HTPC
Home Theater PC.
I’ve had a machine sitting around the flat/bedsit/flat again for years now. I always meant it to be hooked up to the telly. Having it hanging over me has been stressing me out since 2003. So (just as soon as I get my home server up and running again), I’m going to have another go at building one.
I don’t need TV functionality. I don’t want another windows box hanging around (not sure I have the license for one, either). Just a nice interface to videos and music on the fileserver. Perhaps a quick script to rip a DVD for easy access. Maybe, MAYBE a snes emulator for shits and giggles. Simpler the better.
There seem to be three contenders (in the linux space, anyway:)
MythTV - The big one.. this is the one I always figured I’d end up using. It’s so powerful and feature-rich, but it really is set up to do Tivo-like functions and TV recording; apparently its use as a simple video-over-the-network setup is a bit poor.
Freevo, which looks to be more straightforward is based on Python, and their screenshots don’t seem to work properly - maybe I need to try it out a bit. Their plugin range looks pretty impressive, too.
Geexbox looks like the one I’ll most likely start with. Installation looks much easier than either of the other two, and the idea of something small enough to run from a compact flash card… well, one less hard drive in the box will cut down on noise…
Anyone have any experience with these? Opinions welcome as always 
March 15th, 2007 at 12:04 am
I only know people that have used MythTV. It’s not always worked perfectly for them to begin with, but I gather it can be quite powerful once up and running (on the downside, if the box fails, you lose access to everything that’d normally entertain you). I think everyone I know has stored stuff locally, as they don’t own fileservers (like us). It’ll be interesting to see how you get on with Geexbox, if you can get it to work with network drives then a system without a hard disk would be an interesting idea. My two Core 2 Duo machines are insanely quiet, the loudest parts are the hard disks when they access data. One day I’ll get around to putting my main machine’s disk into a “Silent Drive” enclosure. Perhaps I’ll do it when I upgrade the fileserver, as I will have several spare hard disks afterwards that are a good spec. The idea is to put a TV card into my main machine sometime and make it into a HTPC too, but one that I can also use for gaming and for general day-to-day usage.
I would have suggested buying and using Vista’s Media Center (Home Premium/Ultimate), but it still doesn’t support MPEG-4 playback! This means you can’t watch local XviD/DivX content, although you can transcode it with a few third party tools, but the couple I’ve tried have complained bitterly when trying to stream off a fileserver (one kept telling me the service had to be changed to one that could access the remote files, even though I’d already done that). So if you’re doing a lot of MPEG-4 content, I’d say that Linux is your best bet. Yes, a Windows fan telling people to go with Linux. It doesn’t happen often.
Do you plan on building one from scratch, with brand new components? And a nice shiny HTPC case? I still think you should finally buy yourself a TFT
If you put a SNES emulator on, I might have to hook up my SNES and get some practice in!
March 21st, 2007 at 11:32 pm
(shameless sales plug)
SB, if you want some silentdrive enclosures I have a spare pair of ‘em sitting here doing nothing
(/shameless sales plug)
I’ve always found Myth very interesting, and would dearly love to find the time to explore it properly. Some of its multicasting functions look absolutely superb for Video-on-Demand environments (hotels, B&Bs, anime conventions, etc.). However, the sad reailty is that my TV machine needs to just work, even if not 100% perfectly. I’m currently running WinXP + MediaPortal + Zoom Player. It works with most things, it’s not 100% stable, but MediaPortal’s never had the best quality checking out there.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
I may have to buy them off you in a few weeks time