideo devices.
All modern video cards have multiple monitor outputs. I run a regular monitor, and then a television as my second monitor (it's HiDef, so I use a digital video cable). I have the audio going digitally from the computer output into my stereo tuner so that it comes out as 5.1 sound if the video file supports that. I use a Winfast TV card to record television shows off cable, and then we can watch them later. The great thing for this is being able to have a zillion shows recorded for my kids - Dora/Spongebob marathons at the click of a button. I can also be working on my computer while my wife is watching a show on the television. I'm sort of like her Tivo.
Publisher, Universe Today - http://www.universetoday.com
iBook
Composite & Stereo to VCR thru home theater receiver to TV
Watch & listen works with two button presses.
But since I mostly just listen,
& since watch is a bit of a waste
(Given a $100 Sony DVD player w/component video...)
Will soon move to Airport express and forget watching.
Of course I have little or no stored video to worry about.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I hid a full system behind a solid end-table near the TV and used a S-Video -> RCA cable for video and a Stereo Jack -> RCA cable for audio.
Then I used myhtpc for the interface and X10's Mouse Remote for the remote.
It's wife-approved!
This
My media PC is a AthlonXP 3200 with 2GB of RAM and around 2.2TB of disk space. It has an ATI 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder for graphics and uses the soundstorm digital output for sound. It lives in a 6U rackmount case along with most of my audio gear (Integra DTR-8.2 and some Sony CD and DVD jukeboxes).
All that lives in a closet.
Control is the main issue. I have several solutions for that, however.
One is an ATI remote wonder. I can have the PC directly output to my TV or to my Projector, giving me a desktop and a standard Windows 2000 or BeyondTV interface. I use WinAmp's media library for most digital media functions, but honestly, if there's something I want from the PC, it's usually easier to put it on a CD or DVD.
Another is VNC from my laptop, which works just fine when I don't feel like switching the receiver to the computer's input. Since my laptop is usually somewhere around my coffee table, that's a perfectly acceptable control as well.
My receiver also has a radio remote, fortunately, so receiver functions are just as wireless and just as easy to deal with.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
When I want to play something from my PowerBook onto my home entertainment system (oh, who am I kidding, it's just a stereo and a TV), I hook up the Powerbook via the S-VHS and (audio) line out ports.
Low tech but effective.
that hasn't bought into this integrated media center pc bullshit?
To listen to CDs, I put them in the CD player that I got for $20 at a pawnshop. I don't have an mp3 player that isn't on my PC, and I don't feel the need to get one.
For video, to watch a movie, I put the DVD in my DVD player. If I need to record something, I.. wait, I don't watch enough TV to want to record anything.
I use PCs for work and for at least one of my hobbies (gaming) so leaving the PC for some of my entertainment is a good thing.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I've got a nice setup for this sort of thing. I've got a Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder, and an audigy 2 Platinum. My PS2 goes into my vid card's RCA inputs, my SNES goes into my VCR's coax in, my VCR's coax out goes into the RF switch from my Saturn, and I use a combiner to get my cable and my Saturn's coax out into my AIW card. I then output everything to my TV via composite video out, and use my surround sound system for all audio from all devices. By setting the video card's TV out as a second desktop, I can output anything I want to the TV. If I can play it back on my computer, I can play it on the TV. I use this for watching videos, playing some games (anything with text looks terrible on the TV screen, unfortunately), etc.
One PC, one BenQ PB6200 DLP projector, and a smattering of amplifiers and and speakers. Why convert to NTSC or anything else when VGA does just fine. For the richer of us, one could even use a DVI projector.
Ok, I know I'm stating the obvious, and risk getting flamed for doing so, but...
any time I need an MP3 file or video from my computer, I burn it onto a CD or DVD, put said disc in my DVD player ( which also supports MP3 format files along with several video formats I've never used ) and play it.
I'll readily admit I've never found a good reason to move any video other than home movies from computer to TV, so yea, this would be a *little* tricky for things like, er, some random piece of video downloaded off the 'net, but... I haven't found the instance where I'd rather look at the video on my TV than on my computer. What's the point again? And of course, as long as I can encode it in mpeg for DVD burning, what, DVD media is too expensive or something??
I guess for MP3s something like Airport Express would be more ideal ( though you need a remote, sigh ), or a Tivo Media or a full-fledge computer ( seriously, blah, seems like a bit much ) solution could be more convenient, but, seriously... the number of times I've wanted to put video from my computer onto my TV without *also* wanting to burn a DVD of that video is pretty small. About as small as the number of times I've wanted to listen to MP3s on my home stereo and thought burning a CD of MP3s was too much bother.
Seriously, I used to think the idea was super-cool, but I have to admit I think that a lot of the "computer media on home entertainment equipment" solutions are looking to solve a problem that isn't very big in most people's minds. I mean, it's a neat idea that I could get to a file on my computer and play it on my stereo or TV more easily than by burning a disc. But from a practical standpoint, usually I want to burn that disc anyway; why not use a DVD player like it was intended, rather than use a PC hooked to my TV ?
Sure, someone is going to point out that I actually have to get off my ass to change discs, but hey, I have a five disc changer, and I'm not _that_ lazy. Except when it comes to putting together overly elaborate A/V solutions when my DVD player and CD/DVD burner do the job just fine...
On the other hand, if some solution came really easily and more or less complete, I might use it instead. If my Tivo did more stuff, like could play songs, video, or show pictures from my computer, that'd be cool. But I'm not going to pay a whole lot extra for that ability when I can burn a disc and get nearly the same result ( how is that Home Media pack thing working out for Tivo, anyway ? ).
Even the concept of needing yet another A/V switch to bring in yet another source feels like going too far. I'd like fewer devices in my A/V rack, not more. Really.
I purchased a couple of Gateway Wirelessly connected DVD players, one for each main entertainment area of my house. These things come with software that you run on your Windows PC, and stream media over 802.11g to the DVD players; video, audio, and photo slideshows.
They aren't bad, although it took about eight hours on the phone and four months of prodding for them to eventually send the correct PCMCIA cards for them. They have a nasty habit of "locking up" while playing DVD's, too. Upgrading the bios hasn't even fixed that. After the PC card fiasco, however, I've just decided to live with them.
Generallys speaking, their feature set is impressive, but the implementation is quite buggy. Although I'd like to try similar products released by other vendors, I wouldn't suggest this specific product.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
I have a wired network with ports at my entertainment center.
I keep my Sony Vaio notebook on my entertainment center, and have it plugged into one of my TV inputs.
I use a Logitech wireless mouse to control the Notebook from the couch.
I use Media Player Classic to play all my media files off my desktop, thats in a different room, over the network.
Media Player Classic even plays DVDs (physical or mounted ISOs).
I used to use the same setup with WiFi before I wired my house up, for the most part it worked fine with only a few hang ups here and there on downloaded media (encoded). But when I started to want to watch DVDs I hit a wall, WiFi couldn't keep up with the demand.
I've got the oldest PC in the house (not counting the Mac Plus in the basement I can't bear to throw away) set up as a server with a pair of silent 160GB drives, an ATA133 card and new USB 2.0 ports (nice front panel with most flash media readers). Total investment under $250 to upgrade the machine to be the home server.
Over 500 CD's have been loaded into it using WMA at 192kbps, and they're now available to the computers each of us have in the house (six other machines for the four of us).
I've got an ancient TiVo with a lifetime sub, so no ethernet, no streaming.
But I bought a GoVideo DVD player for $100 (progressive scan, decent output) that comes with a PCMCIA ethernet card (can be replaced with WiFi), and streams off the server using software from Gateway or GoVideo (or anything Universal Plug and Play). The Gateway/GoVideo server software sucks, I've been looking for the time to put something else that uses UPP up on that machine.
I haven't tried streaming video on that setup, but the old machine is too slow to recode anyting anyway. Besides, my DVDs are all in one room.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Xbox using a XBMC and pulling media off my file server via a samba share.
Handles everything I've thrown at it (w/ the exception of Apple's protected AAC's - and those are merely burned for the car and re-ripped for the house). And as it handles both audio and video, it works well if you're looking to migrate your video stash to your fileserver as well.
XBMC has a really nice HTML front end so accessing and controlling data over the network is all done via an old Visor Prism w/ wireless addon if I'm not able to use the remote control (If I'm in another room, outside, etc...).
The whole thing is pushed through my receiver which also feeds into a low powered FM transceiver for use on the patio, in the yard, etc...) -- I just figured it'd be easier (and more cost efficent) to put all those old boomboxen to use instead of running speakers throughout the house). Keep 'em all tuned to 87.9 and there you go, perfect portable music in every room and on my tiny little headset while mowing the yard.
I've toyed with other setups for a few clients (everything from laptops to small scale PC's). Lots of things will work...usually depending on budget and needs/wants. But, personally, I'm sold on my Xbox solution. Of course, 4 controller MAME parties (Gauntlet, Golden Axe and Rampage) on the projector really sealed the deal for me.
#SickNotWeak
I have an old linux box living in my entertainment center that's plugged into the stereo. I have a decent SB AWE64 with component audio output and a fast ethernet NIC installed plus an elderly pci video card for those times I need console access.
I have the basic X-Windows libraries installed in order to run things like XMMS and Helix/Real Player and use NFS to mount the MP3 directory on my file server. I primarily control it via a forwarded X11 session on my laptop, which lives on the coffee table, and sometimes my desktop PC which lives in the computer room. Now this solution isn't for everyone but it works well for me. with the new Helix based realplayer client for Linux I was able to listen to the new HHTG audio streams, in BBC surround sound (which sounded pretty cool on my 4.1 setup.) MP3's sound as good as they're going to as well.
I'm thinking at some point I might upgrade that computer and video card to something with component out as well and try my hand at getting mplayer to play videos out on the TV via the TV-out port but that's a ways off.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
I run geexbox on an old dual 400 mhz pentium system with an ATI video card with s-video out. I stream the media off of my fedora core 3 server running samba on the drives I have in an LVM. It plays everything except AAC files. but I convert those to MP3 before I store them.
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
You CAN fast forward and rewind with the latest version.
It WAS usable to play some divx/mpg and all mp3/ogg and jpg's on your tv.
A modded Xbox kills it in every way now, and the company no longer supports/develops it as far as I can tell from their forums (broadq.com).
It is slow loading, you can't turn of ps2 remotely, the playlist interface I don't find really bad, it's more analagous to a gaming interface than to a remote, which seems to fit it being on a ps2 and controlled using a gamepad.
I'd go for a modded Xbox, throw in a 200GB drive and a mod chip for about $130-150 more than the used xbox for $99 ish, put all your crap on it, boots up pretty fast, can have component out, can play real xbox games, or just have all your mp3's/video/pictures on your xbox, accessable over ftp... that's what I'm getting for xmas
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
I'm sure there's already thousands of responses similar to this, but I've just got a very simple lightweight Linux box running Freevo. It works out really well for me. I got the cheapest nVidia graphics card I could find that had a TV-out, which I had running basically immediately thanks to nVidia's drivers (which, despite what others may say, and despite their being closed-source, have never given me any problems), and the box mounts my Video and Audio partitions over NFS from the fileserver that lives over by my central computing area. Total setup time (once the OS was installed anyway) was probably no more than 4 hours or so, and that's all just tweaking Freevo settings to only include the menus that I want, making sure that I'm passing the proper options into mplayer, etc, playing with video modes to find out what works best on my TV...
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
I bought an older kenwood cd changer from a thrift store for 15 bucks, ripped out the guts, and put in a full size ATX motherboard, tv out ati card 20gb hard drive and network card and cheap sound card and no cd drive, i do have a floppy mounted inside just in case. I ran cat 5 to the wall behind it, so its hard wired into my network, and i have a wireless keyboard with built in trackball mouse to control it. I just play music and movies that are stored on my file server. Works great, its only like a pIII 500 if i remember right, and like 256mb ram. It sits in my stereo rack and you cant tell its not a stereo component, its running XP you can sit on the couch and surf the web, but the resolution sucks. I built it mainly from spare parts, the only thing i purchased for it was the tv out card and wireless keyboard.
Also you can set up your xbox to boot right to x-box media center
Even on the newer used consoles with BIOS 1.6?
and this can be done for as cheeply as $150 bucks ($120 dollar used xbox, $20-40 modchip
And how much for the soldering labor?
For example, I keep an old box wired to my stereo and I can use any other box to control it via Remote Desktop (same thing should work with XP's built-in Terminal Server, VNC, PCanywhere, etc.)
SO, on my Wi-Fi laptop, I open a remote desktop window, and when I click play, it plays out my stereo. The cool thing is that it works with any audio source. Same trick should work with TV cards etc.
And, fwiw, I make a Web-app for PHP or ASP (Andromeda) for playing MP3s, OGGs, etc over the Web.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Simple motto on box, 'You have it, We play it' Does MP3's on DVD, xvid, divx, mp4, etc. It just works.
Is what me and my brother in law are using. Check it out here: http://www.hauppage.com/pages/products/data_mediam vp.html
It streams MP3's, uses m3u playlists generated from my favorite MP3 software, shows pictures on the TV, and works pretty well. My favorite part is that they release beta software on a regular basis, so I'm constantly getting new features like the ability to listen to internet radio.
TT
See... and you thought your sig was boring - TT
Here is a nice raid system coming out soon which will work pretty much with any OS flavour.. http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/296/buffalo_tech nology_terastation
it would be great since pretty much right now I have raid 5 at home, 4 drives using a 3ware card.
gives me about 700 gig which supports my movies, mp3s, pictures collection. I mount all the media into the xbox media center and play it back on my 61" Sony big screen, pretty much a good combo.. Ill deff get one of these NAS systems..
Pocket Girls. Mobile Adult Mini Mags for your Phone.
There's a saying out there that goes something like this: "Every program will expand in scope until it becomes a framework." This is the same deal -- "Every home theatre solution will expand in scope until you can play a movie in the living room while sitting on the toilet." To do otherwise just wouldn't be geeky enough!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A well equipped PC can be much more powerful than any TV + stereo set; just use decent audio cards (example the M-Audio Delta 44, which works flawlessly under Linux), good speakers (Avoid
too small and/or amplified speakers and anything whose output power is not expressed in RMS Watt). Use silent fans, then add a good TV/Radio/DVB card and a projector or a big monitor such as one of the Apple Cinema Displays.
Then install MPlayer, Freevo and you're done.
No TV/Stereo in the world can beat this setup performance/price ratio, and you gain also 100% compatibility with all common fileformats without having to lose quality by decoding them and straming them again via cables (or worse, RF links) to current LCD/plasma TVs crappy screens.
...From my G5 in my office, to the projector in my home theater. This will probably be the kiss of death to my web server, but oh well. Check it out HERE.
I can flip the input on the projector to the VGA connection from the Mac, and see the G5 desktop, including the iTunes visualizer (very f'n cool!). iTunes audio is transmitted wirelessly via AirPort Express and AirTunes. The projector has a USB output port, which is plugged into the Mac using a USB repeater. The projector remote becomes a wireless mouse, for controlling iTunes, and anything else I want to see or hear. Got analog audio cabling for non-AirTunes audio on a different input on my receiver.
You don't really care where the CPU is located, as long as you have a display and input device.
I'd like to dip my balls in that.
You need to get Voom now and be readyfor what is about to come. It will be the ultimate home media center. Check out their video presentation on the Voom website. I have two boxes already. I am biting my nails waiting for the upgraded firmware to be released.
The USB port on the Voom box is active and I have read that if you plug in a USB network adapter to the USB port, you will get a preview of what is to come. I am going to purchase a USB adapter this week just so I can tinker with my second receiver.
Jamey Kirby
You may want to check out JavaHMO on SourceForge. We use it to stream MP3's, web cams, ... to our Tivo unit. Works great.
Athlon 2200+ with SPDIF for digital audio (wether it is for music or AC3-audio makes no difference) as well as a simple mini-teleplug for analog audio. Also a SVIDEO-connector from TV-out on GPU to my crappy 28" widescreen TV.
computer plays everything, divx/xvid/mp3/dvd from server. It runs Windows XP, server is Debian Sarge, samba ties the crap together.
Software for playback is Winamp (music) and Media Player Classic for video. Gonna get me one of those fancy logitech remotes one of these days.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
mediaindexer
VIA Epia M-10000. OpenGL goodness for nifty GL-based visualizations. XMMS (building a custom frontend to that soon), lilliput touchscreen, 12V DC PSU+ITPS so it can go in the car (and less room taken by the PSU)
DVD-ROM means that I can fit over a days worth of straight music on a single-disc... and I've made an autoplay script so that it will detect if the disc inserted is a DVD, audio disc, or contains mp3 files (and play appropriately using Xine, XMMS, etc etc).
I'm thinking of getting an audigy for it if I can cram one in the already tight-packed box I whipped up for it using an old re-cut and welded PC casing...
Why do we not yet have a full blown commercial pvr that doesn't charge for subscription ? Why are all the out-of-the-box alternatives adopting this pay-forever mentality ? And why are people accepting this trend ? Next thing we know we'll be paying for the software upgrades for every "new" thing that comes out ...
There is obviously a demand for these products - why aren't the sony's and the apex's of the world coming out with sub-200$ boxes (without subscriptions) that everyone can buy ?
As an additional bonus the AWMP is also a mini web browser, so I've got WebTV when I need it. It can play mpeg4 streams, but I haven't had much luck with divx.
A few months ago, I got a little bonus at work. So I decided to splurge a little and bought 2 EyeHome units from Elgato. I also upgraded the HDD capacity in my home fileserver so I could store all my MP3's, AAC's, JPEG's, DIVX, and MPEG-1/2/4 movies on one central server. I did all this for about $450. Now I can watch and listen to any of these in our living room or master bedroom. It works great!
Honesty Note: I did have the advantage though of already having wired my house for ethernet a few years ago. Ethernet is a requirement for EyeHome.
I have a main server that has a few hundred gigs of space for media serving. The Xboxes and other computers have wireless connections. Xbox Media Center streams the audio and video perfectly to the two main TVs.
Right now I'm thinking about streaming off a PC to an Apple Airport Express or variant. ..).
(Port it over to linux as xmms output plugin using JustePort? In my copious free time
iPaq + VNC (... anyone knows a good 640x480 802.11 capable PDA ?) as the remote control.
Anyone has any nicer ideas ? The Squeezebox and variants don't have a good enough control ability for me.
-- Ors.
I have a PC that I decided to employ as an all-out entertainment hub:
Games: GameCube, X-box, & PS2 are connected to it via a VGA box. In addition to this I've got arcade and console emulators.
TV:Yesterday I bought a Hauppauge PVR-150 $99 - $20 MIR)at MicroCenter. I tried out SageTV which downloads my local cable company's TV guide and gives me PVR capabilities.
Music:I use iTunes to organize my music. I have some decent PC speakers, but if I want to listen to some music in the living room, I connect an RCA cable from the line-out jack on my laptop to my stereo system. I share the music wirelessly using iTunes on my PCs with my wireless router.
Of course my PC organizes photos and video files, e-books, etc. In short, my PC handles home media to my satisfaction, saves space, and allows me to modify it to my taste.
PC: GBox Blue http://www.amselectronics.com/Products/PC_Servers/ CF-968.html
SPECS: 2.4Ghz P4, 512MB DDR, 80GB EIDE, Linksys Wireless PCI
INPUT(s): This took some research and $$ Gyration mouse and keyboard wireless RF worth every penny http://www.gyration.com/ultragt-compact.htm
VIDEO: ATI AIW 9600 RADEON 128MB w/Remote Wonder
AUDIO: GBox offers onboard SPDIF output to my RCA head unit w/5.1 surround
DVR SOFTWARE: Currently using the barely functional ATI Multimedia Center software which is slaphacked into GemStar TVGuide (no automatic updates) and is absolutely ignorant when it comes to importing new videos, if it can't be done from the remote control, it's not a home theatre solution.
MP3 JUKEBOX(ish): Trusty ol' Winamp running in double size mode and a plugin for Remote Wonder
"She ain't pretty but she puts out"
Waiting till the day i have the $$ to buy a HDTV so I can never leave my couch...
I use an audiotron and a Dell Powervault 725 N.
The Audiotron is a nice piece. Easy to use, and will work with anything that can serve up SMB shares. It does not play OGG though.
-ted
Computer and plasma HDTV both in living room, with monitor and TV set up as dual monitors, in clone mode. TV picture is slightly stretched, but very nice. I got a DVI-component converter which I need to try out, might make it even better. Sound has a digital connection to the stereo system. I have Creative Video Blaster and just use their software which is fine for my TV needs. Yeah, it's all windows and sometimes I need to switch "main" display which is annoying. Otherwise I can do anything on my computer on my TV, it's great for game emulation, flash videos, etc. ATI 9700 and Audigy 2 in the comp were tops when I got them but I my wish list is fiber out on an audio card and HD component out right from the video card.
but if you have a powerbook, its a lot easier. Get bluetooth if its not already built in, pick up the Kensington bluetooth mouse (AWESOME mouse!), buy a $20 adapter to plug your DVI-out into S-VIDEO or Composite Video into the TV, and mouse from the couch.
If you need keyboard input, you can bring up an onscreen keyboard to click on w/ the mouse (via the International pref pane) or just get a bluetooth keyboard.
This way I'm able to use DVD player, iTunes, VLC, iPhoto, etc etc etc on my TV from the comfort of my couch. Add an EyeTV and you don't even need a DVD player, VCR, PVR, etc. Plus, you get full control over file formats, burning, encoding, editing out commercials yadda yadda yadda.
My friends rave about TiVO and I laugh. All you need is the cables to plug your PB into the TV and a bluetooth mouse, and you're set.
I can't tell you how cool it is to pause live TV, Exposé into Safari to check the IMDB or whatever you're curious about, then pick back up. Or adding custom icons to all my South Park epsiodes from their website.
Try it, you'll LOVE it.
I have been using this setup for well over a year and it is a very viable solution. Simply hook up your home network to the PS2, install the Mediaplayer server software on your PC (runs on Windows and Linux), run the Mediaplayer on the PS2, and voila! It's real simple and easy to use. It plays your DivX videos, MP3/WAV sound files, and even displays pictures. For about $150 total (if you buy a used PS2), you get a very elegant solution to play your media in your living room with no hacking whatsoever.
http://www.broadq.com/ - Underlining software for Gameshark MediaPlayer
It depends. I have it attached to the stereo in the living room which you can hear pretty much anywhere in my small house, but I also send the stereo output to wireless speakers and just put them wherever, including outside in the summer.
It really works like a charm, even from the PC under XP.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
My setup consists of TV out from my GF4 Ti card to my TV, audio out from my Audigy to my stereo system, and my favorite part, a standard gamepad as a remote control.
A little program called autohotkey can translate gamepad inputs into keystroke combinations which I've programmed for common operations in Media Player Classic. I just start up a little tray applet, and then my gamepad can be used to control MPC for avi's, mpegs, dvd's, and just about any other media format. MPC plays just about anything.
These dedicated boxes are nice toys, but my setup allows me to play just about anything they can, and more, and using all free software. If you throw emulators in, you've even got several gaming systems. My only advice is to make sure you get a nice, quiet CPU fan.
I keep a PowerBook G3/400 in the stereo closet with all my other components, and it is connected (along with the PS2) to a switch, which is connected to an AirPort Extreme base station. That connects to the server upstairs with all the MP3s on it, via iTunes.
...
The PowerBook's s-video goes direct to the TV, and it does audio out through a Roland-ED UA-30 with optical out, so I can go digital out. I use Apple Lossless Encoding, so I get no signal loss, and I can even listen to DTS audio CDs (ripped to ALE in iTunes) this way.
I control it with my Harmony remote, like everything else, as I have a USB IR unit plugged into it (all the IR in the closet goes through an IR receiver in the wall to a set of retransmitters in the closet).
I also have a Perl script that takes the album cover and saves it to a directory where the screen saver picks it up.
When I get a new PowerBook to replace my main G4/867, I'll stick that one in the closet instead, and then I can use it play all my movies too (current G3 too slow). I can do DVI out to the TV from that one, so it will be all digital, instead of s-video; I am not sure how well the movies will stream though. I could either try to string Ethernet through the wall, or just get another HD and keep the movies in the stereo closet instead of server closet
a very nice thought
n te rtainment-system-device.html
http://macgenie.blogspot.com/2004/10/ipodhome-e
Cable running from the computer room to the living room (under the floor) and an ATI Remote.
I've been looking at doing the same thing. Take a look at elgato's eyehome http://www.elgato.com/ and add Apple's Airport Express for wireless connectivity.
Well, I have a TiVo, so I feel your pain with the HMO not playing AAC (almost ALL of my music is from iTMS, these days). I stream music from my iBook using my AirPort Express and I use Salling Clicker with my Nokia 3650 as a slick iTunes remote. I use the TiVo to store all my TV shows and I get all my movie cravings satisfied by renting DVDs through Netflix (which could soon push movies directly to my TiVo over wi-fi).
This doesn't solve a stereo issue, but here's what I do for audio. This is a good solution for an apartment, but not a house.
1) Powerbook + external MP3 HD in bedroom
2) Airport express connected to surround sound in living room.
3) Bluetooth enabled Sony T637 cell phone
Then I use a program called Romeo which turns my bluetooth cell phone into an iTunes remote control. Of course, this only works in the range of bluetooth, but it works GREAT.
I've built my ideal Freevo box...
-Dell PowerEdge 400SC
-(5) 200GB drives LVM on RAID5
-Matrox G400 Dual Head (yes old, but the best TV out support)
-BT878 capture card
-SB Live
-Remote (serial port)
Freevo has:
-Movie playback (avi, vob, quicktime etc through mplayer)
-DVD playback
-CD playback
-MP3 etc playback
-Picture view
-channel listing through xmltv and record selection
-mame support etc
-skins
I'm sure I'm forgetting alot.
DLink part # DSM-320
n g%20t he%20D-Link%20DSM-320
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318
It is both 802.11G ( with ExtremeG 108Mbps) and 100T ethernet connections.
Does about any kind of media you would want ( even supports Ogg with current firmware updates!)
Inexpensive ( SRP only $199) and it is even rackmountable, using standard 17" wide form factor, and 1U height.
For those who want to hack on it, there is a wiki page at:
http://www.biermana.org/wiki/index.php/Hacki
Oh, and it seems to be an embedded Linux device.
Redsonic did the embedded OS.
Works for me!
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
I have seen some media center PCs with LCDs to give you some feedback, but in general, it seems you need to turn the TV on to navigate, find, and play from your media collection. I don't need the TV on to play a cd or listen to the radio. I don't want to turn it on to listen to MP3s either.
If they're in VideoCD MPG format already, great! It's simple to use Nero to make a VideoCD. If they're (more commonly) in AVI format, I split out the audio as a uncompressed WAV file (converting it to a MP2), and split out the video using TMPGEnc. Then, put them back together using TMPGEnc as a VideoCD MPG. Nero after that to get it to disc.
Of course, now with a DVD burner (and fortunately a DVD player that plays DVD-R's) I collect all those MPG's, author them with TMPGEnc DVD Authoring, and burn the DVD Video disc that way.
It's not simple, and it takes more time than it takes to actually watch the thing to do it, but it beats buying a lot more expensive hardware or running cables from upstairs to downstairs in the house.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
I decided to take the easy way out, and have a small SFF SHuttle system hooked up to my stereo and TV. This basically takes out of the equation any issues of compatabiilty, since it will play any region DVD, any format music and any format video file, on the TV and the stereo.
I've been using MPD with phpMp for about 6 months now, and it's a great solution. It can play mp3, ogg, aac, flac, and I can control it through my laptop from anywhere in the house, or even over the net through ssh. It's nice to know that I can change the music playing in my house from another continent :).
If you were a hot dog, and you were starving, would you eat yourself?
That's what the maid is for. Bertha!!! Come here an' push the button.
I run an IceCast + Ices2 streaming server for myself, and designed a small php+C website to control the stream (queueing and fast forwarding for now, I'll add more later when I feel like it). It works really well for me, as I can listen to it on both internal and external connections, plus my wireless, plus I made a dialup friendly stream, just in case I end up without a good connection.
IceCast and Ices are really rock solid. If it weren't for the outlet powering that and my router going pear-shaped every so often, it would be really stable (I did have it run for over 45 days at one point, until the GFCI on the fucking outlet went bad and kept tripping, I smashed that thing with a sledge hammer, it felt SOOOO good).
They are also open source, so you could, if you were so inclined, add massive functionality to the program. I like the control I have through the little web-front-end I made, it's lightweight (sub 2K pages) and can be viewed on a PDA easily. If you set up a nice speaker system in your house to a computer receiving the stream, plus a wireless PDA "remote control", then you have a nearly seamless integration.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I figured this is probably one of the best ways to do it right now, no? Burn your flac files onto a DVD recordable, and then just get an inexpensive DVD reader and it's like having mega-albums or something...put an entire 10-15 CD boxed set (depending on how full the audio CD's are) in lossless format onto a single CD-sized disk...
The other thing that I am interested in trying out is a projector - it seems that you can probably get a decent one for around $1000 - you can hook those up right to your computer's video card where your monitor would otherwise go, with Linux/BSD you can adjust your XF86Config file down to 800x600 or 1024x768 (depending on the model and how much you want to pay), and then you have a much larger picture than even the largest flatpanels. Dvd's are 720 x something depending on whether or not it's anamorphic or not - but even the lowest resolution projectors at 800x600 are enough to fit the DVD natively onto that resolution. The only thing that surprised me is that the replacement bulbs for those projectors are as much as $350. Scary.
I haven't really broken down and spent the money, but it's something I am curious to try out - plop a DVD into the DVD reader, fire up the projector, connect the surround-sound sound card in your computer to a surround-sound system, and you should be good to go. Of course, it helps to do this when it's dark, some of the projectors don't work so well in the daylight.
Although an evil DLINK product, I use the DSM-320 and it gets just about everything I need onto or out of my TV/Home Theater System.
http://www.hawknest.com/
D-Link Makes one that'll play XVid (and divx) files. Unsure if they support an AC3 audio codec, but still really cool, and feature rich.
I built a media center PC once. They rock because they can always have the codecs upgraded to the current fad, and play whatever you can throw at it. I tried XP MCE, and MythTV and Freevo. MythTV by far has the most features, and XP MCE is the easiest to setup and config.
The bad is that they tie up a computer that could be doing something more productive. A wireless appliance is cheap as hell, and accomplish much of the same tasks, and frees up your computers to do real stuff.
There's some nice cases for $500 that can make your living room media pc look like a stereo component, or for $120 on ebay you can get the d-link that also fits in, and does much of the same stuff.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If you have all your media on a PowerBook and want to watch it on your TV, hook your PowerBook S-Video out port to your TV, and your audio out to your stereo, and just watch it.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
"Ask Slashdot: How Do You Handle Home Media?"
First, I fuck it up the ass. Then, when the bitch is mine, I fuck it up the ass again. This really nails home the point, no pun intended. Then I kill it, fry it, and eat it. Then I watch NASCAR.
mplayer. if necessary, hidden behind something like freevo. maybe even totem if it's not a weird file. I have a cheap mini-ITX PC running Debian that can browse network shares, USB devices, CDs, DVDs and if I actually had any of it, Firewire; With onboard TV-out. That covers pretty much all of the formats you'll encounter outside the crazy DRM world, but I accept that a lot of people want that content, in which case I'd stick Windows on it and use MPC and the various proprietary things. It's not going to ever have a single, unified, spangly interface on any system really; Not while the various codec people work in very different ways. A wireless keyboard and mouse setup is a good idea ;)
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
My receiver controls everything - Audio to the speakers and video to the 42" HDTV flatscreen. The computer hooks into the receiver via RCA for video and SPDIF for audio (DTS and DD 5.1). I run TOSLINK (fiber) from the computer to the receiver [yes!, I've always wanted to say 'fiber']
:-)
Sooo...I use my receiver/DVD/TV/TIVO for my video watching needs and if I need the computer for mp3's, DiVX, or whatever, I switch modes, grab the wireless mouse and keyboard and do whatever I need to to. Most programs, along with windows as a whole, allow you to jack with the fonts so you can play with how it looks.
When I need a remote control, I actually do use two remotes. One is a Phillips Pronto, fully programmed the way I like it, and the other is an X10 MP3 remote. The Pronto is for my components and the X10 is for the computer (rf via serial port). The computer runs PC Remote 4.0, which is very very useful for doing what you need to do with the X10 remote.
So I guess the point is, I am using my computer as a computer - with all the functionality, thereof. It's just integrated with my home theatre, which happens to be pretty nice.
Currently, I have a ReplayTV first gen box with the top removed (necessitated by fanless design and living in AZ) handling my TV recording. I also have a 2.4ghz wireless room-to-room broadcast thingy to play iTunes out the stereo.
However, I'm seriously looking at upgrading:
Replay 5504 - $355 w/ lifetime subscr from Amazon
Airport Express - $130
Airport card - $80
TOTAL - $565
And that total is why I haven't done it yet...
www.digitaldeck.com, the product will be availble starting in December, this I can confirm as I do in fact work there.
1) Get a big ol' pipe full of bandwidth.
2) Load your Mac up with a Terabyte of disk space (I have 4 internal 250GB drives... just cheap drives, they don't need to be fast. Mine were $150 each)
3) Fire up Azureus as your BitTorrent client (make sure to avoid crashes by installing the latest beta, B8 or greater).
4) Purchase the $150 eyeHome from El Gato.
You're all set!
I have about 250GB of music (mostly AACs encoded at 192K, but some MP3s and a rare OGG, ALE or FLAC). I also have about 250GB of video, either DVDs, 3ivx, DivX, and videos with other crazy codecs.
eyeHome connects to my entertainment system with component, composite or svideo cables and optical digital or composite audio cables. It connects to the home network via 10/100BaseT Ethernet (router or crossover cable) or WiFi (Airport Express). The box itself is tiny and light. There's no interface on the box outside of a red power light which turns green when connected. I routinely unplug the unit and take it with me from living room to bedroom, or take it with me on vacation.
It connects using Rendezvous...amazingly fast and easy...it really is easier than most VCR setups.
The audio/video quality is amazing, but that's kinda to be expected because you're sending the actual files to the unit, not some compressed stream. The impact on my Mac isn't noticeable...Activity Monitor shows less than 1% cpu use even when viewing a DVD. Surprisingly, the impact on the network is just as insignificant.
The unit plays:
iPhoto albums and slideshows, or any images in your Pictures directory
Videos in your Movies directory
Music and playlists in iTunes
It also allows you to put aliases in these directories...My Movies directory has an alias to another 250GB drive.
Now with BitTorrent, what I have is like a time-traveling Tivo! If I miss something on Tivo, I just head over to Suprnova.org and download it. Often I can find HDTV versions that are much better quality than the crappy HDTV programming I get from Comcast (who totally over-compresses).
I also have a Formac Studio TVR for recording shows on my Mac. This works pretty well, especially with the scheduling feature.
The eyeHome is only available for Macintosh and OS X. If this was the only thing I used a Macintosh for, it would be well worth the purchase of the Mac...of course I *do* use the Mac for everything else as well since I can't even notice when the eyeHome is in use.
... I just don't.
Yes it's true Xbox + Modchip + XBMC is the ultimate solution for digital media on your TV. All the power of a set-top computer (minus PVR) and support for almost any media format you can imagine. Not to mention you can do it all for less then $200
The past is just the present only older -me-
at thinkgeek.com you'll find it there runs linux too kewl addons LOOK i want it so bad
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Not sure if this was suggested, but have you tried out the Pinnacle Showcenter? I'm an avid fan, as it's very easy to use/setup. Plus, it plays my Xvid/AC3 Encoded DVD Backups. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Produ ct_ID=1491&Langue_ID=7
The secret to getting stuff 'off the PC' is to get the PC out of the bedroom/office and into the living room.
Shuttle (http://www.shuttle.com) make rather nifty quiet and attractive PC's that come with built in hardware AC3 encoding as well as high quality TV out. There are other small quiet solutions such as mini-itx form factor PCs but I have no personal experience with those.
I use one of these, networked to a server and with an infra-red remote control, as well as wireless keyb and mouse, with a Digital Terrestrial decoder card built in (for full-on time shifting etc)... the output goes to a normal television and a ceiling mounted CRT projector. The audio (all lovely Dolby Digital) goes through a fibre optic cable into a proper hi-fi amp and the overall effect is that I can watch TV, DVDs, Internet video media and listen to music from absolutely anywhere all by remote control from the comfort of my sofa.
I'm just amazed more people aren't doing this!
I bought a Gateway DVD Player with a wireless card. I serve the content from my PC with their software. It plays MP3, M3U, MPEG, and AVI. Both the DIVX and XVID videos I've tried have worked. It may be a proprietary canned solution, but only cost me $100 total and it works well.
It also says it does other formats, but I haven't used them.
Pretty much any projector you buy had a VGA/DVI input. I know most peopel don't go this route, but it is much classier, and doesn't cost much more than a good TV, if you shop around. It's also a must for peopel like myself show have bad physical reactions to CRT tubes.
.
-shpoffo
My computer is my TV and stereo.
Living in a dorm, its convenient to have workstation+game console+TV+stereo all in one.
I have hundreds of DVD discs lying around. For a while I've been pondering what it would take to build a networked video server, Audiotron for video, recently I finally got it working. The objective was to be able to play DVD's seamlessly from a server share, by seamlessly I mean complete with menus, extras etc., with high quality video and digital sound. Several STB DVD players play files over ethernet but this is usually mpeg4 or DivX, not DVD quality mpeg2. In theory a 100Mbit LAN should have enough bandwidth since DVD's video stream is at most 9Mbit, the most difficult part was putting together a quiet client machine capable of generating a good quality analog video signal. I ended up buying a cheap ($400) Dell Poweredge machine on ebay, it's practically silent, this is important since it sits beside the TV. For DVD decoding I'm using something called the XCard (http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/xcard.htm), it decodes video and outputs digital audio. On the software side I am using TVedia (http://www.8dim.com/default.asp?linkid=vcdhelp), it generates menus on the TV to access media on the LAN. It also works quite well with the XCard, which comes with a serial port IR remote sensor. I can play DVD's by picking the title from a menu or search previously entered metadata such as director/genre etc. When I select a movie the DVD starts as if it were in the drive, the only real difference is it is much faster to jump between chapters and menus.
The system is limited only by storage. So far I have over 100 DVD's on the server. It's very cool to be able to pick a movie using the remote and play it instantly, no discs, no jewel cases and most importantly no exhausting roundtrips from the armchair to the DVD player. The system also decodes DivX (in hardware) and a few other formats, which means I can download clips/movies and display them on the big screen.
For an audio-only solution, my choice is the 3Com Audrey, a cute little retro-futuristic gadget from the short-lived "Internet appliance" bust a few years ago. It was originally meant for lightweight users to read email and news at the breakfast table and look up recipes on the web, but the $500 price tag didn't work out. But now the EBay price (about $85) makes it a nice cheap UI for selecting music to play in different rooms of the house. The Audrey hacking community has made lots of alternative software freely available for playing mp3s, X10 control, etc.
The Audrey has a 7" touch screen, wireless keyboard, microphone, audio jack, 2 USB ports, and a 56K modem or USB LAN dongle. No hard drive, no fan, totally silent. It runs QNX, an embedded Unix.
Setup is very easy, especially if you already have network wiring. All I had to do was plug it into a network jack and a stereo, and add a couple lines to the boot file to connect to my Windows share. My ambition is now to figure out how to get the original telephony software to work, so the 5 Audreys I ended up buying can double as speakerphones and a home intercom system. I highly recommend this nifty toy!
I put music into my stereo.
It's called "Playing" music.
"Playing" music is somewhat different than "Playing" your Bi@tch or a kazoo. And it is very very different than "Playing House" although the techno scene has oddly changed that.
There is also the obvious Apple iTunes wireless transmitter, but that would require you to purchase fruit.
My best friend listens to a lot of stereo especially since he got Mono. He would like a Surround, but nobody will go near him right now.
Well this is extremely simple. Get the plugin for Firefox 1.0 with the built in media player. Get an audio cord 1/8" -> Stereo and that's it. That's all I use for my hookup.
I'm pretty sure no-one will ever see this because I waited so long to reply.
However I have a Neuston MC500 which I use to stream media from my PC's to my tv.
It plays most file formats, and requires only a network connection (wireless via pcmcia card or wired with built in ethernet).
It supports output via composite, scart, DVI (supporting rather impressive resolutions).
cost me approximately $300 australian. works like a treat.
The provided webserver is rather good however I have a debian box running apache that I use aswell, it uses openshowcentre package.
if you use the provided windows server you can use your iTunes music library and playlists for music.
Overall I love my neuston it solved all my problems.
check it out www.neuston.com
I've just moved into a new house with a good friend of mine. This is our home entertainment setup:
:o)
We have a 100MBit LAN serving all the downstairs rooms in the house, the cellar and one server room upstairs.
We have one debian file server with 640GB of disk space. This stores all of our media (mp3/divx/svcd/dvd rips etc.) and lives in the server room.
We have two Windows XP workstations. One of which has a TV-out with a long cable going to the lounge (this is no longer used and has been superceded by the xbox and XBMC).
Both Windows XP machines are connected to a mixer which in turn connects to speakers in our work room and in our lounge.
We have an xbox in the lounge that is also on the network, is chipped and runs XBMC.
The Debian file server runs samba so the windows machines and xbox can all access the media.
We also have a wifi gateway serving the two bedrooms upstairs so we can stream music and video to laptops.
This way we can watch anything from anywhere and listen to anything from anywhere.
In addition we have a CD player, Minidisc player, Record player and DAB radio in the lounge. These are also connected back through to the mixer in the work room so we can listen to traditional media anywhere downstairs.
Finaly, we have a Korg 01/W proX keyboard in the workroom connected to both an Akai S1000 sampler and Reason on one of the Windows machines, so we can make our own music
Finaly, finaly, we have an acoustic guitar (truly mobile audio!).
If you don't need the DVR functionality of MythTV, check out geexbox.
http://geexbox.org
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
I just built myself a TiVo replacement a couple weeks ago... cost me bout two hundy... but let me tell you it's the cats a$$. http://www.gbpvr.com is the software... works on windows... works with a bunch of different tuner cards... people are building new plugins all the time, like dvd2mpeg, weather pluggins, you name it. Highly recommended. Dubya.
i just bout an Airport Express to stream my music from the house server (upstairs) to the home theater stereo. works great, easy set up and optical out. i usually have my laptop in the theater with me and use that to control the server's playlists, etc. also, just ordered the new keyspan remote that can control the AE, so i won't really need the laptop as much.
i gital-media-remote-for-airport-express-025352.php/
link to keyspan remote info:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/wireless/keyspan-d
http://www.momitsu.com/dvd_880n.html I LOVE this thing.
You might want to check out the Keyspan Express Remote for the Airport Express. Just announced today, it plugs into your AE and you can control it. It might be what you're looking for.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
I prefer jwz's saying "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."
http://www.prismiq.com/
The player does everything I want except TV. Then I saw that they're coming out with a Player/Recorder that looks really interesting. Unfortunately, it's been delayed until early next year.
But I can wait.
USB extensions run the wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse under my couch and above the computer is a projector which beams the image over the couch / livingroom area and onto the wall with the speakers mounted on it.
The computer doubles as a television. I've used this setup for years. The audio run cost me a few bucks and the projector was under $1k new.
As far as media, I have yet to find ANYTHING that I can't stream to my TV / stereo. AC3? MP3? AVI? DVD? MPG? There's no restrictions. Webpages? Winamp visualizations? Webcams?
All this "Myth TV" and "XBOX MEDIA CENTER" complicates things.
I watch a lot of playback on my desktop (21" Sony monitor, SBLive! card with 5-way Altec-Lansing speakers) or my laptop...However, I just found a Philips DVP-642 DVD player that will play, among other formats, DivX4/5, so if I decide to watch on television, I have thte option.
As I said, not perfect, but it works for me.
--Storm
Ah, that's the quote I was looking for!
Wow, I really butchered it, too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I use this Hi-Fi FM radio transmitter to send music to the various radios in my home, or to a boom box when I'm out working in the yard. The same manufacturer also makes a nice USB powered xmitter
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
What? TV, stereo? Get a TV tuner card. If you can, get a second .*D-R.M(preferably DV) drive, a second monitor, and surround sound. Much better than a TV, a stereo, and a Tivo combined!
... replacement bulbs for those projectors are as much as $350...
That seems expensive, but these bulbs tend to last a while. In my projector they claim 3000 hours. That makes it quite reasonable, especially since we only use the projector for family movie shows from DVD and use the regular TV for watching most everything else. Who needs to watch all those commercials or the news on a huge screen!
All theory is gray
This makes an awesome setup:
The Linux(tm) based Niveus Personal Server http://www.niveusmedia.com/ stores files and shares them on wired/wireless network.
The server is small and fanless due to it's mini-itx motherboard.
Windows XP Media Center 2005/HDTV PC consumes the media content from the server and provides friendly remote-control based interface.
Other network clients can access the personal server directly via web interface and/or samba.
Everything running Linux, for sure. No virii and worms, please.
...) so that I can program recording timers etc.
:-)
:-) From a usability perspective, my 10-year old son and our Au Pair girl can handle the living room box with its OSD and IR remote control just fine, so there's nothing magic about it. Actually, this VDR box is the one and only TV receiver - I have no TV cable and no TV antenna. Astra Digital only.
Working room:
- Server is Athlon Mobile 1400+, RAID5 360 GB net, 2 budget satellite receiver cards, works as a Linux VDR and NFS server (plus mail, news, ntp, and all the other stuff that is needed in a small home network). Serves all my MP3s and digital satellite recordings. Runs 24x7 and can be controlled over the Internet from everywhere (if dyndns.org works properly
- Workstation: Athlon Mobile 2400+, Asus A7V8X plus Zoltrix Nightingale CMI8738 card, feeding and fed by a stereo setup. This is where I convert sat recordings to DVD, listen to my music, digitize older LPs and Cassettes to MP3, etc. I'm still planning to digitize some older VHS recordings so there's also a Bt848 frame grabber card in it.
Living room:
- VIA Epia5000 box with full featured digital satellite card, runs Linux VDR, feeds a DVD and 6.1 Dolby Digital EX receiver over S/PDIF (sound) and composite video to the TV set.
Network is a 54 mbs WLAN (with WEP, of course, good enough to keep curious neighbours off
Granted, this is not an average Joe User's setup but then I make my living on Linux consulting
from thinkgeek
"PRISMIQ MediaManager software requires Win98SE or later, 40MB of HD space, and 128MB of RAM. Once installed, the Media Manager software can locate and playback media files located throughout your home network, including networked PCs running Mac OS and Linux."
Yes it runs an embedded 2.4 Debian...(which doesn't officially exist yet according to the emdebian site)
But it needs microsoft? That's just twisted.
You can soft-mod an XBox so that you can install Xebian http://www.xbox-linux.org/ (Eds debian) on it. It comes with freevo and the remote control stuff all ready to rock straight out of the bag. Just hook it up to a fileshare.
www.monkeys-in-bras.com - _the_ place for the decerning monkey viewer.
OK, I've got hundreds of .AVI .MPEG etc. movie clips on my computer. What is an easy way to get this stuff on DVD disc so that I could watch those clips with my standalone DVD player?
I seriously cannot believe that this post got given a score of 1, when some twat just posts MythTV and get fucking 5!!! Hello you stupid robotic cock-bite? And XBox costs £100, a long piece of CAT5 costs £10, a copy of MechAssault off of Ebay to soft mod your xbox costs £10. The remote control for you XBox costs £20 That's £140 for a _complete_ media centre solution that you can control from the XBox remote OUT OF THE BOX!! God damn I hate you!
www.monkeys-in-bras.com - _the_ place for the decerning monkey viewer.
So that's:
* Xbox - £100 ;)
* Long piece of cat5 to get to your computer - £10
* Xbox remote control (cos you don't want to use a keyboard or a mouse) - £20
* Copy of mechassault to softmod your xbox - £10 off ebay, or free if you ask someone nicely
* Xebain - free.
So that's £140 for a home theatre system that can play every type of video and audio file I've ever tried with no stupid keyboard or mouse involved.
www.monkeys-in-bras.com - _the_ place for the decerning monkey viewer.
Where's Homer Simpson's commode chair when you need it?
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
VDR
With a DVB (digital TV) card in my linux box downstairs, I've run video and audio (both analog and digital) cables to my TV & Surround Receiver upstairs. One serial line with an IR receiver on the end of it is the only visible part of this system in the lounge room.
The VDR software (GNU license) has built-in support for watching TV, recording, timeshifting, EPG, and editting (get rid of the ads in the stuff you want to keep). Thanks to lirc and IR receiver, it's all controlled with my TV remote control.
It has plug-ins for everything else, and I mean everything! DVD, (S)VCD, MP3, and mplayer plugins are just the stuff I have loaded, but just about anything is possible.
I have 600GB of disk in my box, loaded with recorded programs and ripped DVDs and CDs, which I can playback over the TV/stereo thanks to VDR, or from any computer in the house.
I use a central rack which houses a server (email,audio,internet) and all Audio and video hardware. CD's (remember them) are placed in either a single CD player or multi disc player and fed to the chain of amplifiers. Individual power amps feed each room (Kitchen, Bathroom, main bedroom and tv room(5.1)) using speaker cables.
All video goes via an 8 way loftbox - TV, FM, Digi Channel, VCR & CCTV available in the tv room and all bedrooms.
Remote control back to digibox and all amps is by Xantech extenders.
Multi source, multi zone, remote control with everything except the loftbox off ebay
N
On the music side my mp3's are sitting on a samba share on my main linux server so are accessble over my network to any of the other machines on it ... I also have ampache setup so that i can stream audio straight out to winamp (or equivalent) on any of the machines as well. I am not able to stream to my HiFi with the kit I have but I tend to listen to stuff whilst doing something on the PC anyway so that doesnt really matter. This means that my CD collection, (from which ALL of the mp3 have come from), can be stored away.
... this has a large disk, a PVR250 and a graphics card with TV out. I am not running MythTV (although that is a perfectly valid option, (I tried to use it with a PVR350 had lots of issues so decided against it here)) .... instead I'm using GBPVR ... Its free, (but not open source), and has a similar feature set to MythTV but runs on Windows instead. The shuttle box is connected by wireless to the lan for downloading EPG updates etc. This is used for time shifting TV programs ... (although if anybody has any recommendations on how to convert mpeg2 video (3Gb/Hour) to a smaller format for longer term storage ... (e.g. divx? ... I've done it before but the brightness of the recording seems to reduced quite significantly)). The box also has a DVD writer, (and software for multiregion playback)
On the video side I have a little shuttle box connected to my TV
Tim
Hardware: Old Dell optiplex 110 with Pentium III 800MHz, 256Mb RAM, DLink 802.11b PCI wi-fi card. Cost - a favour to a buddy.
Additions: Hauppauge PVR-350, 200Gb Seagate Barracuda, USBUIRT http://www.usbuirt.com/. Cost of additions - £ 216
Wi-Fi with MythTV was hell, PAL TV out with X-Windows was hell, S-Video input with MythTV was hell, EPG download from http://www.bleb.org/tv with MythTV was flaky, IR support for driving my Cable set-top-box was not great.
I tried a copy of XP MCE, but unless you have certified hardware, forget this being easy or stable, so I went on the hunt for Windows based PVR software and came across http://www.gbpvr.com/.
I must say I have been suitably impressed with ease of setup, ease of use, stability and features. Pretty much all of the MythTV features, but a lot easier to set up. Total setup time from blank hard drive to working GBPVR on XP in under 2 hours on above hardware. MythTV took a weekend to have partial functionality working on the same box. The USBUIRT works well with GBPVR, and GBPVR is able to pull EPG from Bleb (Or other XMLTV sources). Main problem now is 256Mb of RAM is just not quite enough for XP... the box is now deemed prototype, waiting for more cash to buy a new barebones system with decent CPU and RAM. Probably go for a Shuttle small form factor like one of these ST62K's http://www.de.shuttle.com/en/desktopdefault.aspx/t abid-72/170_read-2782/
I use Linux. I hav written some PHP scripts using (sorry I am not a coder) to make a pleasant interface like:
#v+
What you wan to do:
> Play game.
Which game:
> Metal Slug X
OK! Here you go...
#v-
And it works like charm, all my media is held on central computer with two IDE 250GB disks so all other systems are using this storage. You can do this with few Linux programs like mplayer (for any multimedia), advmame (for gaming), feh (for displaying images), and matchbox (http://matchbox.handhelds.org/ for drawing nice GUI), it is also capable of running tv app (tvtime) and radio (via mplayer) but it is more complex...
I still haven't found what I'm looking for: wireless remote streaming of audio with no loss in fidelity vs. having a cd player in every room. No computer fan or hdd noise to spoil the listening experience. Ability to select tracks on a computer display, not one of these teeny screens on digital media receivers or the low res monitors they output to called TVs. Digital output matching the original CD directly into my Bel Canto DAC, and into my audio system. Do-able?