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Build Your Own Linux Home Theater PC
Vic writes "If you have ever dreamed of building a home theatre PC, Extremetech has details on building a Linux-based system, and covers all the details of this epic journey. They did get the unit to run lots of features such as CDs, video, TV, weather, media libraries, guide viewing and show recording." From the article: "To paraphrase one forum quote seen during the research phase of this piece: 'Buy the beer first, this ain't gonna be easy.' But there is some good news here too. Getting a Linux-based HTPC has probably never been easier, though that is admittedly damning with faint praise. So here then is the tale of our ongoing adventure toward building a Linux-based HTPC."
Wait, I thought that when it came to the GPL and FOSS that beer was supposed to be free. Where'd I go wrong?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I've been running media centre pc 2005 on our plasma screen for a while now... and although its good at tv, its complete rubbish when it comes to web interfaces, remote control and most of all the music library! It can take over 5 minutes to load, and there no option to organise on directories instead of media tags!
This is all well and good, but until someone manages to get an HDTV-ready HTPC, it's not worth it. Get a HD-ready PVR from your local cable/satellite company, combine with Xbox Media Center, and you're all set :)
Wasn't there an article about HTPCs a few weeks back (though it didn't specifically focus on Linux)?
gcc: no input sig
I find it interesting that very few of these articles attempt to cover HDTV or digital TV. There is more than one DTV card supported in Linux and an article containing this would prove much more valuable that just the "here's how to setup a box with a PVR-250/350" story that I seem to see everywhere.
:)
Where's the cutting edge stuff!?!
Windows: Where do you want to go today?
MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow?
Linux: Are you coming or what?
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
Just get a modded xbox. It's very easy to use and no headaches. I had it modded and the dude pre-loaded xbox media player. Plays pretty much anything. With the newer xbox 360 coming out, expect older xboxes to take a price dive around the holidays.
We've been down this PVR road many times here on /., and I don't know that this article's really adding anything that hasn't been said multiple times in other articles, but it's worth repeating that if you're going to build a Linux-based PVR system, do not plan being bale to use your ATI AIW card.
It just ain't going to cut it under Linux (blame about why this is goes back and forth, but the end result is that it just won't work). Instead, plan on investing in a Hauppage card. The 350 is a good place to start.
Linux: Are you coming or what?
More like:
Linux: Hey, are you going to eat that?
The first paragraph of the article states:
Linux is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the recent history of personal computing. In some ways, it's similar to the original homebrew PC movement of the late 1970s and early 80s. Equal parts cool kids club and grass roots revolution, Linux in its many different forms has proven itself a force to be reckoned with. A highly configurable OS that can both scale up to big enterprise iron and down to handheld devices, Linux can do almost anything. It even powers the most well-known PVR on the planet, TiVo.
I think there is something bigger here that merely Linux which is, after all, just a kernel of the OS. The kernel as well as the rest of the significant components are driven to development by the will of the community that finds interest in their own ends. They don't do this to win a popularity contest. They don't do it in order to bring anyone down. Mostly, they are doing it "because they want to." (And the only way to stop that is to take away their freedoms)
I think the project is cool and I will, one of these days, take it upon myself when I have the beer and other money to throw at it. But there is opportunity here for the entrepreneur!
The fact is, only a tiny portion of the public will do this for themselves... the rest of us will want to BUY it...
...just wait until you try finding something decent to watch.
I am a happy Mythtv user.
/. add-on bracketry)
I watch TV much anymore, but I wanted to muck around with it, so I bought a WinPVR-250 card.
I stuck it in my file server, and watch it on my desktop. Both are running Debian, of course.
For debian/ubuntu users check out this line:
#Mythtv
deb http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian unstable mythtv
I am sure you know what it is for.. (minus the
The only tricky part was that the guide was off by one hour (found a quick-n-easy SQL one-liner on the internet to fix that) and setting up MySQL so that it would accept remote connections (this is disabled in Debian by default).
I found out that it will happily run in a window and is fairly desktop friendly, which I didn't know they had it setup to do. My desktop resolution is 2 monitors at 1280x1024 and I run mythtv at 800x600. Nice picture and a pleasent distraction while mucking around with work or whatnot.
Also nice for when you want to watch TV with your laptop.
If I had a second chance at a card (bought it a while ago) I'd get one of those plexor's that use the go7007 drivers.
Plexor GPL'd the drivers themselves and they look nice. Much more capable then the WinPVR stuff.. Can encode in mpeg4 (divx-style) as well as mpeg2 and others, were the WinPVR can only do mpeg2.
I may actually buy one still.
One tip: when you find a show you want to watch, hit the 'r' button to start recording it. I find that when I let it pause for a couple hours and I come back to finish watching the show to many times I accidently change the channel and loose my buffer.
Its called KnoppMyth, based off Knoppix
http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
This really was poor, a couple Linux N00b's try to get a HTPC together based on an almost automatic install of KnoppMyth and still can't do it due to lack of knowledge of Linux and fear of illegality to play DVD's.
/. for helping promote Linux by posting "news" articles written by total n00b's with no idea of what they are doing as this is even their admitted numerous attempt to do this.
Basically it is as simple as selecting the supported hardware, pop in the CD and go... these guys get tripped up tring to get a SUPPORTED remote to work and don't even know how to add two commands to the window manager so they don't have to go to the CLI to run Gedit!!! Morons.
This article did nothing, it didn't educate, it didn't enlighten, and it actually just spread more FUD about Windows MCE being better and easier. Thanks
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Don't they know that the difference between "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and a Darwin award is a couple of six-packs.
Check out byopvr.com yall. Tis a great site on building your own PVR with a good community to help you in selecting hardware, software, and getting it all working together. Check em out, I think you'll find the folks there are great and awesome info as well.