Wolverines

So I cant wait till we get our new house to start geeking things out. I decided to go ahead and build a HTPC. This needs to be capable of 1080p over hdmi (although most of my movie data is on divx- want to future proof it). I ordered this and should be here Tuesday:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228 
(keep in mind I am using this as the work horse at first but this will end up being just a front end- it is VERY small and supposedly silent)
$199
Brand Acer
Series Aspire Revo
Model AR1600-U910H

Processor Intel Atom 230 (1.6GHz)
Cache Per Processor 512KB L2 Cache
Memory 1GB DDR2
Hard Drive 160GB 5400RPM SATA
Graphics Integrated NVIDIA ION LE Graphics
Audio High-Definition Audio Support
Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Motherboard Chipset NVIDIA ION LE
CPU Type Intel Atom FSB 533MHz 1.6GHz
L2 Cache Per CPU 512KB
GPU/VPU Type NVIDIA ION LE graphics
Memory 1GB DDR2
Memory Slot (Total) 2
Memory Slot (Available) 1
HDD Capacity 160GB
Audio
Audio Chipset Integrated
Communications
LAN Chipset Integrated
LAN Speed 10/100/1000Mbps
Front Panel Ports
Front USB 2
Card Reader Multi-in-One Digital Media Card Reader
MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital Card, Memory Stick, xD Picture Card
Back Panel Ports
Video Ports 1 VGA, 1 HDMI
Rear USB 4
RJ45 1 port
Expansion
PCI Slots (Available/Total) 1 x Mini PCI Express


I know I am going to need a LOT more storage than this holds, but it has USB ports for external drives. Idealy I will build a server with a RAID for data and hook it up via ethernet.


The OS I am going to with is XBMC. This is extremly lightweight, especially the live version, it is completly skinnable and one feature I find impressive as hell, you can assign "scrapers" to your liberaries to tag the media. I set this up on a laptop to test it and it didnt miss a beat and add covers, splash screens, and movie data to all my film "backups" (hehe). I didnt play with the mp3s yet but is supposed to be the same concept.

(http://xbmc.org/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/aeon/aeon_home_watchmen.jpg)
(http://xbmc.org/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/confluence/screenshot003.jpg)
(http://xbmc.org/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/mediastreamnew/mstream3.jpg)

Anyone have any experince with this? What do you think of the setup?

Dude, that looks fucking slick!  I've been toying with the idea of tossing an HTPC (home theater pc, for the uninitiated) together for a little while.  How much moneys is this xmbc?

XBMC = FREE
open source goodness
Runs on linux, Windows, OSX.

http://xbmc.org/  <- check out all the skins and plugins.

I installed it on my desktop to just play with it. It takes a little bit of reading to understand how the liberaries/scrapers work but I was shocked at how easy it was to setup and skin/configure.The only gotcha is you have to have a SEMI clean naming context for the scraper to tag the data correctly and make it all snazy.
Matrix.avi/Thematrix.avi/The_Matrix.avi would all scrap fine and you get all the data and splash screens but THEMATRIX-AXXO-UBBERRELEASE-THEPIRATEBAY.avi prolly wont scrap right, then again it might i dont know cause I clean up the names after i am finished *AHEM* "backing my dvds up"

If you do play with it, the default skin sucks, change to mediastream.

 I am basing my build off this lifehacker post: http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap

also, there is an app from apple that i can put on my iphone/ipod to control it. The first time my geeky tinkering ever evoked a "wow thats cool" from my wife.

So you are using it on 1080p or been working with another build? From what I have heard ATOMs start to have trouble at anything above 720p. Some things it can handle, but some codex and packages take more to decode and cause shutters/jitters in the video. That just comments I have heard, not first hand experience.

Zonk, i am actually going on the things that I have read that the ATOMS have no issue with 1080p at all. This would mean trouble if true. Where did you read this?

Did you post a Newegg review?  The top one is from "Dan" and he says "Had a bad RAM slot but I forgive Acer and Newegg because I had a 2 gig stick on hand. If that one goes, however, I'm gonna get all angsty and start listening to emo."  Sounds totally like you!

Have you considered a Drobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822240010&cm_re=drobo-_-22-240-010-_-Product)?  It's a little pricey, but serverless, manageable raid storage is dope.

Lol no that was not me. I should be getting it Tuesday though.
That drobo thing looks cool, cant really network it though and might not work as i am trying to go as small as possible on the front end. Will have to keep it in mind. Would be the perfect way to go if I am not going to build a media server and just plug drives into the little guy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822240007&cm_re=drobo-_-22-240-007-_-Product

There are other, cheaper NAS alternatives but the Drobo has been the sleekest setup I've played with.

I mostly heard it from netbook problems. I think the Nvidia ION might be more then enough to put it over the top. Think the problem was when the ATOM was paired with a crappy intel integrated graphics it struggled on 1080p. The more I run into different media packages and codex it really just depends on so many things. I can watch the monitor on my computer and .mkv files use 35% more cpu on a certain player over another.

Thanks for the input Zonk.

JT, i see me blowing a lot of money on this Drobo setup. The more i read about it the more attractive it gets. If anyone is interested I will document my setup and post here (pictures and what not).
I am not sure if I am going to install Linux first then the XBMC framework on top or just install the XBMC Live linux flavor, but I wont be running windows for sure.

Definitely post pics.  I'm curious to see how well xbmc does the job. 

Built this last night. Looks pretty slick, found my network share with all the movies on it easily, plays all formats i have thrown at it. I will post some pics of it this weekend.

liar.

Hello?  Varg?

Will post some pics tonight.

You're breaking my <3 Varg.  What's the verdict on the Acer htpc?

He is to enthralled with it to break his gaze from it for too long.  Its like the robot chicken episode with Tivo.  He is probably drooling on the couch as we speak.

I started to rebuild it as a full on umbutu install rather than running the xbmc flavored LIVE distro due to not have smooth upgrades with the LIVE version. Lots of shit going on and i have been sick so i am dragging my ass. Will post something soon, promise.

We've seen what your promises mean...

at least snap a picture of your vomit and toss it up here. 

Oh here is some pics. More to come probably tonight or tommorow once I finish loading windows on it (read below and find out why).

I took pics of the unboxing and the unit itself in case you are interested in getting it:

unboxing....
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2775/4196166488_69fe0f587b_b.jpg)

all the parts from the box. Not to shabby they throw in a small usb keyboard and optical. Didnt expect that. Has a little stand so you can put it vertical if you want.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2549/4195409089_b5641204fc_b.jpg)


(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2681/4195409953_67cb36a284_b.jpg)

4 USB, HDMI, Ethernet, VGA
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2626/4195410319_35b669c219_b.jpg)

Its hard to see here, but thats actually a SATA port. Could be usefull

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2751/4195410765_ef5c4c12ea_b.jpg)

top with power button
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4195411169_172bd16299_b.jpg)



Now here is the deal. I had this all setup, it scraped all the movies and must for data and gave me slick backgrounds and discriptions for each movie/music just like below. I didnt take any more pics cause the ones i did take look liked shit and i need to take them at night (which i will, tonight hopefully)
(http://www.aeonproject.com/images/gallery/aeon_lowmenu.jpg)
(http://www.aeonproject.com/images/gallery/aeon_multiplex.jpg)
(http://www.aeonproject.com/images/gallery/aeon_submenu.jpg)

They looked just like that. I streamed 1080p video from my main pc (via ethernet- i dont think my wireless router can handle vull 1080p) and it worked FLAWLESSLY. It was beautiful with all the menus and what not. VERY sexy. It scraped all my media correctly without a hitch.

Then trouble struck.

I tried to upgrade the Live distro of XBMC. This is a NO. You should never update a LIVE distro via linux GET. So, I said screw it and install full on umbutu and full XBMC like a real man would do. This worked (last night) but as soon as i went to install the sexy skin you see above, i couldnt. The site hosting it was not allowing the git method to grab it anymore. So, im stuck. At this point i am surfing at work and see another HTPC software called BOXEE that is built off XBMC and is supposed to be the bees knees. What I am going to do tonight, hopefully, is install windows 7 on this guy, install XBMC and BOXEE to do a contrast and compare, and post pics of each. I have a few different reasons to try windows out:
1- At this point in time, NETFLIX streaming does not work on a linux OS. AT ALL. This kind of sucks, it does work on Windows though.
2- It does work with Linux, probably more efficiantly,  I installed this guy twice, but damn its a pain in the ass. If you have never worked with linux do not even attempt this.
3- I think it would be a better stress test on this box to run the HTPC software under Windows. This would also let me try Windows Media Center out.

I may go back to Linux, but right I want to try windows out at this point.

Couple of notes. XBMC and BOXEE are both free. Both of them have apps in the apple store for remotes to control them and they actually work. Was kind of cool to use the iphone as a tv remote (does it across http)
Boxee has a cool social feature that allows you to see what others liked to watch or recommend stuff to other people. I dont know how much I will get into this as I know nobody else that runs it.
Boxee has a built in Bittorrent client that you can plug RSS feeds into if you want.

So, tonight I am going to install Windows, then Boxee, then XBMC. I will post pics of it running and maybe even a video. This little box kicks ass and I can see a lot of hard drive purchases in my future.

Sorry if this is scatterbrained but i am feeling ill.

Thanks for the update!  That's a lot of great info!  I'm definitely gonna get sassy soon and build something, especially since I just sold my mbp.  I've got a Shuttle sitting around that could use $100 worth of new guts to bring it up to spec, then it's time to get silly.  In fact, I'm thinking about replacing my wire shelving in the theater (like this (http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=62870-80752-143654B&lpage=none)) with a 2 post telecom rack for added silliness.  I look forward to hearing the results of your testing.

Ok, this thing runs slugish on win 7 with only 1 gig of ram. I am going to play with it tommorow a bit to see what I can get it to do, otherwise i am going to order some more memory . Now that I have seen Netflix work under Boxee, this is going to be a deal breaker for linux XBMC. Its just too damn slick having it all in one. Boxee is the heat, now that i have seen the social aspect of it, it kind of makes sense. It doesnt really click till you get in there and get the feel of it. Its not as sexy as XBMC with the AEON skin, but the netflix integration and the setup was flawless. It kind of feels like TIVO if that makes sense....
 Also, i snagged a closed beta copy of the new boxee from TPB and its 100% better than the old one. Hopefully have some pics up tommorow.

Did the extra ram make a significant difference?  Pics of Boxee in action?

Havent added any more memory yet. I took a video of BOXEE in action (this is the not-public beta that you can grab from piratebay, although I wouldnt suggest it ). Sorry for the crappy quality for the video, just wanted to give you a look. Its a LOT brighter in person of course.

Boxee Beta
-Netflix is about unwatchable but does work. The boxee forums have devs swearing it will work soon. Something about hardware acceleration with silverlight.
-Streaming networked media worked fine, although it did not see one of the HD movies, not sure why.
-I am not sure I dig the interface, while it is snappy, it feels crowded. I want something simple and sexy. Probably going to go back to XBMC.
-It was kind of simple to setup up, which can not be said for XBMC.

[yt=425,350]yIUJOo6nrUU[/yt]
Unless they get netflix working soon, boxee is going to be a no-go for me. If I cant have netflix then XBMC on linux is WAY more efficiant.
Also, I found this thing and thought it was interesting. Thought I would pass it along if your interested JT

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/

Just to clearify, the Boxee beta is too crowded, it mixes online media with local stuff and its not easily apparent at first. I didnt like the music navigation either.
My search for a decent HTPC software continues.............

just as a curiosity what program are you using to make your dvd's into divx?

Bittorent

hmmm well i was looking to digitize my dvd collection to divx. thought maybe you had a conversion program.

I'm going to be looking to do the same.  I'll let you know if I find something good.

sweet thanks.

ProCoder ... of course it's $500.

im really loving XBMC not so much on boxee

Did you set something up as well? I would have to agree with you, XBMC is way sexier.

Also, and maybe I am missing something here, but the ones I did encode i just used the DIVX program. It works really well.

EDIT: For ripping i used DVDFAB or Alcohol 120. Both work really well to create ISO and if memory serves me correctly.. i cannot remember how i did the ISO to AVI trick though.... I will look when I get home tonight.

Here's the workflow we use at work:

DVDDecrypter or DVDFab will rip the VOBs.  You can just append all the VOBs using copy /b source1.vob + source1.vob destination.vob .  We then convert the combined VOB into whatever.  We have ProcCoder which will take basically any format in and spit out any other format.  Super works too.

What was the downside of XBMC on Windows?  I'm playing around with a spare computer as a HTPC for proof-of-concept, if you will, since I got a tuner card for $20, but don't want to put Linux on it since it will eventually be used for something else.

XBMC is fine and dandy on windows, as long as you have the RAM/CPU for it.

One thing you should know though, XBMC has NO pvr functionality. Its purely a front end for your media and internet streaming media

Hrmmm....
So I'd need either Boxee or Media Center for PVR, right?

just trying out the thought of a HTPC. i noticed that with XBMC on windows with the aeon skin i lost the mouse visually, other than that i actually love the program once i figured it out. and as for boxee maybe the test pc i ran it on was to slow but i had crappy quality and was very laggy. why i wanted to know about converting my dvds is my current home entertainment center is a LG and it will take thumb drives or anything formatted fat32 and will play divx, so i would really love to have it all at a fingers touch rather then change dvds.

boxee has no pvr functionality either.


aeon skin on a 52 inch with a bunch of 1080 backgrounds is freaking amazing looking. Yea, just know your not going to get HD out of Divx, but in my opinion divx is not bad at all and a good choice if you are worried about space.
Did you see how to setup the backdrops? Check out this thread to find some nice ones. It really sets it off:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=43390

so it looks like it doesn't "officially" support windows 7.... has anyone tried it?

Honestly, I don't have a problem with with the media center on win7, but I'd really like the scrapper for all my movies.  that would be sweet.

XBMC and Boxee both work on windows 7, I have personally installed both. I would have to say though, XBMC>BOXEE with the only problem being xbmc does not support netflix streaming. But to be honest, boxee does such a poor job of it I cant really say it is a benifit of boxee. Windows Media Center is OK, I just like being able to customize things and add scripts and plugins.
The backdrops and scrapping abilities of XBMC is just so damn sexy its going to have to be what I go with.

Things are calming down from Christmas and I am going to get back working on this after a few days. The little Acer i got is a champ and renders 1080p perfectly (on linux). 

I'm not interested in netflix streaming since I don't have a subcription to that.  Honestly, the only thing I'd like is the scrapping ability. 

 
I would suggest XBMC installed on a bare essentials version of unbutu linux nettop or something similar like what I got. A backend server or just and old desktop to hold the media, networked over ethernet.

I should also add the wife thought XBMC was easy to use and pretty much figured it out instantly. Boxee on the other hand, not so much.
I have links to some step by step guides if you are interested. It really is a beautiful way of navigating your media.

Well, I got the Western Digital HD TV Live box for Christmas and have been toying with that for right now.  I have to figure that out first and see if I need to go to XBMX on the PC.

So, I got the PC connected to our TV last night (except for network I need to run tonight), but didn't have time to futz with it much.  Did you get the Aeon skin ultimately from the MediaFire hosting (Aeon_091STARK_FULL.zip)?  Somehow I ended up with a couple different files for the Aeon skin which were different by a couple MBs.  The other one is named djh-aeon-363709f.zip, but I can't remember for the life of me where I downloaded it from.

Also, do you have any recommendations for plugins or new visualizations?  I found a script for enabling Hulu on XBMC I'll try out as soon as I get it networked.

I'm not entirely clear on what the SVN Repo Installer actually is.  Is this a check for updates to my plugins sort of script?

Ok so I haven't been on the forums much but I can definitely weigh in on this subject.  A guy here at the office has used XBMC and BOXEE and I've looked into them as well.  We both came to the conclusion that using Windows Media Center is the easiest way to get everything up and running most simply.  I understand the nerdyness factor of using Linux and something like XBMC/BOXEE but if it's going to need tweaked every two seconds is it worth it?  Yes, it may be more satisfying...and if that's for you then great.  For those of you just interested in a HTPC I highly recommend it.  Cable is dead to me now (I've been without a paid video service since August and haven't missed it).  All you need is a decent connection to the interwebs and you're good to go.

So my question to all of the naysayers... why do you say nay?  Why is Windows Media Center the devil?

K thxbai.

-gr0n

Oh BTW - I bought a Dell Studio Slim http://tinyurl.com/yl77kzo (http://tinyurl.com/yl77kzo) Core2 quad with 4GB RAM and 300GB disk and a hauppage dual HD tuner.  If I really get into storing large amounts of media/porn/whatever I'll look at setting something up in my basement to host it and pipe it over the network.

Right now I'm running the out-of-box OS (Vista Home Premium) but will be installing Windows 7 as soon as I stop being lazy.  The only problem I'm having is the sound sometimes dies after bring the PC out of sleep mode but other than that it's flawless and easy.  I'm hoping Windows 7 fixes the sound issue.

-gr0n

gron I'm in agreement with you on this one so far.  I toyed with XBMC on my PC..... My Movie Collector as well..... all in all, aside form the fancy skins, the media Center on Windows 7 is pretty slick.  I added a plugin that grabs the movie artwork and so far it's pretty good.

Now, FWIW, I don't use my PC as an HTPC right now.  I may in the future, but for now the WD HD TV Live box grabs everything off my network share and plays just about any format you can think of.

SVN Repo installer is a script to install new plugins/skins but last time i checked AEON was not on it, BUT they are supposed to be moving to it soon. Might want to check and see if its listed there. This a linux or windows install?


Windows media center is slick, its probably going to be a lot easier for someone who isnt a geek, and most people probably already have it.

BUT- if you want complete control over the system, if you want it to be devoted to purely serving media (auto boot where it is supposed to be and also boot QUICKLY), you want to use open source scripts,  plugins, and skins and what not, have an easily built in bittorrent client, you want to run on cheap small equipment (my box is smaller than a wii and cost 199), then xbmc is the way to go.

I know it seems trivial to go on about the skins as well, but if you have a 56 inch 1080p tv, being able to control and make it look exacly how you want it to is very important to some people.

All that being said, if none of the stuff above applies to you and you want the easiest possible solution and you already have a windows box then WMC is for you.

XBMC really does not need to be tweaked every 2 seconds. Honestly if you set it up correctly it will work flawlessly an in my opinion with less hassle than windows media center. Thats the catch though, if your not crafty with linux this is not going to be an easy task.

xmbc running aeon:

(http://hal9209.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/aeon_movieinfo_wanted.jpg)
(http://hal9209.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/aeon_home_watchmen.jpg)
(http://www.mini.adsl24.co.uk/images/forums/aeon2_showcase1.jpg)

Windows Media Center:
(http://www.carltonbale.com/wp-content/uploads/windows_vista_media_center_dvd_library.jpg)
(http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2008/07/media.png)
(http://cdn-www.soyouwanna.com/images/lessons/VistaHomeBasicPremiumPL04fg03.jpg)




With these media centers, presentation is EVERYTHING in my opinion. No comparison.

FISHES!!!

Yeah, I'm running it in Win7Pro.

Humm, i dont know, i tried to search for the windows one and cant seem to find it. If you were running under linux i could tell you right where to go.

Have you looked under the SVN script too see if you can install it that way?

I haven't tried installing it.  Wasn't certain what it was actually for..

There's no doubt that XBMC is prettier and I think if I had an HTPC I would use it.  For me, the WD box pretty much rocks.  While I can't skin it, it plays anything I throw at it.  What I have found is that the XBMC scraper is not as good as My Movie Collector.  Also, when My Movie Collector populates the artwork in the folder where the movie is located, the WD box pulls it and displays it.  For me, works great.  Later on though, I think varg's solution is a winner.  I'm just not at that point yet.

Well,
If you are still interested in all these take a look at all the stuff being introduced at CES this week. I am dizzy reading about all the new stuff. Apparently, HTPC, in the smaller "streaming device" front end sence, is an exploding market. I shoulda waiting to buy a gizmo....
Very cool times to be interested in home theater media geekyness.

I've been keeping half an eye on it too.  Lotsa cool shit coming up.  I specifically held off this long to wait for the new Intel Core i3 chips to begin shipping.  Got it all worked up now: front-end windows 7 pc (for Netflixyness), running xmbc or something similar, all data hosted on 4tb Drobo over cat6.  Gonna be slick-rick and the gang.  Now, I just need to finger out a smooth way to convert all my dvd's to high-quality digital (coughTroyercough).

So Troyer, were you saying that if I install the k-lite codec pack, I should be able to use Handbrake to rip to divx?  I only ask because Handbrake's site lists their outputs as:

    *  File format: MP4 and MKV
    * Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora
    * Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC (OS X Only), MP3, or Vorbis. AC-3 pass-through, DTS pass-thorugh (MKV only)

I'm new to this "ripping" thing, so be easy on me.

JT,
The formats you listed are going to be better than divx anyway. Unless you have space concerns i would go with mkv anyway.

Yeah... mkv is good.  All my HD rips are in mkv.

I said be easy!  mkv it is.  Now I sit and wait for the Drobo to show up.

They've changed Handbrake since I last used it.  I tried it out that night and it appears that it doesn't rip the disc, just converts ripped discs so you'll need to rip it via DVDFab (use free version and select whole disc) then point Handbrake at your ripped folder.  I used the MP4 normal preset and it looked pretty good.  The High looked better, but in my opinion not worth the extra size.  the newest Harry Potter was 788MB at Normal and 1.2GB at High.

http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm

Did you really order one? Do you mind taking some pics of it and letting us know how easy it was to setup? I still cant justify the cost in my mind.

I think I'll go for the high quality.  the size difference will be negligible with a 4tb nas. 

And yup, it's ordered...in a manner of speaking.  I'll snap some pics for ya.

OK, so I have had to admit to myself that a HTPC on my 55 inch that cant handle netflix streaming (which is just the bees knees if you ask me) is just complete.
So, I hooked windows media center, grabbed an app for my iphone that makes it a remote (have to install a lightweight program on the htpc), and found this: http://www.mediabrowser.tv/
Its a plugin for WMC that gives it the same sexyness that the media browswer has in XBMC. Unless I run into DRM or Codec problems of some kind, i think this is a winner.

have you given Boxee a try?

Yes. I even got a copy of the private beta that ships with the new "Boxxy box", personally i dont like it. It has all this social networking crap built into it, it doesent seperate TV and MOVIES, and the layout of it just doesnt make sense to me. Also, netflix works like shit on it. Completly unwatchable. I hate to keep bringing up netflix, but if you have the service for streaming movies you know how rad it is.

JT, I was thinking about something wondered what your opinion is. Why not use a service like MOXY for backups? Sure the inital backup make take a week but past that it should be pretty easy. 5 bucks a month is not a bad deal IMHO for unlimited data backup. Thoughts?

Moxy sounds pretty cool, and 5 bucks a month is pretty legit.  I wonder, however, what the data transfer rates are and if you'll see artifacts from the network lag.  Might be worth a test though.  Luckily I don't have to worry about that as my 4tb Drobo is en route.  :)

Netflix is a must-have for me as well, so it's a bit disheartening to hear that Boxee isn't very good at it and XBMC doesn't offer it.  I wish someone would take the slickness of XBMC and the universal playability of Boxee and add a legitimate Netflix streaming service.

I think you misunderstand me, i would still play my media from local hardware, i would just run the moxy service on those drives for backup purposes so that i dont have to worry about a raid at all, just throw a drive at it every now and then. For example lets say I buy two 1 TB drives, attach them via usb or whatever doesnt really matter, i would have 2 TB worth of space instead of only one cause MOXY is handling the backups.

It would be impossible to play media from a remote data hosting farm, even if they allowed it. Would be nice as hell though for sure!

I wish i had the cash for a Drobo, but i just cant drop that much right now. It looks super slick and I like how simple it is.

The problem with netflix is that they are using microsofts Siverlight. That means its never going to work on linux and its not as seasoned as Flash. After a while i am sure people will learn how to write for it a bit better and Boxee may handle it like a dream, but that time is not now, in my experince at least.

This looks pretty rad: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/01/iomega-iconnect-is-a-scalable-nas-solution-on-the-cheap/

FTA:Looking for a cheap, easy NAS solution that also lets you access your data away from home? Iomega’s $US100 iConnect might be the gizmo for you.

Endowed with four USB ports, plus Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n connectivity, setting up the iConnect is as simple as plugging in any USB-based storage device and letting the device do the rest. Iomega’s new product also allows you to set up a print server, OS X Time Machine backups, Bittorrent clients and DLNA streaming. And while it may not possess the open Linux platform or remote web-streaming abilities of the Pogoplug, it pretty much does everything else (plus Time Machine!) for $US30 less.

Expect to get your hands on Iomega’s OS-agnostic iConnect sometime in February.

pretty slick! 

Drobo stuff is beginning to show up.  DroboShare and 4x 1.5tb WD Green drives came in today.  Waiting on the Drobo now.  Well, that AND my tax return so I can throw some new parts in this Shuttle so I'll have a PC to help wash down my HT.

Woot!  Yeah if I were really serious about it and horded TBs of video I would certainly do a DroboPro and connect via iSCSI.  Mmmmmm

To be honest, I don't have any sort of digital video library at the moment.  I've always found it too tedious to watch movies on my computer to bother.  However, I have a large DVD collection and plan to encode it all, then sell my dvd's.  Speaking of which, anyone interested in 250-300 dvd's?

Just used DVDFab and Handbrake to rip and encode The Hurt Locker.  Easy breazy.

So the Drobo's here (pics forthcoming), and it's very sexy-time with 4.1TB usable disk space.  I've been tinkering with media centers.

Boxee: Kinda sluggish moving between panes (and there's no hardware excuse since it's running on my Alienware), social networking shit is stupid and whoever thought that was a good idea should be shot, Netflix playback is OK but not perfect.  The bubbly-ness of the interface feels a bit like a child's toy and navigation is frustratingly non-responsive at times.

Plex: Fork of XBMC, very sexy, does everything, looks fantastic, performs even better...but it's OSX only.  Fuckers.

XBMC: Where's the goddamn Netflix streaming?!  WTF?!?!

WMC: Much as I hate to admit it...this might have to due for now.  At least until XBMC gets its head removed from its ass and adds Netflix.  It's not bad, but it's also not amazing and pretty like the previous 2.  I know that's a stupid standard, but if I'm going to sink time and effort into nerding out my shit, I want it to look as good as it performs.

Thats pretty much what I came up with JT. I did find a plugin for WMC that gave it that XBMC look when browsing movies.
You should take a look at it: http://www.mediabrowser.tv/

I must say, the netflix plugin on WMC is flawless.

Have you played with MediaPortal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/) at all?  I might give that a try.

That Drobo setup looks like it would be pretty sweet, at least as a way of storing media and being able to access it from several places.

Right now I have a very poor man's setup right now for playing digital content on my TV, and that is the beautiful hookup from Vuze to the 360.  It will automatically convert everything into a format the 360 can read (and it touts converting to HD but I haven't fully put that to the test yet).  I'm looking into expanding that even further once I get more of a digital library to speak of, right now it is just a handful of movies and TV shows that I have on there. I run Win7 on my lappy and it sounds like I can get a pretty decent setup thru WMC from what you guys are saying.  I'll have to play around with it this weekend

So where's the pics bitch?

Have you found DVDFab to be pretty good as far as quality goes?  What settings did you use when you ran it?

I downloaded the trial this weekend and tested with a copy of 300.  I need to play it on my TV to see how the quality looks.   I just chose xbox 360 format as that is how I currently play most of my movies.

Can you guys not get handbrake to work?

F handbrake....Procoder for the win

I haven't tried it yet, is the idea to rip the DVD files and the use Handbrake to convert them from there? (apologies, Nick = noob)

DVDFab is only for decrypting the DVD.  Use Handbrake or Procoder to convert the VOBs.

n00B!

http://lifehacker.com/5472711/boxee-integration-app-plugs-boxee-into-windows-7-media-center

Does this change anyone's decision as to their solution of choice?

^ YES. You win the internet today. Thank you for sharing this.

d'oh!  Makes much more sense now.

I've got a lot of info on the way.  I've been doing a ton of tinkering with WMC addons and think I have a workable solution.  More to come, sorry, but today is a total shit-show at work.

Here's a taste of what's to come:

Forget the Boxee plugin (but definitely get the Hulu desktop one).

Definitely get this:

http://xbmcwmc.teknowebworks.com/

Nice JT, that is what i was looking for. The windows 7 WMC must be more versitile to handle all this jank.

Yeah, I also figured out some ninja ways to get WMC to use better codecs.  Let me get through some more of this bs at work and I'll share the love.

Are you streaming your media to the front end over wireless? What are you using for the front end? Did you get a Revo?

Front end is a box I threw together for about $400.

Gigabyte H55M-UD2H board
Intel Core i3 530
4gb Corsair XMS DDR3 (1333mhz)
Antec NSK2480 case

Tossed in a 500gig sata drive I had laying around, a DL dvd burner for to make 360 games, and a BR player for to rip Netflix disks.  Testing so far has been done locally at work over USB and ethernet.  Once everything is done and moved home, Drobo will be hosting everything to all computers in the house over ethernet.

Pics and more info to come.  I promise.  Work has been nightmarish this week.

Wow... not only does this article slam the Drobo for being slow, but it also gets a dig in on the Buckeyes.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/data_robotics_drobo

lol

Don't be ignant.  "Saying the Drobo is slow is like saying dry ice is cold or that the Buckeyes are just another football team."

That is to say "Saying the Drobo is slow is an understatement, akin to saying dry ice is just cold instead of really fucking cold, or that the Buckeyes are just another normal football team instead of the legendary football program that they are."

Yes, the write speeds are slow.  It's not for video editing.  What it's for is high-capacity, set-it-and-forget-it, loss-protected, data storage.  It isn't the 15k rpm SAS array I've got at work, but it works as a home media repository just fine.

About to go home and crash, but I thought I'd point you towards hack7mc.com (http://www.hack7mc.com) for cool info on tweaking WMC and theme7mc.com (http://www.theme7mc.com) for WMC themes.

http://lifehacker.com/5474616/start-windows-7-media-center-in-live-tv-mode

Anyone have experience with a NAS from Synology like the DS209 409 etc?

Troyer, what might you have used to rip your HD-DVD's?  I plan on using my 360 hddvd drive to rip them on my htpc, but DVDFab appears to only handle BR disks.

I found a tool called AnyDVD that rips HD-DVD's, but it breaks them out into a bunch of .EVO files.  Using eac3to extract the audio and video streams right now and I think I'll have to run them through ChapterGrabber after before I can Handbrake them into a single .mkv.  If there's an easier way, let me know.

JT - Take a look for BackupHDDVD.  Not sure if it's still around though.

I haven't used it, but that's the only tool I have.

I fingered out a way to do this.

1) Use AnyDVD to extract the .evo files from the HD-DVD
2) Use eac3to to extract the audio and video files from the .evo files
3) Use txmuxer to remux the audio and video into .m2ts
4) Use ChapterGrabber to convert chapter timing from 24fps to 23.976fps
5) Use Handbrake to encode .mkv

Result: 4gig, sexy-ass 1080p with DTS audio.  It takes about 3.5 hours a movie, but with that many extra steps it's not too bad.

I played around with this one, looks pretty decent and everything.  Have you guys ended up using something different (sort of hard to tell with all the links being thrown around).

My only concern and I don't know if I am the only one running into the problem has to do with sound in WMC.  I've encoded some dvd's into mkv files, which works fine, but the sound quality when played in Windows Media Player is better than when played in WMC (in WMC it just sounds a bit muted).  I tried some of the settings in WMC to make sure it is calibrated for use through the speakers on the TV, but that didn't seem to help any.

No idea man, what kind of audio output are you using? I would think it wouldn't matter if it works well in WMP, but it might be that you have to set the correct TYPE of output in WMC. Dunno. I am using HDMI to the TV that does a passthrough to my stereo and am not having any issues. Also, are you using windows 7? I have found that the windows 7 version of WMC is FAR better than the Vista version.

Also, there is an independent volume control inside WMC. Make sure that is turned up.

Yeah I am using Windows 7, and that volume is turned up.

My speaker setup is the same as yours, HDMI to the TV that is connected to 5.1 stereo system. I tried searching via the web and I can't find much, so this must not be a common thing.

Admittedly, I don't have the best sound card in this laptop, so that may have something to do with it.  It is just weird that it sounds different in WMP.  Oh well, I'll check a couple other things.

Tivo is supposed to announce a new box next week, I love my SD Tivo box, it works flawlessly and is very slick. Hopefully they come out with something that ties in to what we have been playing around with here.

What Blu-ray players would you douchenozzles recommend? I am thinking of jumping on that train.

PS3.

I keed. If you have Netflix sub i would get one of the Samsung ones with the built in Netflix viewer thing-a-bobber. Got my dad one for Christmas and its really nice.

I want to see the reviews for MLB2K10(360) and MLB:The Show(PS3) before I decide on getting a PS3. There hasn't been a good baseball game for PC/360 in years and I love me some fucking baseball.

Don't be a hoser.  Build an htpc and pop in a $100 br drive.  All-in-one solution.

spend 250 or 500...hmmmm

I ended up getting a Samsung BD-C6500. It's freakin sweet. It does all the online shit, Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, Youtube and USA Today but whats even better is this fucker will play just about any kind of video. I just burned my Iron Man x264 MKV onto a Dual Layer disc and WHAMMO it worked perfectly. I am copying some 1080i rips onto my 1GB external drive and see how it handles those.

I downloaded a 12gb H264 rip of Star Trek...will see if the player chokes on that 12GB cock

I can also stream right from my pc to the Bluray player....suite!

I didnt expect this, but sony is releasing a firmware that will make all existing PS3s able to play 3D bluray.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10450842-1.html

Do you have to get a special TV for this?

I dunno about the special TV, but that is smart on Sony's part.  They probably want to cash in on the 3d avatar blurays that will likely be coming out.

Avatar is gay

Crappy-ish movie aside, considering it is now one of the highest grossing movies of all time (and will end up being the highest grossing movie when everything is said and done), it is a smart move to be able to play that movie in 3D on a PS3, not to mention all of the rest of the movies that are coming out now in 3D.  

For me? I am glad I saw it in the theater in 3D as it was a visual treat (not unlike Sam Raimi's "The Gift").  However, 3D Bluray player or not, I will not get that movie on DVD/Bluray.

sure..it's pretty but I think people get swept up in the 3d-ness and forget how fucking god awful it is....plus the shittiest movies always make the most money

Im going to step out on a limb here.....

I kind of liked it. As did a gigabazillian other people. No, it was not a thespian masterpiece but it was entertaining and fun.

Varg...right....the sparklies distracted you from what you watched. Same could go for the Transformers movies...I bet you liked those too :P

Michael Bay 4 Prez!!!

I did at least some of the characters as well.  I mean, if you dont <3 Michelle Rodriguez you are a communist.  Just sayin'

But like I said, I am glad I saw it in the theater since it did look pretty cool and yeah it was entertaining, but certainly not enough to consider a purchase.

I like shiny thangs,
but transformers stank.

Megan Fox climbing over the bike in 2 was good though..

Really though, I was had fun watching it. The characters where hollow and the plot was predictable (dances with wolves?) but it was entertaining. Like i said, it was low brow entertainment but it was still entertainment.

The main reason i want 3D blue ray is for porn, not avatar.

http://lifehacker.com/5490091/how-to-skip-commercials-in-windows-7-media-center

http://www.streamtransport.com/

So we going to see some sexy pics soon eh?

Soon.  Just finished switching over from the wire rack to the 2 post telecom rack this weekend.  Need to clean up the wiring a little bit then I'll snap some pics. 

http://lifehacker.com/5495667/remote-potato-streams-windows-7-media-center-video-to-your-browser-adds-remote-control

So my craptacular Time Warner DVR didn't record the first episode of the new season of Mythbusters because "channel not available".  Fantastic.  What's the recommendation for a place to grab it?  I didn't see it last night on BTJunkie.

What media scraper do you guys use?  LifeHacker had a write up yesterday on Media Companion.  It worked fairly well, but for some reason put the same fan art into every TV show folder.  It seemed to work nicely enough beyond that...except it looks like it was written for the Windows 95 API.

http://lifehacker.com/5505849/how-to-whip-your-movie-and-tv-show-art-into-shape-for-xbmc-and-boxee

As a related question; do audio scrapers exist/suck/etc?

It seemed like XBMC did it automagicly. I am probably wrong though.

I'm fiddling around with Jaikos that queries MusicBrainz.  So far looks to do a nice job; streamlined to only auto-correct ID3 tags and artwork.  Nothing else.

Lenovo has the Lenovo Multimedia Remote With Keyboard for $60 - 40% off coupon USPCA16336  = $36 with free shipping.

http://slickdeals.net/?pno=32678&lno=1&afsrc=1

Pay Hulu announced:

http://lifehacker.com/5521813/hulu-plus-subscription-plan-to-offer-greater-back-episode-access

Bumping this.

I rebuilt my little Revo box in my new house. Running XBMC. Its pretty awesomesauce.
Anyone else still toying with these?

Next step: 1080p Projector for game room.

My HTPC has been running for over a year now... upgraded to Windows 7 Pro a few months ago and it's the bomb diggity.  No major complaints right now.

Still doing a crazy hybrid of WMC, MediaPlayer, Hulu, and some other things.  Any Netflix support on XBMC yet?

For projectors, you'd be hard pressed to find a better deal than the Epson 8100.  I'm rocking that in my HT now and loving it.  It's 1080p, fantastically silent, full of inputs, extremely forgiving on placement, amazing picture quality, and cheap.  I got mine for $1,200 shipped from Amazon.

The Optoma HD20 has comparable stats and is highly regarded in the uber-cheap yet well-built 1080p projector class.  It's around $900 if memory serves.

I am heavily leaning on the HD20. Good value and looks like great performance, but if I am spending damn near a grand I am not going to cheap out if the Epson is better.

At any rate, its probably going to wait till tax returns so I have plenty of time to research and hopefully see some price drops after the new year.

Did you do a ceiling mount? How did you run power/hdmi etc? Pics?

The Optoma is a good unit.  I spec'd it for the gout's dad's home theater when his old junker blew up.  The Epson is the better unit though.  More inputs, lens shift, more lumens, etc.  I just checked the price and it's about $1,800 so I'd hold off til after Christmas when the prices come back down.

I have mine ceiling mounted, power and component video run through the attic and dropped down.  Remind me next week to get some pictures as I'm busy getting ready for my Florida trip tomorrow.