Well, the box has been moved downstairs, however, that doesnt mean much. Trying to get my wife to try new technology is like trying to get me to enjoy shopping, it just aint gonna happen,(with shopping, ever, with techology and my wife, its just REAL slow). She finally using gmail and loving it, so progress can be made, just not quickly. So, right now the WAF is about a 0, 5 at best;-) *on a 100 point scale* But I can work on this, the commercial skipping is already a hit, so we just have to keep finding the positive;-) However, a bet I made at the inception of this project, is likely to cost me a beer(or 6 or 8), as my enthusiasm was quickly squashed by one quick, "But where the hell is the stuff I already have taped"!
Enough about my wifely dramas and on to the good stuff. Whats working, whats not, what needs tweaking and what doesn't.
The Good:
1) Recording, watching, liveTV, Music, Games, all working flawlessly. I could do some more configuration to make things nicer, which will be happening over time, but all the basic functions are there and working.
2) Hardware, all the hardware has been rock solid. Once I got past the initial build problems, all has been free
from issues.
3) Noise. While it is a bit louder than I would like at this point, it is a very dull white noise(fans) and the HD is actually more quiet than the TW DVR.
4) Commecial skipping, I thought I was spoiled by my DVR and only having to FF through 3 minutes of commercials. I can assure you, that completely skipping commercials is an experience you will not want to give up. I cannot imagine sitting through all the commercial crap that I used to have to do. WHOO HOO.
The Bad and the Ugly:
1) The remote
While it looks cool, has a very nice feel, and seems to work well for the most part. It has a few annoying qualities I simply cannot live with. One being that the buttons sticks, so 1 "Ok" or "Exit" can turn into an almost endless loop. I have to stick the remote somewhere so it loses IR contact, then it will stop. This will not be good for the WAF so MUST be replaced(and quickly). I'd love to get a Harmony or something like that, but that will have to wait a bit. For the meantime I thin I will probably pick up this Sony.
2) Firewire
Firewire is still flaky as hell and thats putting it nicely. I have seen a few reports of flaky behavior of certain Asus onboard firewire setups, but I havent seen that reported on the P5B yet, so Im hopeful it either a BIOS setting or something I can configure via Linux to make it more robust and reliable. I guess we will see.
3) Streaming
I have streaming working from the server, but not necessarily incorporated into MythTV yet. It does already have the hooks for it, I just havent had a chance to get it all setup.
I was told at the beginning of this project that there was no end and that its a journey not a destination. That is truely coming into focus at this point. Even after I have the stuff done above, there are a million other things I can do for both usability and fucntionality. So many I can only dare to dream! However, I am also terribly excited at the possibilities of being able to control my own media. Watching things, how and when I want to watch them.
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4 comments:
Dude!
OK, so you're in the beginnings of stage 3. Generally these things go through 3 stages:
1 - On the kitchen table or wherever your makeshift lab is...covers off the box, constantly tinkering with hardware and the OS just trying to stabilize everythying.
Stage 2 - At a desk somewhere, covers back on the box, fiddling with applications and some OS related stuff.
Stage 3 - Hooked up to the TV in its production location. Usability functions are paramount...how can I make this thing easier to use!
Stage 3 is the toughest thing in the world to get through. Everything functions, and YOU know how to make it work..however, you don't live alone! Time to make it intuitive. For the WAF, it's tough. To ween Jen off of the cable co's DVR, I went through her scheduled recordings on the cable box and set them up on my MC box. Next week, once I confirm that everything is in place for her, I'm going to delete her scheduled recordings on the cable DVR. Yeah, she'll be pissed at first, but it'll push her onto the MC box! Also, the remote! Oh, the remote! Do not underestimate the power of this device. The Harmony was the single device that enabled full living room acceptence. I've got an XBox 360 Harmony (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/detailsharmony/US/EN,CRID=2084,CONTENTID=11250) and it was the best $85 investment I've ever made. Do not be fooled by the appearance and name of this device, though. It's a full function Harmony remote. I originally had the 670 (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/detailsharmony/US/EN,CRID=2084,CONTENTID=12701) but returned it once I read about the 360. The 360 has all of the same functionality as the 670, and was $60 cheaper! You just click push a button for an "Activity" and it sets all the components up properly for you, switches the volume and channel controls to the appropriate component and assigns the logical buttons to the appropriate tasks. There's a green button on the 360, and I assigned that to the Media Center green button, the main MCE menu. Stupid little things like that go a long way! I'll keep an eye out for any cheap Harmony remotes for you man, it's essential. Also, the single button power down is very cool!
Noise. Noise is not your friend! Mine was whisper quiet, until I dropped the 7600GT in it last night. Now there/s a faint hum coming from it, even with that bad-ass case! I'd hate to hear what it would sound like in a non-dampened chassis.
Have you got a free PCI slot? I've got a firewire PCI card if you want it. Man, FW is so flakey on any platform. I think that's why it never really cought on in this arena. I've decided not to go with it on my setup. I'll probably change my mind come football season, but we'll see.
Does Beth have any movies she likes to watch over and over? If so, does Myth provide an interface to play back rupped DVDs? That's another huge one on the WAF list. I ripped 10 DVDs immediately (The Matrix, the 4 Harry Potter movies, extended Fellowship of the Ring, the original Star Wars trilogy) and made them accessible via a single remote click. Bam, a benefit of the MC PC. Let's see the cable co. DVR do that! Music playlists? Grab a bunch of her music, slap together a playlist and get it on there. Another benefit of this over the DVR. The little guy's favorite TV shows....record them, strip the commercials and make DVDs. Don't tell her, just start stacking the completed DVDs somewhere, with cases and labels. She'll find them and it'll be a hit! Again, let's see the cable DVR do THAT!
Getting back the remote...the remote is the way into the experience. Everything flows through the remote, so if that sucks, EVERYTHING sucks. It's like hooking up cheap-shit garbage speakers to a $2000 sound system. It completely ruins the experience.
OK, so in review:
1 - Prep the system for her. Start populating the setup with her recordings, her music, her movies. Don't tell her about it, just do it then wait for the right time to spring it on her.
2 - Do a bunch of little things that are impossible with the cable DVR that will hit hot buttons with her.
3 - Ween her off the cable DVR. Be ready for the initial "WTF!?" reaction, but have everyhting in place to recover.
4 - REMOTE!
All excellent ideas, the ripping is actually already done. It has a great interface and when the rip is done, its moved automagically into the videos, which is very nice. So that we got covered(though believe it or not, ripping was one of the toughest things to setup, but that was because of the transcoding, not the actual ripping). I've already got all the music hooked up and I plan on installing Devons favorite game so that shell be able to launch it with just a button. So Im hip on that idea too!
I used to have a web page that streamed MP3. Well I moved all those MP3s to the Myth box, but the interface for editing playlists sucks. So one of my next projects is intergrating the two, using the interface for choosing the music that she is used to, but playing it direct on the surround sound. This is another big plus as we can also run a screen saver or slide show while playing this music(Much better than the TW pics they put on the music channels).
And the fact that I can store 200 Gig of crap is also a huge plus. Then I can rip/transcode and burn to dvd if necessary, all with the click of a few buttons. Its all there, its just the battle to make it useable;-)
Great input though, as I know Jen doesnt like new tech any more than Beth. So the trick is to make it impossible to live without, hmmmm, theres a thought...
As it stands now, I have the cable split 4 ways, one to the Hauppauge 500, one to the pcHDTV card, one to the SA3250HD, and the last to the Explorer 8000 DVR. The SA3250HD is only hooked to the computer via firewire and has no other outputs. The Explorer 8000 is the primary Cable/DVR box and is set to the normal input on the TV. The Myth box is running SVideo to the TV on Input 2.
Now, I have a question, Can you use svideo, or component out on the Explorer 8000 STB to grab the data that is already stored on the box?
re: Now, I have a question, Can you use svideo, or component out on the Explorer 8000 STB to grab the data that is already stored on the box?
SVideo. I don't know of any component capture devices that are not cost prohibitive. There's just too much data in the analog signal to process.
Uhh..why are you going out of that beautiful box via SVideo??? OMG, that kills HD totally.
Any progress?
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