Has Anybody Created A Totally Digital Media Center For Themselves?

Mike Finley

From the recent post from chainsawcharlie about his corrupt computer its pretty obvious there are some major computer geeks running around desguised as contractors.

I'm wonder what other computer achievements you all have lurking around that we don't know about and wonder if any of you have cracked the digitial media center with a home made solution yet?

I was looking at Apples media center called Apple TV about a year ago, it looked pretty cool, it's one of those steps in the process of the totally digital media center for a house where all the digital entertainment from music to movies to recording tv shows is all in one place.

When I think about it, it seems like we are inches away from being able to do something on our own with a computer.

Who really needs Apple TV to store audio files so you can stream them in your house if you have a computer? Who needs Tivo to record shows if you have a computer?

Seems like by now we should be able to put together the mother of all Tivo players with a computer and a software package. I think Tivo now will go and find shows based on your past recordings trying to figure out what you might like. If you record a lot of history channel WWII documentaries it's supposed to find Private Ryan and record it for you.

Doesn't seem that far away from something we could do with some good software and a big old hard drive.

With huge hard drives being so cheap who needs a 50 gig hard drive and Tivo for $60 a month when you can buy a 500 gig one for $99.00?

So has anybody taken a computer and created their own digital media center?

I would want one that you could use it like a VCR to record tv shows, download movies and save them to your harddrive and play them anytime you want, store all your music on it and play them anytime...

It would have to be hooked up to a wireless network and be able to stream audio music fiels to in wall whole house speakers or certain speakers in only a couple of rooms. Be able to play a movie wirelessly in any tv in the house.

Celtic

A quick search yielded a 1 TB internal re-furb'ed HD for a whopping $84 [plus S/H]

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Max Nomad

The PC-turned-Digital media center has been a popular pasttime amongs Ubergeeks and Digital Jedis for awhile, one that particularly flourishes among the Linux heads. I made my first one about 10 years ago but it was mostly just a music jukebox controlled by Winamp. Even today it's a perfect way to recycle a PC or Mac that's 3+ years old, replace the harddrive with a bigger one, pick up the right cables and maybe a TV receiver card and drop it in place. A 100 gig harddrive could hold hundreds of full music CDs and rip a few dozen DVDs -- on top of all the software required to play/record/edit everything. In the past when I've made them I used to take off the PC case and fronts and use some Krylon's spraypaint to give it a stone appearance.

Prior to the Music/Video iPods, these Video/CD Jukeboxes (in tower PCs) were awesome for parties because you could plug them into the back of a home entertainment center, have pre-configured playlists, and then you could start them playing at random then just unplug the keyboard and monitor. It was great for those annoying guests that like to take your CDs or want to play deejay. If they didn't know you had the jukebox plugged in, they'd drive themselves nuts pressing buttons and trying to figure out where the music was coming from.

One ready-to-install distribution is called Mythbuntu (http://www.mythbuntu.org/ ) and it's features make it so easy that anyone that's savvy enough to add or remove a harddrive can set up a digital media center within an afternoon. It'd be a cool project to do for the kids, too.

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KentWhitten

A real cheap solution for storing media files is an external hard drive with networking adapters. I made the mistake of getting the USB one, which goes to just my computer. The networking one will be accessible from any computer on the network.

So a relatively cheap computer with an external networked hard drive can do a decent job. I would think you would need a gigabit ethernet system though, not the 100. I don't think it would cut it. The throughput is too much to handle for videos. Audio files should be good to go.

Audio cards are relatively cheap. Line out to your amp.

It's not simple though.

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GregS

Been doing it for many years using MythTV (as mentioned above).

I have one computer with a lot of storage and a pair of sat tuners. It records shows, handles the program guide and edits out the commercials.

I then have multiple computers around the house that are plugged into TVs that get used for playback.

Everything talks to each otherwith ethernet.

Works mostly well, but you do need to know a thing or two about what you are doing to make it work correctly.

Mike Finley

Awesome!

I suspected as much was going on. It just doesn't make any sense that you can't duplicate Tivo with a PC and that just be the beginning!

ChainsawCharlie

I was quite surprised (and grateful) for the level of geekiness in here.

I thought I was gonna have to go the DIY forum.

My digitality extends as far as ipod. I have ipod docks in every room of the house- standard dock for the living room system, ihome clock radio in the bedroom, office and shop.

And this for the truck:
http://www.harmankardon.com/drive-2/

I'm not much into movies. MusicMusicMusic for me.

MALCO.New.York

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Houston's

Next big job i have, i am going to build me the new "intel I7" media center/tivo. but the down fall its going to run me around $1700.
I will let you know how it works out!

shanekw1

Funny, but right after I read this thread the first time, I stumbled upon this http://www.makezine.com/extras/4.html

Looks interesting.

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SquirrelNmoose

There is a lot of this going on. Myth TV is probably the most popular and active.

Be careful in making a Tivo 'like' device. It's not as easy as it would seem. Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network all originally partnered with Tivo, then broke the partnership and sold their own DVR devices. Dish Network lost a patent lawsuit, Comcast and DirecTV have since resigned a deal with Tivo. And DirecTV bought ReplayTV, a better DVR in my opinion but not as popular.

Like the digital music industry, networks have fought hard against digital video but are finally coming up with some consumer solutions. There are many devices on the market that will stream media to your TV/audio setup. PS3, Xbox 360, AppleTV, Slingbox and several others I'm drawing a blank on.

If you have a PC connectoed to your TV you can stream TV and movies from many sites (legaly) like.
Hulu, Netflix, Surfchannel, ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC, Miro player, Vuze player and on and on they go.

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Len,
"There is no charge for Awesomeness"
A view through the eyes of SquirreNmoose

MALCO.New.York

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
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MALCO.New.York

My TiVooooooo

__________________
Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-cnizLDEE

SquirrelNmoose

Very funny..

Let somebody else worry about the scheduling and hard drive space, the cable bill.
I like it.

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Len,
"There is no charge for Awesomeness"
A view through the eyes of SquirreNmoose

MALCO.New.York

EZTV is MY Bestest Friend!



As is: http://www.finalgear.com/


By the way.That Mentalist Program is Quite good!

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-cnizLDEE