Grant Holliday

I’ve tried creating a Media Centre PC in the past, but it’s never passed the Wife-Acceptance-Factor (WAF). The main concerns were:

• “I don’t want a big computer in the lounge room!”
• “It’s too noisy”
• “We don’t really need it do we??”

In previous incarnations of the Home Theatre PC (HTPC), I tried using old hardware I had lying around. I had good success using an old Dual 450Mhz Power Mac G4 running Debian Linux for PowerPC. The TV capture card could capture the HD stream and write it to disk fine, but the computer just wasn’t powerful enough to play it back. There was also issues connecting it to the analog TV we had - the picture quality was pretty poor. Overall it wasn’t a very user-friendly experience due to the hardware I had.

Early last year I purchased a Mediagate 350HD because it looked like it would rate high on the WAF scale - which it did. This little device contains an IDE hard-drive and a small embedded OS. You turn it on and it brings up a folder structure where you can browse videos that you have stored on it.

It comes with wireless and (slow) 10Mbit ethernet. One of the cool features is that you can plug in a USB cable and it acts as a Mass Storage Device, which makes it easy to copy files to. Although for simplicity I usually just connected to the built-in FTP server and queued files overnight, because I couldn’t be bothered moving and plugging it in to the office via USB.

Overall it’s a great device and even though I now have a great Vista Media Centre, I’m still planning to keep it as a backup.

For Christmas we upgraded our TV to an excellent value Samsung 32″ LCD TV. With 3x HDMI inputs, this opened up new opportunities for connecting a HTPC. The coolest thing about HDMI is that it includes digital video AND digital audio signals in a single (expensive) cable. There is a downside though, they’re only good for distances up to 10 metres. You can get HDMI Fiber Optic extension cables from 10M-100M, but they’re very expensive. So there goes my dream of putting it all in a server cupboard elsewhere in the house. It looks like I had to find something that was aesthetically pleasing enough to go in the lounge room.

While at the Canberra Computer Fair/Market I came across the Antec NSK1380 MicroATX ‘cube’ case. This little thing holds a MicroATX motherboard, up to 3 hard drives and a DVD drive. It also claimed to have a quiet power supply.

Putting it together

Since I already had the DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Hybrid Tuner, my shopping list looked like this:

• Case: Antec NSK1380 - $164
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H with built-in HDMI output (yeah!) - $105
• Processor: AMD AM2 Dual Core 4800+ - $120
• RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR II-800 - $40
• HDD: WD 500Gb SATA II - $135
• DVD: Pioneer DVR-215 Dual-Layer DVD Writer - $45
• Total: $609

I plugged in the case and shorted pins 14 & 15 to see if the fan started spinning and making noises - it didn’t. Oh oh, I thought I had a dead power supply. Then I put my face up against the fan and realised that it was blowing air, but it was REALLY QUIET. So with a working power supply, I plugged in all the other components and loaded up Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) and hooked it up to the TV at 1080i resolution.

Because the case is so small I was able to mount it in the TV cabinet and vent the fan exhaust out the back.

Configuration

The configuration took me a little bit to find all the bits I needed and then get going, but it ended up being the following:

• Go to epgStream.net to get the Australian guide data working
• Install WebGuide for scheduling programs (among other things) over the web
• Install ffdshow and Media Control Plugin for DivX / Xvid playback
• Create a non-privileged user and enable automatic login

The Result

In the first few weeks the WAF was neutral and it didn’t get used much because there was no remote control.

So I went and bought a Keyspan RF Remote for Windows Vista from eXpansys and the WAF has skyrocketed. The beauty of the RF remote is that the receiver can live inside the cupboard and it doesn’t need line-of-sight.

Future upgrades

• More RAM - 1GB works fine, but I’m sure it would love some more.
• A second tuner card

If you’ve tried to create a HTPC before and failed, I encourage you not to give up. When you’re not constrained to “what’s on the TV _right now_”, it increases the quality of the time that you DO spend in front of it. Plus it’s cool to be a Media Centre junkie.

I love this promotional material for the new HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server. It’s a take on classic children’s books. I’m waiting for the parodies to start…

Well yesterday the MSDN Subscriptions blog said this:

Visual Studio 2008 is anticipated out early next week, with availability for Subscribers. Check out the “Top Subscriber Downloads” area on http://msdn2.microsoft.com/subscriptions for VS 2008 downloads.

You will also be able to access these downloads by clicking on the Subscriber Downloads and Product Keys links that take you to all of your downloads.

But I think somebody might’ve gotten a slap on the wrist and now it says:

Visual Studio 2008 is anticipated out very soon, with availability for Subscribers. Check out the “Top Subscriber Downloads” area on http://msdn2.microsoft.com/subscriptions for VS 2008 downloads.

You will also be able to access these downloads by clicking on the Subscriber Downloads and Product Keys links that take you to all of your downloads.

We are using two different platforms to make these downloads available - to improve discoverability and reliability, and to balance demands on the systems. 

And if you don’t believe me, the post URL still says it all:

http://blogs.msdn.com/msdnsubscriptions/archive/2007/11/16/look-for-visual-studio-2008-downloads-on-top-subscriber-downloads-early-next-week.aspx

Whether its “very soon” or “early next week” - I can’t wait! The two different platforms sounds interesting, I guess that means the Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (aka MS-BitTorrent) that they tried for the Beta2 bits.

The Software Super Villains are preparing to take over the world.

Geoff A started it with TestMan and DefectGirl (link broken)

Mitch has the Gantt Dude:

Paul Stovell has Big “A” Architect and The Scope Creep:

There’s a new villain that I heard of during Jamie Sharp’s presentation ‘Your Data Centre of the Future’ at Security Camp Oz this year.

The “Pony-Tailed Network Admin”

This creature is found in the room with no windows and lots of blinking lights. He wears black from head to toe, and his answer is always “No. I won’t open that firewall port - whatever the reason“. Have you met him before?