Mar
1
Build Your Own DVD Server
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As Blu-ray grows in popularity (at least among home theater enthusiasts) many of us have thought about consolidating our DVD collections to make room for more of those little blue boxes on our shelves. You might consider a DVD server as a way to streamline that process; I made the switch a few years ago and have never looked back.
Even those reluctant to travel down the full-fledged HTPC path, due the cost and complexity, may find a DVD server a viable solution. The great thing about a (standard definition) DVD only server is that the technical requirements and most importantly the cost can be kept quite low, at least compared with HDTV capable media servers.
I’ll bet many of you even have an old PC or enough parts to get started, at the bottom of some closet right now. About the only thing you would need to add to a vanilla PC to get it up to DVD server status is a sound card or USB adapter 
Programs like My Movies or Media Browser give you the slick user interface that really ties it altogether. And again, since we’re ripping the movies to the internal (or networked for that matter) hard drive; no need to locate them on the shelf, pop them into the player and then return them back to the shelf afterwards, the movie starts when you press play.
Jun
2
Samsung LCD’s with HTPC’s
Filed Under Media Servers (HTPC) | 1 Comment
These tips are somewhat brand specific but I just wanted to share a few things that might be helpful to those of you with shiny new Samsung LCD televisions. First off and this shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone familiar with consumer displays, but just keep in mind that just about every type of consumer grade display be it LCD, plasma, LCoS, front or rear projection will need to be calibrated; to get the best image the set is capable of displaying.
One of the biggest adjustment problems with off-the-shelf displays has to be brightness and contrast settings cranked up into the ionosphere. Honestly some of these televisions could light a small home, don’t be afraid to take the brightness down a notch or five. Getting to the HTPC specifics, if you’re using a VGA cable to connect to a recent “LN” or similar series Samsung (LCD television) you’ll want to select setup and then select “Home Theater PC”.
If you’re using HDMI and or a DVI to HDMI converter you’ll simply want to select “Just Scan” via the picture size control, this allows the display to operate in a 1:1 or pass-through mode which is preferable with HTPC’s. Note if you do use the 1:1 mode you may need to tweak the over scan controls of your HTPC to get an exact screen size match.
Mar
15
HTPC Pointers
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I’m stepping just a wee bit out of my comfort zone here today with some HTPC tips, but I feel as if I’ve learned enough in the process of building two of them that I might have some worthwhile pointers. First off no matter how powerful you thought/think a HTPC should be; if you haven’t factored in 1080p you’re probably way off in the amount of raw horsepower needed for “Full HD” video processing.
In my experience you’re going to want at a dual-core CPU in the 2.3 GHz region or faster and or a video card with full MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, (the ATI 2400, 2600 or NVIDIA 8600/8500 come to mind) to get smooth playback with a variety of sources at 1080p.
Ok so with CPU and GPU considerations addressed the other big area I see mistakes being made is with the operating system itself. Think of your HTPC’s operating system as a petri dish you want to run a controlled experiment with, any contaminants (unnecessary updates, malware, etc.) that enter that dish raise the chance of hang-ups and crashes exponentially. Simple things like turning off automatic updates and removing unnecessary startup programs via msconfig; can go a long-ways toward a stable, trouble-free HTPC.
Feb
17
Media Servers (HTPC)
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Some call them home theater PC’s, others prefer the term media server while others just curse in their general direction, whatever you call them they look a lot like the future of home theater. In some form or another it won’t be long before most home theater enthusiasts have a “box” in their living room or home theater that can: record live tv, playback local video files, stream audio and video from another connected device, play games and ultimately access the internet to bring in new content in the form of pay-per view movies and even live “TV” events.
Those of you with Xbox 360’s and Play Station 3’s and networked video devices are already at the forefront of this movement but expect to see this type of functionality to appear in other, less platform specific devices in the future. A few ways to take advantage of the networked video revolution today are the aforementioned Xbox 360’s (particularly when used on the same network as a Vista Media Center equipped PC) A Mac mini using Apples “Front Row” software and devices like the limHD200i from Tomarco.