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The Year of the HTPC
An anonymous reader writes "While home theater PC hardware was once limited to a few specialized companies, those days are long gone and home theater computing is now big business. At this year's CES every hardware company, no matter their size or area of interest, brought a some cool new products too and no one forgot about the burgeoning home theater market. This fervor for home theater PCs was evident all over the show, but it mainly manifested itself in computer cases. This article goes over an extensive list of the products seen there."
Any discussion of home theater PCs needs to start with the open source solution Myth TV It works with open standards - unlike the Media PC from Microsoft that keeps you from doing just about anything with your recorded shows.
In spite of the ever impending arrival of computer set-tops, I have yet to see even 10% of my coworkers with a Tivo (and I work with some pretty hardcore software developers). Personally, I find more functionality from an actual PC with MythTV, that I have seen from an actual Tivo, one of those Panasonic PVRs, or the thing Comcast has been pushing on us. How come few of these manufacturers 'get it'?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Hey, don't get me wrong ... it's looking good. However, what about the inside? I mean, when do we get software that actually works as advertised?
Thank goodness for open hardware standards. Now, if only the software industry had some integrity. After all, if cars crashed as much as software, people would walk.
Words to men, as air to birds.
"This fervor for home theater PCs was evident all over the show, but it mainly manifested itself in computer cases."
You're kidding me, right? That's like people buying cars based on how cool looks like, or people buying gaming rigs based upon how their l33t ca53 pwns... oh wait. Never mind.
Seriously, though, I want my home theater PC to be invisible. A remote control and an IR receiver on the wall next to the screen. My wife heartily agrees (I think she's the one who convinced me) -- any electronics need to be in the cabinet or in the wall.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There's a number of options for frontend and OS. There's obviously MythTV on Linux, Windows Media Center on Windows XP, etc. I'm personally running Meedio on Windows XP.
Before people start talking about how a Tivo and DVD player will do all the same stuff, keep in mind that there's far more applications for a HTPC. There's plugins to check weather, play games (emulation), look at traffic reports, get sports scores and highlights, and much more.
I built my HTPC for around $400 plus hard drives (I'm around 1.5TB, which holds all the TV shows I want and the movies that I own). I just built one for a friend for $1000 which included 600GB of hard drive space and 2 wireless controllers (Logitech Rumblepad 2's work great for controlling the system and playing most emulator games). The really cool part is you can upscale movies if you want. I'd like to see someone get a Tivo (+ lifetime subscription) and DVD player capable of upscaling for $1000, completely ignoring the fact that it can do so many other things.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Now that HTPC has finally taken off, one more curve ball is coming: the final HDTV conversion in the US, this coming Dec! There are not that many direct HDTV capture cards out there, and there aren't many homebrew software packages that work with them. Not MythTV, not WinMCE, not any of the others. A year from now we'll have the coolest pices of obsolete hardware on the block.
And while we're at it, who is working on the digital cable capture and the DVB dish problems? Proprietary hardware, encryption and signalling, means we pay the $$$ to see and record what they want us to see.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Because they ALL want to lock you into "their format". And will do anything to avoid playing "the other guy's" format. See DiVX and XViD support.
In my mind, anything that CAN'T play DiVX or XViD is already dead on arrival.
Most importantly, they want to lock you into their format so that they can also lock you into their DRM, and eventually force you to watch everything pay-per-view.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In other words, the year of the HTPC will be the year of the car PC.
Rant: It's 2006 already! Why is it that I'm still having to grab a cheap-ass $20 "SD-based player" with minimal/no support for playlists/etc, cut it up into little bits, solder some extension wires to a SecureDigital card slot from Digikey, and spend a weekend or two applying wood or plastic veneer to the front of the resulting contraption in order to get "looks like it was built-in" MP3 support for my car without trying to hide an entire mini-ITX case in there? I should be able to buy a head unit with 1GB of flash onboard, a USB port, and just load the goddamn car straight from my laptop!)
Better start donating to the EFF, then, because the media industry and Microsoft aren't going to let a CableCard get anywhere near a system that doesn't support Treacherous Computing without a fight!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I have also recently seen an HDTV capture card with CableCard support. (can't find the link). Plug that in and voila -- you have your HD-PVR.
This is at least the second post you have made with this claim. I challenge you to put up or shut up. Find that link. Then read the details on the other end. You will find that it doesn't work the way you think it works. The output of the card is encryped and locked up with DRM and will only play back on the systems the OP specified, i.e. treacherous computing systems.