 maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·DIRECTV
| Make your own! I just pulled one of my computers that I no longer used, installed Windows XP Media Center 2005 on it, bought a Media Center remote for $40, and added a USB wireless 802.11b adapter to it, and hid the thing somewhere behind my TV. The USB infrared receiver I placed on top of the TV, and now I can play all my downloaded content straight on the TV.
The main reason to do this by the way was LEGAL content from uitzendinggemist.nl - so I can watch TV in Dutch from my couch instead of on the PC. But it does play any other content as well. I have a DVR to record regular TV, but I have had a few instances that the DVR had 3 things it wanted to record and it could record only 2.... and it decided for itself which program to dump. If that happens I go and fetch the Divx version through a torrent site to watch it anyways.
Oh sue me! If the networks would simply repeat their main shows in the middle of the night I would be happy too as I can just record it then. But since they don`t...
A Media Center pc doesn`t have to cost a lot. An old PC you no longer use that can run Windows XP should be enough. A remote control is nice, I bought mine for $40. The NVidia Geforce 4 MX card (cheapy) that came with it already had composite tv-out on board. That card can still be bought for like $50 or so should you need it. Windows XP Media Center Edition OEM edition you can buy with the Media Center remote for about $100, check pricewatch.com. You can also use Linux and a free Media Center alternative program, there are several you can download for free. Then you only have to worry about the right hardware, and the remote control if you don't want to get up from the couch.
If you have the right hardware and don't mind an illegal copy of Windows or using Linux and a free Media Center alternative, you could be in business for as little as $40 for the remote. Set your resolution to 800x600, big fonts.... and it reads just fine on your TV too.
The biggest advantage over a Netgear and D-Link device is obvious: You are in control on what can be played. DivX, XVid, Quicktime..... any hacked codec you would like to play, and hell.... you could see YouTube.com on your PC, or Google Videos for that matter. 
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father. |
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 pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Did you need to use a "high end" video card for said PC? I ended up needing to use an Nvidia GeForce 6600 (I am 99% sure this is the card) as it could support the 1752x958 resolution that i had to use for my HDTV. Most of my videos are on a server I keep in my basement and I used gigabit ethernet for connectivity.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. |
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maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·DIRECTV
| I don't have a HDTV, so I used the card that came with the PC which was a Gefore 4 MX.
When I buy a HDTV, I may have to replace the card for one that supports 1980x1080, but even those cards are not expensive anymore. And it just needs to play video, its not a gaming console. 
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father. |
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pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | said by maartena:And it just needs to play video, its not a gaming console. Heh... you say that... but there's something to be said about playing UT on a big screen TV. 
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. |
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 LilYodaFeline with squirel personality disorderPremium
join:2004-09-02
Mountains
1 edit | reply to maartena
I think I tested the most popular PVR softwares (Sage, BeyondTV, MythTV, XP media center...) So far my favorite is still GB-PVR.
Freeware, there's a ton of plugins, and if all you're looking for is DivX playback, DVD, live TV, recording TV and MP3 playback, it's doing the job perfectly.
Add a MediaMVP from Hauppauge for $50, and you don't even have to live with a PC in the living room, the mediaMVP communicates with the GBPVR server running on your PC in the den/home office/basement/wherever...
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"the two most abundant things in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity." (Harlan Ellison) |
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maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·DIRECTV
| reply to pnh102
said by pnh102:said by maartena:And it just needs to play video, its not a gaming console. Heh... you say that... but there's something to be said about playing UT on a big screen TV. Yep, if you are into gaming.... you can also buy xbox-like controllers and use your big screen TV to play PC games.
But you would need a fairly powerful CPU and fairly powerful graphicscard to do that. Playing DivX Video can be done on a 800 Mhz PIII with 256 Mb of memory you just happen to have lying around.
My Media Center is a AMD 2000+, 768 Mb, 80 Gb. It is actually my wife's PC that she no longer uses now that she has claimed our laptop as her PC
And as I said, you can even use Linux, and a free Media Center alternative. All you would need is a compatible remote, and for about $50 your old PC can serve a new life as a digital media station in the livingroom.
Of course it can also play MP3's and playlists, and believe it or not..... you can play solitaire quite nicely with the remote!
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father. |
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| reply to maartena
You can get cheap DivX DVD players and a DVD burner or something like a Creative Zen Vision:M with it's video out to display your recorded contect on any tv. May not work at well for HD content but it's compact and cheap. |
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| reply to maartena
Hmm...could be a good use for an old laptop. Unfortunately, all the old ones I have are USB 1 so they'll need a USB 2 card to add decent amounts of storage. |
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 PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | reply to maartena
You all are going to laugh at me for this, but I play DivX Video on a 5 year old Toshiba Satellite running WinXP Pro with a 700mhz P3 and 64, that's right, only 64mb of ram! Of course, I certainly DO NOT try to do anything else on it while it is playing.
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"I invented it, Bill made it famous."
David Bradley, the inventor of Ctrl+Alt+Del. |
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disc
join:2005-12-31
Raleigh, NC
1 edit | reply to LilYoda
I've got the same set up as LilYoda with GB-PVR on the home PC and media mvp STB, with one 160GB drive in the home PC for day-to-day recording and another for archiving content. Only problem now is that my kids fill up the hard drives all the time with their shows.
I've got wired ethernet drops throughout the house - didn't want to mess with wireless for video content. My kids move the media mvp to whichever TV they're watching at the time. How about that for multi-room DVR  I suppose I could buy another media mvp; they're cheap enough.
I don't take advantage of any of the transcoding stuff or divx. But I really like the plug-in for skipping commercials |
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