Dave is dreaming about the 2007 iTV. I, on the other hand, have already dreamed up and put together the ultimate geek home theatre setup. PC style, baby.
What to do with all the mp3’s, pictures, podcast downloads, recorded tv shows on my computer? That was the question I had been asking myself since May of last year. My original idea was to build a mini-pc and chuck it full with all the graphics hardware and memory I would need to have a pc connected to the tv, internet, and local network.
I scrapped that idea in a few months after buying a really nice ATI video card that had it’s own tv tuner card and could record tv in the same way a Tivo could. And after that, I ended up building a system that could support the hog of a video card.
So I opted out of building another mini-computer and took the old baige box that used to be my main system and put a wireless card in it, hooked it up with a wireless keyboard and mouse and set it next to the TV. Nothing is more geeky than having a beige computer box sitting to your tv.
Fast forward to last week when I was talking to my Dad about a product he had been looking at called Music Bridge. It was essentialy a wireless box that hooked up to your receiver and played what ever was being played on your pc. Very limited, but I like the idea.
Blame my Dad, but I got all geeked out about a new multimedia setup. I made the trip to the Blue store. The Blue store and I are a dangerous combination. I think I am on the top 10 for the frequent visitor list.
At the Blue store, I found the D-Link Media Lounge. I could tell it was a great product right away. It had support for HDMI, S/PDIF Digital Audio, S-Video, Composite Video, Composite Audio, a LAN port and Wireless. I asked a guy in a blue shirt, “What is your return policy on this?” He replied, “Dude, that thing is awesome ..(didn’t hear much after that).. like a first born or something.”
Needless to say, I made a purchase.
How it works. It’s connected to my TV and sound system. I have an application that runs on my PC where I have all my podcasts, mp3s, and movies. I tell it what I want to share with the media lounge. It goes out, searches, and makes everything available.
Works great, but a few things that I have tweak out.
- The response is a little slow when flipping through photos. Most of my photos are around 800k. Whatever my 5 megapixel camera spits them out at. I think I can improve the preformance by hooking it up to LAN connection.
- Music plays and sounds great. Although, the management of my library of music is to be questioned. Music can be browsed by Artist, Album, Playlist, or Folder.When I ripped my music (note: legally - okay there might be some old school P2P, but I’ve turned my ways.) I ripped them into a directory structure MP3\Beastie Boys\Licensed to Ill. Then I would stick my playlist into where the tracks were located. Unfortunately, the playlists were all named “playlist”, so when I browse by playlist I am clueless. Best thing I can think of is to write a program to rename all the playlists to the directory they are stored in.
- Video - Actually doesn’t do a bad job over wireless except it can not play mp4 in the AAC format. The format that Apple’s iTunes commonly uses and the same format my Sony camera creates videos in. I don’t know what I’ll do about this but take it into consideration the next movie download or try to show podcasts.
Overall result, happy and it doesn’t look geeky at all.
Good post on a topic that many people would like to see a great solution for. I’m still not even sure that it’s time yet for the computer to be merging with a TV, and I don’t know if that time will ever come. I think it will in a sense, but it will probably be in a much different way than most people now think.
I think all the excitement about this subject, coupled with the not-so-soon release of Apple’s iTV is going to motivate me to make my own system. We have a wireless and bluetooth enabled Mac Mini at our disposal, so I think that will be the center of the system. Now if I can just figure out how to get video onto it and record it…
Dave, is there no kind of tv tuner card for the Mac?
I did a google for TV tuner + Mac. There are a few products out there, but I guess the limiting factor is that I really don’t see a name brand that you can trust like ATI.
I’ve heard of many people converting their mac mini into their digital entertainment center. I even thought about doing something like that. I imagine there are quite a few sites describing what needs to be done to do that.
It would be cool if you could find a USB tv tuner that supported PVR (personal video recording). Pop that on the Mac Mini and you’d be good to go.
There are a bunch of tuner options for the Mac, but I just don’t have one yet. The EyeTV2 or whatever is the one that stands out to me as the best. I was thinking of one with hardware encryption so I wouldn’t have to rely on the computer, but I think the Mac Mini can handle video encoding. Then there’s a $20 adapter that I need to export the video from the Mac to the TV.
But the real question is how do I control it from the couch? I could make the software program fairly easily I think, but I need a programmable remote. Or I could make a software package that would just work with a wireless mouse, but that’s a little cumbersome. I could also make it work with a wireless keyboard, but that’s also not ideal. The Mac remote is a perfect solution, but I have to find a way to interpret the signal with my software, and that doesn’t sound like fun.
It would also be possible to control the system from a laptop, which we have now. I think I’ll start there, because we always have a laptop handy.
Who knows. Lots of options, no PERFECT solution.
What I need is a wireless-enabled iPod that I can use as a remote and to beam content to the TV as well. What a sweet remote that would be!
What the heck are you talking about.
Jeff,
This should explain everything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KyiejbQj-c&mode=related&search=
Wow that is you shoo.