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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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'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. ;)
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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!
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.
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
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.
-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
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.
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. --
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
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.
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
...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.
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.
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
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.