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."

Comments

Myth TV is the way to go for HTPC

[IntelliAdmin]

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.

This all looks good, on the outside ...

[2TecTom]

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.

Cases? That's the innovation this year?

[Red Flayer]

"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.

Various Options

[TheFlyingGoat]

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.

DRM DRM DRM

[mrchaotica]

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.

Re:mythtv

[mrchaotica]

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!