MythTV from SVN
I installed MythTV from SVN recently, it appears to have fixed my database disconnect issue, the official "stable" version is still broke. While I was at it, I decided to install some of the plugins. I'm really liking the looks of this. There's a video games section that lets you put a front end on video game engines. I've got it using ZSNES for SNES games and DGen for Genesis (Mega Drive) games. It works great, but really all you do is set it up to enter in a command with a file name. I'm probably going to follow it up with MAME and, Visual Boy Advanced. I'll probably set it to bring up native Linux games through the front end as well.
The things got an incredibly cool and easy to use photo viewer, a weather info front end, a DVD ripper/encoder, DVD player, video library viewer/player, news feed reader, a section that interfaces with Net Flix, and a web browser. Some of the components are immature at the moment. I haven't figured out the news reader or the web browser yet, and the game library front ends needs some polish, but it's looking nice and as long as I set it up, it's simple enough for Grandma to use.
Why the interest? I'm thinking about going into business selling home setups (being careful to stay legal with the media of course, going to actually have to buy DVD CODECs). I've got many ideas of how to make this thing the full entertainment manager for a household, including portables. My idea is to have a main media server in one place, and dumb or slave terminals on the TVs. Someone likes the idea already and is trying to get some financial backing for me so we can make a proof of concept setup. I have three major problems at the moment.
1. The guide info provided by Zap2it labs which will not allow for commercial use. We might be able to work a deal though.
2. I'm not yet sure of the best hardware to use for TV interfacing, especially since people who would want this system probably want Digital cable as well. I probably need MPEG compression on all of the cards, not to mention I'm really going to have to learn particulars about LIRC to make the setup work within the mindset of the average consumer.
3. Conroe's cable SUCKS. There's to much static to setup an attractive demo using the local cable.
My idea is that anything added to the media center by anyone in the household should be accessible to anyone in the household. No more "My brother lost my DVD" or "That's recorded on the other DVR" (remember I'm trying to sell to rich people). My friend is trying to secure about $10,000 from an investor. I'm thinking that will give us a good start. Theoretically I could buy a few of those $150 computers advertised in the sales papers, take out the HDD's, use them in the server as drives dedicated to a media type or purpose and make the cheapo systems into dumb terminals. Not exactly the absolute best setup, but I think it will work for the proof of concept approach, not to mention is a lot cheaper and more flexible than a Windows Media setup.
Just Found
Just found this project which supports this device. Not quite what I was looking for, no USB ports for game controls, or ability to actually run the games for that matter, but this could have some uses for sure.
The things got an incredibly cool and easy to use photo viewer, a weather info front end, a DVD ripper/encoder, DVD player, video library viewer/player, news feed reader, a section that interfaces with Net Flix, and a web browser. Some of the components are immature at the moment. I haven't figured out the news reader or the web browser yet, and the game library front ends needs some polish, but it's looking nice and as long as I set it up, it's simple enough for Grandma to use.
Why the interest? I'm thinking about going into business selling home setups (being careful to stay legal with the media of course, going to actually have to buy DVD CODECs). I've got many ideas of how to make this thing the full entertainment manager for a household, including portables. My idea is to have a main media server in one place, and dumb or slave terminals on the TVs. Someone likes the idea already and is trying to get some financial backing for me so we can make a proof of concept setup. I have three major problems at the moment.
1. The guide info provided by Zap2it labs which will not allow for commercial use. We might be able to work a deal though.
2. I'm not yet sure of the best hardware to use for TV interfacing, especially since people who would want this system probably want Digital cable as well. I probably need MPEG compression on all of the cards, not to mention I'm really going to have to learn particulars about LIRC to make the setup work within the mindset of the average consumer.
3. Conroe's cable SUCKS. There's to much static to setup an attractive demo using the local cable.
My idea is that anything added to the media center by anyone in the household should be accessible to anyone in the household. No more "My brother lost my DVD" or "That's recorded on the other DVR" (remember I'm trying to sell to rich people). My friend is trying to secure about $10,000 from an investor. I'm thinking that will give us a good start. Theoretically I could buy a few of those $150 computers advertised in the sales papers, take out the HDD's, use them in the server as drives dedicated to a media type or purpose and make the cheapo systems into dumb terminals. Not exactly the absolute best setup, but I think it will work for the proof of concept approach, not to mention is a lot cheaper and more flexible than a Windows Media setup.
Just Found
Just found this project which supports this device. Not quite what I was looking for, no USB ports for game controls, or ability to actually run the games for that matter, but this could have some uses for sure.