Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Building a Linux Home Media Center

Posted by Zonk on from the you-needed-a-project-this-weekend dept.

RomanianClimber writes "Tom Lynema assembles an Ubuntu-based Linux home media center. 'Like a lot of people nowadays, I have a growing collection of digital media. My digital media is stored on a home Linux server. Most of the digital media players available today do not support protocols to connect to a Linux server, which make them unsuitable for my use. I realized the best way to connect my digital media library with my home theatre was to build my own Linux home media center (LHMC).'"

11 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Here we go again... by radiotyler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right-o, why do we still care about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as solutions like this become more the norm, and pay-for-rights media becomes more readily available for download?

    --
    hi mom!
  2. TFA misses a lot. by chrome · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article spends about 95% of its words talking about how to get that specific hardware working under linux, and then one or two paragraphs actually talking about the interesting stuff - the software that he uses to run the media center. He even neglects to mention how he controls it.

    Isn't there front-ends to make this stuff easier than having a gnome desktop on the TV? What about remote control devices and infra-red support? Is there a nice way to navigate all the media?

    These are the things I couldn't solve easily two years ago ... I'd like to see a decent article that actually covers ALL the aspects of setting up a media PC.

    1. Re:TFA misses a lot. by solarium_rider · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree, he spends most the article on how he set up his wireless card and how he set his clock?

      For starters, here's a list of things it would of been nice if he covered if he were to fill us in on the media part(in no particular order):
      * Sound card? Is he using on board sound? Does it support hardware mixing, if not, what kind of software mixing is he using. Does he have a digital connection to his receiver for ac3 passthrough, and pcm output?

      * More information on the video card. He says it supports multiple HD standards, but says it only has a composite and s-video output (i'm assuming in addition to the dvi/vga,) but no component out. How is he gonna output HD then? AFAIK, the nvidia support for HD out requires component out, else you have to set your custom modelines (as the latest nvidia driver 1.0.8178.) While hd output isn't necessary for a home media center I suppose, it increases your geek factor. Is the CPU gonna be fast enough to output 1080i?

      * Power consumption. Would be nice for him to try and reduce the power on the unit, when it's not being used, considering it'll probably be idle most the time.

      * Choice of case for something thats pleasing to the eye, and silent to the ear. Not a big problem if it's tucked away. But usually these things are in the living/family rooms alongside the entertainment center.

      * Controllability: How is he controlling it? x11vnc? Mouse? Keyboard? lirc? What kinds of issues do you run into with these different choices.

      * Software: He spends out two paragraphs on using totem and rhythmbox. How well did these integrate with his media in being able to play everything (other than the spew about OGG and mp3, flac anyone?), why is it important that gstream is uninstalled? Would be nice if he had tried some kind of fully-featured software that plays video and audio...He mentions a 6 in 1 card flash reader...is he using it? If so, with which software?

      Worst LMHC article ever.

      --
      -- How many sigs are as useless as this one?
  3. Re:Why wireless? by HolyCrapSCOsux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even better is the 400 disc DVD changer and a video patch panel with a remote control. That's ooh aaahhh. No PC required.

    --
    0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
  4. Article is definetly skimpy by fwitness · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've built 3 mythTV based Linux boxes now, and I'm always interested in the different configurations. If he truly got this MSI box (which I've seen before), it would be nice to see if he got the LCD to do anything useful besides the time, and does the volume knob actually work. He also ignores the remote, and how he actually controls the thing on TV. Even with wireless, a keyboard and mouse on your TV are far inferior to a good UI with a remote control.

    To the author: Go back and get some more specifics, then revisit your article. Linux people are devils, we're all about the details.

    --
    -- I have fans? Wow.
  5. Re:Why wireless? by norton_I · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My (admittedly old) 200 disc DVD changer is slow and annoying. I would much rather have my DVDs ripped onto a HTPC or streamed over the network from my fileserver.

  6. No pictures, no codec information, just sysadmin by heroine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So where are the pictures of the HTPC? What format is the media stored in? What movies does it have? How many movies does it have? How much does it cost to have a dedicated NFS server, a separate dedicated HTPC, a monitor for the NFS server and a second monitor for the HTPC? In what country can you afford to have 2 of everything? Is it supposed to play movies or just mount a filesystem over NFS? How many times have you set up NFS anyway?

  7. Re:you know you've stumbled... by Baloo+Ursidae · · Score: 1, Insightful
    You know when you've stumbled into linux-super-nerd-land when your media player cannot do MP3 out-of-the-box, but OGG plays just dandy!

    It's 2006 and you still don't know MP3 is patented, and therefor of questionable legality when it comes to distributing unlicensed MP3 players and encoders? Christ, get your head out of the sand...

    --
    Help us build a better map!
  8. It's mostly porn? by ergo98 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    True, it's mostly porn and it takes a lot of my time but i feel my self-respect is worth it !!!

    Are you talking about the goatse as the submitter's link?

    Okay, this is flipping hilarious. After the whole brouhaha, Slashdot listened to the tyranny of the majority and added nofollow on submitter links. Now we have glorious links like goatse instead. Awesome.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:You are admitting to illegal copying of media by Dashing+Leech · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "In the end, all of us will have to pay more since and jobs will be lost."

    I love it when people over-simplify and fail to actually investigate both sides of this issue. It is thinking like the above that almost stopped VCR's with the claim they'd be the end of movies and theatres, when in fact they ended up increasing the rate of movies, the money in the movie business, and the profit of movie companies. This was accomplished by the movie industry changing their business models to exploit the new technology, not fight it. It's even more futile to fight it now as the end users don't rely on third parties (e.g., VCR manufactures) being legally able to build the technology. The users can create the technology themselves whether legal or not, and do so in secret.

    Radio was going to kill music production. Cable TV was going to kill networks. VCR was going to kill movies. P2P/filesharing is going to kill movies/music. Sound familiar? I have yet to see a single example of where such claims have ever proven right. (Yes, automobiles put carriage manufactures out of buiness, but that's replacing an old technology with a new one, not destroying the content creation business by changing the delivery technology.)