[Cialug] media center

[Nathan C. Smith]

The new DRM techniques and other quasi limitations like digital television and cable-card make whole house systems like you want either legally challenging or very expensive.

However,  I use MythTV  (knoppmyth) and along with some DVD-archiving hacks I've been pretty happy with it.  Also Silicon Dust has announced an HDHomerun with CableCard Support.  If you can't live without Digital or HD TV that may be an excellent way to get it.

I run a very basic Mythtv box with a large hard drive and 3 NTSC tuners hooked to analog cable.  I use an old shuttle box and some Hauppauge mediaMPVs with the open source firmware to access tv programs from other televisions in the house.  To archive DVDs may require 3rd party software to get around the encryption and a more powerful mythtv front end for playback.   There are some really cool hooks into MythTv and you could easily waste your life configuring everything.  For my part, the best things about MythTv is the commercial skipping ability, and the ability to decrease playback times by increasing the speed the program plays.

My family uses a Tivo and it has really come a long way with what it can do, the next generation looks even more feature-full.  I like Tivo for Video on Demand from Blockbuster and Amazon.  I have an associate who thinks the Roku set-top box for movies is one of the best commercial electronics products yet.  But then he also bought Windows Media Center.

The time for TV-over-IP is nearly here, where you no longer need Cable, Dish, or over-the-air to watch what you want and pay per program.

-Nate

________________________________
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Nuzum
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:40 AM
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
Subject: [Cialug] media center

Hi, I am thinking about a whole-house media center. It would be a server that could record shows, store copies of DVDs and other media and be controlled by front-end devices hooked up to TVs.

I was wondering if anyone has some experience doing the parts of this. I am going to invest some money and would like it to work as painlessly as possible. I need to:

Choose where to get my content: mediacom, dish, directv (other?)

How should I record the content: hdhomerun, pci/usb tv tuner (other?)

How should I watch the media? I.e. what software should I use? I'd like to be able to control it via a remote, watch hi def, have surround sound, watch/pause/record live TV and most of all, be very easy to use.

I've seen devices like the SageTV HD Theater http://www.sagetv.com/hd_theater.html or Roku HD http://www.roku.com/roku-products and PC operating system net-tops like the Acer Revo.

Have you read any practical hands-on reviews or tutorials of people doing this?

Oh, and one last question... how does a person hook something like this up to surround sound? Do you plug your devices into the TV and then use the TV's output into your stereo system? I'm really new to HD.

--
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca<http://identi.ca> and twitter
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