media centre build

[Chris Debenham]

On 18 April 2010 21:57, bryn mitchell <bryn_mitchell at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Thanks Chris.
> What OS and Multi Media applications do you use.

I run MythTV on mythbuntu (http://mythbuntu.org/)

> Do you;
* access the Internet - yes - via mythnet
* burn media (such as TV shows) to DVD - yes, via 'mythBurn' which
integrates into mythtv
* rip to MP3 - yes, mythtv can do this natively as well
* view photo's - yes
* edit home video - no, I do video editing on a different machine
generally (one connected to a keyboard/mouse instead of just a remote
control) but there is nothing precluding doing video editing on this
machine as it is faster than my actual desktop anyway :-)

> Do you use a wireless network connection and if so what brand of card/USB (I assume it's USB).

I actually use wired gigabit ethernet (since I store most of my media
on a separate machine) but as long as you are not streaming high-def
content over the network then wireless is fine.
I actually do stream standard-def over wireless to my laptop on
occassion and it works fine.

>
> ________________________________
> From: Chris Debenham <chris at adebenham.com>
> To: bryn mitchell <bryn at mitchells.id.au>
> Cc: ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
> Sent: Sun, 18 April, 2010 6:20:55 PM
> Subject: Re: media centre build
>
> I use an ASRock ION 330 for media centre duties (replacing a mac mini)
> Costs about $350 - just add disk and a usb tuner or two and you have a
> decent machine capable of playing High Def media via HDMI (I can play
> 1080p without too much issue - generally about 40% cpu usage when
> playing HD stuff - less for over-the-air HD stuff)
> It only takes one internal disk, but add an external drive if you need
> more space.
>
> On 18 April 2010 06:24, bryn mitchell <bryn_mitchell at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> I am going to get / build a media centre. I could buy a MAC Mini which
>> seems
>> just about ready to go out of the box or I could go thru the project of a
>> Linux equivalent.
>> I want to access the net, rip and play (thru a sound system) music, record
>> and replay digital TV, play DVD's / Blue Ray, etc thru a Panasonic Viera
>> wide screen plasma.
>> This is something I would be happy to spend a couple of weeks on and off
>> to
>> complete but not a couple of months to get right. It also needs to work
>> right every time or it will fall flat with the missus and kids.
>> I have done some reading about Myth TV and it's variants and other
>> applications such as Boxee and XBMC but my real sticking point is
>> hardware.
>> I got a quote from a local shop to build a box that would suit Win 7 and I
>> assume that would also be adequate for a Linux equivalent but the cost was
>> about $2500, about $1000 more expensive than a MAC Mini solution. For me,
>> the real seller of a Linux system would be to do it on the cheap but as I
>> said before I don't want to spend all my time (I am time poor) buying
>> hardware and then buying more hardware because it doesn't work or
>> endlessly
>> trouble shooting a dodgy set up.
>> Ideally I think my best scenario would be to buy a used PC and just add
>> appropriate hardware such as a tuner card, graphics card etc but I don't
>> know what to buy (or for that matter where to buy). Also fan noise etc is
>> any issue I believe.
>> Interested in any opinions,
>>
>> Regards.
>> B. Mitchell
>>
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>> ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
>>
>>
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