Car Audio
You need a stereo for the car, but you also need a PC for tuning
it. Why not a single box, after all, a PC can play CD's, MP3s,
and run a radio tuner. Problems... How to control it, how to
power it, finding gear that can handle the temperature,
vibration.
- The LinuxCar - DashPC
- RyansPC: Car MP3 Player
- Computer in car - MP3 , and movie player
- Man & Machine: Applications - Automobile
- Grip
GPS
Why not
Surfing
napster
- http://opennap.sourceforge.net/napster.txt
- <d.w.o> code: The Napster Protocol
Mindless Entertainment
Master of Orion III"
We all do it. Sit around flipping channels until we slip into a
coma. Well I like to do it in style. For that you need a
kick-ass monitor, receiver, speakers, the lot.
Home Theatre
- Introduction To SMR Home Theatre
- H O M E T H E A T E R M A G A Z I N E
- TechnoFILE - the Consumer's Non-technical Guide to Today's Technology
- Home Theater basics Welcome Page
- Home Video Systems Visual Resolution Comparison
- Home Theater Forum - powered by vBulletin
- Next Big Thing Electronics
Signal Sources
Normal Broadcast TV
Sucks. You get an analog signal sending you 525 line of
signal. 45 of those are used for various purposes, leaving ~480
visible horizontal lines.
VCR
Sucks. VHS will give you about half the resolution of normal
TV. SVHS is better, as it doubles this. Still, it's no better
than normal TV
Digital TV
DTV will allow the transmission of pictures with various
resolutions: 480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. 1080i
means, in computer speak, 1920x1080 pixels. But just because
they transmit 1080 lines doesn't mean your set will display
it. It may convert it to one of the lower resolution signals.
You'll notice 480i is the same as normal TV. Using digital
transmission, it takes much less bandwidth than the corresponding
analog signal, and of course, is either perfect, or non-existent.
DVD
DVD (currently) only generates 480i. But it does some other neat
tricks, the most important is the handling of letterbox movies.
Letterbox movies are shown in the original 16:9 aspect ratio, so
you get to see them as they were made. On NTSC, they broadcast
two black (or otherwise) bars at the top and bottom, so the
picture gets less than 400 lines of resolution.
Letter box movies can be created in "anamorphic" mode on
DVD. On a normal TV, the DVD drops every fourth scan line
and adds the black bars to the top and bottom. However, if your
TV can handle it, it'll show the full 480 lines of picture.
Linux
- ABIT NF7-S Motherboard
- SOcket A Mobo with Nvidia Nforce2 chip and toslink out. 5.1
digital output fully supported, so no sound card needed, also ethernet.
- Geforce FX 5200
- mpeg decoder and tv out.
- Antec overture case/PSU
- Flat format, very quite, though a bit long 17wx19dx5.5h
- Hauppague WINTV-250
- mpeg encoder
- 1G PC2700 memory
- Samsung 120G 8M ATA133 drive
- Slightly louder than the Seagates at idle, but a quiter
seeking
- Thermalright SK-800A heatsink, panaflow 21DB fan
For further info check out the PVR Hardware Database:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-view_articles.php
They have a page with some nice installation guides:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=i nstall_guides
As you can see I am all for building a MythTV box, but having built one, I have to warn you that the software isn't perfect yet. It really kicks Tivo's ass in terms of functionality (I love the MythWeb interface, and you can set it too completely cut out commercials, which it does surprisingly accurately), but it still can be a little buggy sometimes and should only be used by people who like to tinker.
This is how I built my "Tivo" (Score:5, Interesting)
by Bishop639 (128992) Alter Relationship on Wednesday December 10, @04:12PM (#7683543)
I built a MythTV box and went the Mini-ITX route for $500. I paid more for the small size, considering I could have gotten more CPU power, etc. for less money.
For case, I used the Morex Cubid 2699R. It's about the size of a 12" pizza box (much smaller than the VCR that it replaced!), and uses a 50W external power supply, which *significantly* cuts down on noise. My hard drive is the biggest contibutor to noise with this setup. I got my case for about $80 US.
I keep it in my TV cabinet without an attached mouse, keyboard, or monitor. Just connected to TV and my LAN, and controlled via remote control.
You can see pics and a review of its older cousin at:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/2688R/
As for the rest, I got:
Motherboard:
VIA EPIA M10000 ($150-$160 US) - Has onboard ethernet, 5.1 audio, video,
and one PCI slot. Processor is already on it. Processesor has
exceptionally low power requirements (compared to high-end AMD/Intel).
Memory:
Crucial 512mb DDR (if you do decide on the 2699R case, make sure the RAM
height is below 34mm or it won't fit - the Crucial fit just fine)
Tuner:
Hauppauge PVR-350 (less than $200 via pricewatch.com)
Its included remote works really well under LIRC
DVD:
Some generic slimline DVD player for $55.
If you get the 2699R case, you need a slimline which means more $$
Note that as of current date, MythDVD and MythVideo don't work
with the PVR-350, so you won't be able to watch DVD's (yet).
Hard drive:
I used an old IBM drive laying around, I plan on upgrading to a Seagate Barracuda which is rated at 20dB while idling.
Now the pros and cons of my setup:
Pros:
Very small, very quiet
PVR-350 with the Epia M10000 uses only 3% (!!!) CPU utilization during
playback and record
Front of case has firewire/usb connections if I need later on
Even without MythDVD or MythVideo support, it's already better than a
commercial Tivo because (1) I can record at higher bitrate and resolution,
and (2) I have direct access to the recorded videos, so that (3) I can
archive to DivX or DVD...
Cons:
No DVD or avi/quicktime/etc. file playback since I've using a PVR-350 (hopefully soon though!)
I couldn't use the already built 0.11 .deb packages since I was using the
Cool question... (Score:5, Informative)
by Alphix (33559) Alter Relationship on Wednesday December 10, @04:22PM (#7683682)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I just ordered my hardware for a MythTV [mythtv.org] based box two days ago after researching it for a long time. This is the shopping list I came up with.
* MSI MATX I865PEM2-ILS [msi.com.tw]
* Samsung black combo 52X24X52+16X CD-RW/DVD
* WAG311GE Netgear Wireless .11ABG+ PCI [netgear.com]
* Intel P4 2,6GHz 800/512K
* Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 [hauppauge.com]
* MSI GeForce FX5200 TD128 with DVI and TV-OUT [msi.com.tw]
* 512MB PC400 DDRAM
* Maxtor Dmax Plus9 200Gb 7200RPM 8Mb SATA [maxtor.com]
* Coolermaster ATC 620C-BX1 [coolermaster.com]
The reasoning for the different items are as follows:
A similar model of the motherboard got good reviews [tomshardware.com] by Toms Hardware Guide (yes, I know some people in /. hate Tom). The integrated sound on this board was recommended to me by an ALSA developer. It's also got SATA, LAN, USB and Firewire and, as a nice bonus, both coax and optical digital sound outputs.
Samsung...didn't matter much as long as it had DVD and CD-RW capabilities, black front was a nice touch though.
WAG311GE, one of few cards that support A, B and G wireless networking. Supported in Linux by the MadWifi [sourceforge.net] drivers, unfortunately not truly open source, but neither are any other ABG card drivers.
Intel processor, I usually like Athlons but temperature (and thereby cooling requirements) is much more important in this box than speed.
Hauppage, well supported by MythTV and able to do MPEG2 recording and playback in hardware.
MSI GeForce, has VGA, DVI and TV-Out, also fanless and really cheap. Closed drivers but that's kinda hard to avoid.
Maxtor drive, I really wanted a more quiet Seagate but the SATA models were kind of impossible to find in any nearby store for decent prices. Also most stores seemed to have the ones with the least storage capacity.
Coolermaster, the case isn't "designed" to be a HTPC case (such as this one [quietpc.com]) which means it doesn't have the same silly price tag. It was also the exact same width as my stereo components (well, 3mm wider) and similar color.
Now all I have to do is wait...
- OpenDVD.org - Extending DVD
- Passive opteron coolers
- Mini ITX
- Shuttle XPC system units
HDTV
HDTV is coming Real Soon Now. HDTV is generally considered to be
the high-resolution subset of Digital TV (DTV).
An incomplete list of some of the up-and-coming HDTV capable gear:
- RCA DTC-100 DirectTV receiver
- This is a combo satellite receiver, HDTV broadcast
receiver, normal TV receiver.
- Electrohome Marquee 9000 series
- These front projection systems will display 1080p
TV on the web
This means a RealVideo feed. You can get the latest Linux beta
of the G2 player
here.
This page is not accessible from the real.com home page, near
as I can tell.
Now you need something to watch.
Broadcast.com has a
number of shows and networks.
Record and Playback
- TIVO, a Linux VCR done right.
- Dream Mulitmedia.TV! another linux multimedia box.
- A home-grown Linux PVR
- Linux Video Disk Recorder
- linuxtv.org|TV is dead - this is LinuxTV
- Linux Media Labs, LLC
Small wall mount speakers
- Paradigm Cinema
- Atlantic Technology T-70
- Gallo Acoustics Nucleus or Duo
- Definitive Technology Pro Monitor 80
- B&W LM1
- Kef 2005 like above
- Energy Take 5.2
- Mirage AVS-500 or OmniSat
- Tannoy FX5.1
- NHT Super Zero
- Psb Alpha Intro
- Acoustic Energy AEGO5
- Acoustic Research HC-6
- JMLab Sib & Cub
Photography, Digital and Otherwise
Some useful web sites (not a comprehensive list).
Tony Lill
Last modified: Wed Jul 6 21:45:53 EDT 2005