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Building a Linux Home Media Center
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).'"
I run XPMCE -- yeah, yeah, it works and the WAF is 100%. We continue to try MythTV and various F/OSS programs about 3-4 times a year though.
But I think I might stop, soon. I already have a decent little file sharing network between myself and about 100 "close" friends. I think we could probably extend this to 1000 people and still keep intruders and others out. I have about a 10mbps pipe at home (beta) that should be available everywhere within a year. One of the providers wants to see it for $19.99 per month (as long as Congress stays out!)
So that leaves me with my subjust line: when will we not need a dedicated box anymore?
Bandwidth is almost free, compared to any previous bandwidth before it. 10mbps is just as fast as I can run to the video store and back (depending on the codec used and other parameters, but its close). If I keep maybe 10% of my content on my PC and share it with the 100 out there, I bet we'd have it covered pretty well even considering duplicates for backup. Maybe we need a protocol/program that takes BitTorrent and allows a network of users to safely share video/audio in a wide-area RAID configuration. The other day I lost a CD (AAC's actually, my car stereo supports it) that had about 1000 minutes of music on it. I run my AACs lower than 128kbps for the car. I had the entire set of albums downloaded from a friend in maybe an hour or so, I'd guess.
The future for me is a system similar to AKIMBO (but open source and needing very little in the way of complex hardware) -- a set top box, maybe 60-100gig hard drive, the ability to copy data to the unit from my workstation, and the ability to set it up in this wide area RAID configuration with my friends.
True "peer" to "peer" sharing of media, but no complexity needed that is the norm with an MCE -- you don't need terabytes of data, 2-4 tuner cards (my XPMCE has 4: 2 SD and 2 HD) as you can download the shows from BT or whoever else may have the data already, or even a DVD player.
What would this system be missing? (I just typed as I thought it up, FYI)
DLNA, the digital living network alliance, http://www.dlna.org/about is a group working on standards to make it streamlined for your TV to grab files off your windows server, linux server, mp3 player, et cetera. Basically makes all your devices share the media together. I know nothing about it other than the roughest overview, but if anyone else knows of it please comment.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I've been running a linux home entertainment box for a couple years now. I use SuSE ( I think I have Suse 9.3 on there now) and a matrox video card with TV out. My sound I run directly into my stereo system. I use mplayer mostly to play my videos and I still use mp3blaster to play my tunes. Although I have a wireless mouse n keyboard hooked up to it, it's a pain because I still need to get up and turn on the monitor because the text is too hard for me to read on my TV.
The computer I've been using recently for this task has kind of been overkill so I was happy to find today the Mvix Multimedia Player. As far as I know it runs linux. Just needs a harddrive installed and it's ready to run. I'm thinking of replacing my computer with it so I can use my computer for other tasks (I can always find something). Anyone heard of Mvix before?
*DrugCheese rants*
I also use ubuntu for a multimedia PC. Actually setting it up is nothing special. I'm using low end hardware, a 1000 MHz Duron, 512 MB RAM, an nVidia geforce4 ($30 new) with S-video output, and the onboard sound of the Asus A7N8X-X. This computer is in our living room and connected to a wired 100 Mbit network. I connected the video card and the sound to a home theatre reciever using S-video and RCA cables, respectively. Ubuntu detected and configured all of my hardware automatically. I downloaded the latest nvidia driver installer and ran it, it installed cleanly and I used their settings GUI to configure the TV output. Then, I had to restart X to get the TV output working. Next I installed mplayer and downloaded all the codecs from their website. All of my multimedia stuff is on my office computer, so I share it with the multimedia computer using NFS. This folder is accessed by an icon on the GNOME desktop, and nautilus file manager shows nice big preview thumbnails of movies, and also previes sounds when the cursor is held over the icon. I watch movies using mplayer (it's able to play everything I've thrown at it), and listen to music using Beep Media Player, gnome-cd, and for internet radio, Streamtuner is excellent for finding quality streams. The cheapo graphics card didn't come with a remote, but a wireless optical mouse ($15) works just as well on the couch cushion right beside me. Our DVD player is getting quite a coating of dust on it these days.
better documentation, easier MythTV integration, better hardware support. Had a great time putting together a Myth box with very modern hardware. Blogged about it too.
something as simple as streaming stuff off a different computer is enuf to get an article and be featured on /. Pity!
Considering how poorly device manufacturers are at making this work, you have no business making fun of this article.
I've looked at about a dozen consumer-level devices to do this, and so far, every single one has some stupid dependency or other. Whether it's the need for their "server" software, or the full-blown "you must run Windows or get the fuck out of my face" like Media Centre, NO ONE has come up with this:
A device that plays DVDs, AND can read files from a SMB (Windows, or Samba) share. Maybe something else. I don't care, as many of the available devices force you to navigate a directory heirarchy anyway. Plays mp3, ogg, mpeg2 and 4, avi (Divx and xvid), qt, etc. Preferably with the ability to update codecs/container formats as required, but even being able to play what was current a year ago today would be nice.
You laugh, but multi-billion dollar companies haven't managed this yet. A basic PC with a good Knoppix/Ubuntu install/CD would do this. I think it's worth an article, if only to show just how stupid the consumer electronics market is.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The Server
PC with big disk running linux (or windows if you prefer)
Install Apache
symlink media directories to default apache home directory
Done.
The Player(s)
An old laptop is what I use but you could of course use any pc, maybe a mac mini or whatever takes your fancy.
On the laptop I use firefox with the mplayer plugin - I had to disable local caching in the plugin otherwise it was a bit choppy.
So to play any content from the 'media server' I just browse to it with firefox and click to play.. (and select full screen mode for vids of course) Dead easy and effective enough for my needs.
You could make an interface to the media with perl/php if apache directory listings are not flash enough for you.. ;)
Note this solution would work equally with windows or anything else that runs apache on the server and a browser with media player plugin on the viewer.. which narrows it down to everything out there I think.
Using a laptop for viewing in my case means I can send video output to a tv or projector easily since a tv-out is built in and 'just works'.
The above assumes you have a home network of some kind setup.. and make sure your firewall doesn't allow the world to access your webserver.. ;)