Wednesday, 17 October 2012 17:16

Media Center

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Build and Design of a Media Center HTPC.

 

I shall document this large and on going project more in the coming months. This is a piece of tech I use everyday. It is a DVR dual satellite receiver with a rotor dish attached. It also has a dual DVB-T tuner. It hosts XBMC (mainly used for consuming podcasts) and runs Lovefilm in a Windows VM (controlled by Wiimotes). It is really two independent X desktop systems in one. The main lounge system runs 1080p HD out to a large plasma. A second graphics card then sends out 720p to the remaining TVs in the house that will take 720p. It also downscales that to standard def and runs it over UHF to the older TVs.

The two systems are implemented by having two Linux desktops running on separate graphics cards. It has two types of remote control signals it can respond to as both desktops act independently. Surround sound for the main lounge system is send out to a Dolby 5.1 receiver. Surround sound for the bedroom is done on a budget by sending Dolby out of the onboard 5.1 soundcard to discreet PC speaker systems with a sub. 

This is a busy PC. 

The DVR software is VDR (development version) with lots of plugins. It has a Bluray drive and a 1TB storage drive for video etc.

Next thing I'd like is to have the lounge machine controlled by Kinect.

Why a wooden case? Well why not?

 

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Last modified on Friday, 19 October 2012 18:32

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