Nov
02
Jon’s HTPC: Wrap-up Negatives & Positives
This is Part of Jon’s HTPC setup. For more, see: Introduction and Table of Contents
The only negative I can think of:
Once setup, the system is very FF (Fiancé friendly); one simple remote controls everything and it’s very intuitive. However, setting it all up is a totally different story. That’s a lot of different software I mentioned above, and it can be pretty frustrating getting it all to play together in a friendly manner. Personally I (and probably a lot of people reading Scott’s webpage) really enjoy the process of making it all play nice. You end up with a really nice result with endless flexibility. However if you’re looking for something that is “plug and play†this couldn’t be any further from what you are looking for. With a TIVO you just plug it in and it works (essentially), but on the flip side your TIVO can’t control your coffee maker. ☺ Do whatever works for you.
Some positives:
Crazy good picture quality
Crazy good sound quality
Everything accessible from one location with one remote
Everything cataloged and searchable with cover/box-art
Tons of old school games with real controllers
AC3 (5.1) Music Library
Home automation integrated into Home Theater
Easy to expand and upgrade
Wow, I can’t believe how much I typed. If you made it this far I’m sorry it was so boring. Hopefully it was informative, and hopefully I just made it easier for anyone else that is interested in something similar. I know for me it’s been a huge learning process with lots and lots of failed attempts. And I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more too as it continues to expand. A “USBUIRTâ€, RF Distributor, and IR Repeater are on the horizon for me.
USBUIRT…
http://www.usbuirt.com/
Video Distributor…
http://www.smarthome.com/7717.HTML
IR Repeater…
http://www.smarthome.com/8220F.HTML
Thanks for reading!
Categories: HTPC, Technology
Comments (2)
This is the part that gets the biggest WOW factor from guests. The HTPC controls every single light inside and outside the house, along with several other appliances. To do this I use a very old technology called “X10†that never really caught on in the mainstream. This is good, because now you can get X10 stuff super cheap from online retailers or ebay. Essentially, the computer has a data connection to the power outlet, and then can send and receive signals through your homes power lines. Then you just attach an X10 device to whatever you want to control (a light for example) and now the computer can talk to it. It can turn it on, turn it off, dim up, dim down, whatever. About a year ago I upgraded all of our lights to X10, and installed motion sensors all over the place. Using the motion sensors the computer actually tracks where you are in the house and where you might be going next and then uses a “fuzzy logic†to turn lights on BEFORE you walk into a room and turns them off after you leave the room. At first this seems a bit like simple motion controlled lights, but it’s actually very different. Since it’s all controlled through the computer you can script all sorts of commands and actions limited only by your imagination. For example, the computer can sense when a DVD is playing and then dim all the lights in the house off. Then it might disable the living room motion detector so you don’t trigger the lights by eating pizza or rolling over on the couch. Then it might watch for motion in the dining room (in our house it’s between the living room an the kitchen/bathroom). If it sees motion in the dining room (it is assuming you are going to the restroom or getting more food) it will pause the DVD and bring up the lights to 50% in the kitchen and bathroom. Then it can watch for motion in the dining room again (it is waiting for you to go back and watch the movie again) and when it sees motion it might wait 10 seconds (for you to sit down) then dim all the lights back down, rewind the DVD 15 seconds, and then resume play on the DVD. This all just happened without you ever even touching a button; you just got up and walked to the kitchen or restroom. I don’t use that script anymore because I like to have a little more control than that, but I’ve got all sorts of scripts set up for in the morning and at night and special circumstances. It doesn’t need to all be automated either, you can install X10 switches in the wall that activate whatever you want manually. For example, in our house there are a few buttons next to the front door. If you push one of them, the living room starts blasting my theme song (Ghetto Superstar). If you push another button on the wall, the living room starts blasting my fiancé’s theme song (It’s getting hot in here). It’s really dorky, but also pretty darn cool. Another thing I have the computer doing is monitoring 4 stocks that I have. Then I have 3 candles (electronic) and a fountain hooked up to the X10, and the computer turns on/off the respective candle/fountain depending if the particular stock is up/down. I use it as a passive way to monitor my stocks everyday simply by glancing at the candles and fountain. We’ve used the X10 in the past to control the crock-pot and coffee maker as well. It’s also fun to have the ability to VNC into the computer and control the lights. Are you at work and you need to get a hold of you fiancé? Is she sleeping in the bedroom with her phone off? No problem, VNC in from work and manually flash the bedroom lights on and off over and over again until she wakes up. ☺ Again, the amount of stuff you can do with this is limited only by your imagination. The computer software I use to do this is called Housebot and it’s technically owned by Meedio, however it was actually written by a guy named Scott and was acquired by Meedio a little over a year ago. Meedio hasn’t done anything with it since the purchase (besides adding “Meedio†to the name) so I can’t really give Meedio any credit for it. The original author (Scott a.k.a. Scottbot) is a major contributor to the Meedio help forums and has been a huge help to me with some problems I’ve had along the way. Scott’s a great guy.
sorts of software, and most importantly they have hardware MPEG2 encoders built in. That means when you are recording TV shows it won’t slow down your computer. Also, the cards are top-notch quality. For a comparison, DVD’s are usually encoded at around 8 Mbit/s. These cards hardware encode at up to 12Mbit/s. The problem for me is that the cable signal coming into our house is really crappy. We’ve actually had the cable company out to look at it and they did something outside that helped a bit, but it’s still not very good. Oh well. Also, stay away from the ATI All-In-Wonder cards. If you want a headache give one a try, but in a few months I guarantee you will upgrade to a Hauppauge card. If you are looking to record HDTV content it’s going to be a whole other game. I haven’t personally tackled that beast yet, so I don’t have any advice. That takes care of the tuner card. Just like TIVO you can schedule shows to record once, or every time it airs, or every new airing, yada yada. You can skip commercials with the push of a button. You can fast forward, and rewind TV. The interface is also automatically available via a web server, so you can schedule your computer to record shows from anywhere in the world. You can also watch recorded shows streamed from your computer to anywhere in the world. Fun stuff. I guess the other big difference from TIVO is that with a computer you don’t have any monthly subscription fees. Once you buy the software that’s it. Another advantage is that the shows record to your hard drive as MPEG2 or WMV files, so when your hard drive gets full you can just burn them off to DVD-R discs. I usually wait until the end of a season then burn the whole season to DVD to save space. Another advantage to TIVO is that you can easily upgrade your hard drive space. With my settings, an hour of MPEG2 takes up 4 Gigs and an hour of WMV takes up 1 Gig. I have it set up to record everything as MPEG2 and then every day at 1AM the computer takes everything recorded that day and then re-encodes it as WMV to conserve space. My personal choice for software is Beyond TV (accessed through the Meedio front-end). It’s good software, but there is other good software out there as well. A major competitor is Sage TV and Windows Media Center Edition. Beyond TV works just fine, but I don’t have any die-hard loyalty to it.
That’s the default HDeeTV theme, I’ve customized mine a bit and I’ll include screen shots later. The key to Meedio is its expandability. Besides the normal built in features (pictures, music, yada yada) it provides the ability for users to create any sort of feature they can imagine. Check out the Meedio “Add Ins†area to check out things other users have done (and are available for download). Some of them include daily updated comic strips (you specify the comic), the ability to manage your Netflix account from within Meedio, alarm clocks, recipe libraries, wine organization tools, X10 control and tons more. I don’t use any of those features, but my favorite thing that I use daily is my AC3 Music Library. I have my normal MP3 Library (all 192khz or more ripped with EAC and LAME), but recently I’ve started collecting a higher quality AC3 Music Library as well. AC3 files are Dolby Digital files that I have stored on my hard drive that are high quality 5.1 audio recordings. I’ve got everything from Linkin Park, to Schumann, to Dave, to the Buena Vista Social club all in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound instantly accessible via the Meedio interface. For me, I think it’s a great feature. The point here however, is that if you can think of something you want, there is probably a way to incorporate it into Meedio. I didn’t say it would necessarily be easy, but it can be done. If you are looking for an easy to setup piece of software, Microsoft’s Media Center Edition is supposed to be pretty good, and I would guess Apple’s new Front Row software is pretty easy as well. However, neither of those will give you the flexibility of Meedio.
The user interface can be whatever you want it to be. I have a wireless Gyro Mouse and wireless Gyro Keyboard that have a 30-foot range. The mouse is great for the living room because you don’t need a surface to use it. You just pick the mouse up and move it around in the air. It has sensors inside that detect your motion and the mouse moves on the screen like your hand is moving in the air. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it works pretty sweet. The mouse and keyboard are only used for regular windows function. To control the home theatre stuff, the computer has an IR receiver than plugs into the serial port. The Hauppauge PVR’s come with an IR remote that you can use for whatever you want. When I first got the remote I wasn’t a big fan because it’s small and has some toy’ish looking buttons on it. But eventually I grew to like the simplicity of it. Anyone is comfortable using it. On the flip side, I few years back I bought a nice big touch-screen remote and initially liked it, but grew to hate it. I still have it, but the only thing it’s used for is the volume control. The simple little Hauppauge remote handles all other functions. There are several problems I have with the touch-screen remote. First, it requires two hands to use. Second, you don’t get any tactile feedback (on the little remote you can feel the button depress and then come back up). And third, everyone who visited would need a lesson on how to use the darn thing. The little remote is just friendlier. However, this is completely just user preference. Some people love touch-screen remotes. As long as you have an IR receiver for the computer, you can use whatever you want.
My friend Jon (the one that bought me 
