The Future Guebert Home Media Network
Since I want to stall working on my design document for just a little while longer, I figured I’d make a blog post. Instead of droning on about my life (and since it usually doesn’t suck, that makes my posts kina uninteresting), I figured I might actually start something where I make every post actually have some substance. You be the judge whether I accomplish that or not.
It’s not necessarily directly tied to moving, but within the next year (hopefully sooner) I get to set up a home media network for us. Aside from this just being a cool thing in itself, I also get to spend lots of money in the process (always fun). So, this is how I envision everything working if the stars and planets align correctly and the media gods look favorably on me:
Cable will come into our house from Comcast and at least in one location feed into either a Tivo Series 3 or a Media Center PC (with a Cablecard slot to record all channels). On either one of those devices, shows will get recorded automagically and I hopefully won’t have to resort to taping up to 4 shows a week anymore on VHS tapes. If using a Tivo, the files will be moved over to a PC and from there freed of their DRM; if a HTPC, then the files just need to be stripped of their DRM. These TV shows will then be transferred (if necessary) over to an always on, network storage drive where they can be accessed throughout the rest of the house. DVD rips will also be stored in this same location. From there, andy PC in the house will be able to access and watch the files. The next step is getting a device that can be hooked up to at least the most frequently used TVs that can stream this video also (other TVs wouls just have a direct cable hookup). If stored on a XP-based computer, then most MCE devices should do the trick (a 360 for my room, and then other devices for probably at least our media room and my parents’ room). Orb would also be a great addition here since it could then stream over the internet so I could watch stuff at UTD, my dad wouls have access when he’s traveling, etc. If going the Linux route, then compatibily becomes slightly more complicated. Setting up (small) Linux computers with MythTV or something would be an option (but one I’d rather avoid), so seeing if there was a way to get MCE compatibility would be the first step (and finding an Orb alternative since Orb is Windows only). Since most of this would be wireless, upgrading out network would also be in order (currently we just have 802.11b, but hopefully 802.11n will be finalized and relatively cheap by the time this gets implemented). The total cost to get all this done. Well, a HTPC costs more initially than the Tivo (at least the Series 2 currently out), but there’s no recurring subscription fee. Leaving out my 360 since I’ll be getting that in a few months anyway, I’d put the cap somewhere around $1250. Yeah, not the cheapest project in the world, but I think it’s one of those things where you don’t really understand how useful it’d be until you actually start to live with and use it.
Also, the second anniversary of this blog happens to be one month from today (I promise I didn’t plan this, it just happened :) ). This also means I have one month to make 5 more posts to keep at the same pace I did for the first year (I made 90 the first year, and this is post 175). If I can’t do that…well, I guess I’m just more pathetic than we all thought.