Media Center Laptops

For those that want to take their home theater and digital media on the road with them, PC Magazine has just released a round-up of MCE laptops including the new Dell Inspiron 9300, but their choice is the Qosmio G25 from Toshiba....

From the article...
Dell Inspiron 9300
Dell's first Media Center laptop is a high-end system that can record and broadcast TV, as well as handle other heavy-duty media tasks, like gaming. The family will be fighting over this one.
Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513
It's the best multimedia laptop we've seen, especially when it comes to integrating AV features. No other system comes close.
Toshiba Qosmio F25-AV205
It's one of the lightest Media Center laptops we've seen. With its super-bright screen and good set of AV features, the F25 makes an ideal midrange multimedia notebook.
Sony VAIO VGN-A690
It's a solid multimedia PC, and Sony's VAIO Zone is as capable as Windows XP Media Center Edition, if not better in some respects. The newer components add some much needed horsepower.

Windows in the Living Room

Tom's Hardware Guide released two new articles yesterday that may be of interest to the to the HTPC and MCE communities. The first is an article on MCE, Extenders, and Xbox. The second is a round up of some HTPC cases.

Windows In The Living Room: Part 1 - A Windows PC Instead Of A VCR And DVD Player?
Windows In The Living Room: Part 2 - Digital Video Recorder (DVR) Capabilities
Trendy Cases In Hi-Fi Design - Introduction

Systm.org - BYO MythTV Box

Before the TechTV network was destroyed by Comcast and merged with the lame G4 network, The Screen Savers show turned us on to some great ideas for home theater and home automation projects like TiVo hacking and DVarchive for ReplayTV. One of the shows contributors, Kevin Rose became somewhat famous for his series on Xbox Mods which spawned a segment on TSS called Dark Tips. While at G4 / TechTV, Kevin Rose and Dan Huard were also producing some content on thebroken.org and working to develop an internet based show. After some turmoil with G4, it seems that thankfully they are now out on their own with a new site and show called Systm and are producing some really good content. The videos are available for download over BitTorrent and there are links on their site to the content.

The second episode is a great segment on building your own PC based DVR using MythTV. MythTV offers a low cost, open source alternative to commercial media center PCs. The features are really great, but as you'll see, there is some work to do to get it setup.

Check out Systm.org and do what you can to support these guys.
Systm

How Smart is Your Home? Video Series

Jason Bradbury is a UK TV presenter and gadget guy. He is releasing a series of video cam quality how to videos on his blog covering Wi-Fi, X10 and Windows Media Center. The videos were released today. The video quality is really good and I like the voice over narration that he adds to explain what you are seeing. All of the videos are produced with Windows Movie Maker.

Jason Bradbury: How Smart is Your Home?

The Wi-Fi video features some DLink gear highlighted with some IP cameras.
Jason Bradbury: DIY Smart Home: Movie #1 - Wi-Fi

The X10 video highlights some basic X10 receivers and transmitters and some wired and wireless PC controls for lighting.
Jason Bradbury: DIY Smart Home: Movie #2 - X10

The MCE video focuses mostly on a LCD monitor with an integrated PC from Lumina. In the video you get a good look at the Artisan LX HTPC.
Jason Bradbury: DIY Smart Home: Movie #3 - Windows Media Center

MCE = Media Center Everywhere

I posted some new photos of our home MCE setup to My Flickr page tonight. These are some pictures of how we use Windows Media Center around the house. All of our media files (music, pictures, recorded TV and HD, DVDs, and downloaded video) is stored on a media server in the basement and accessed from the MCE interface on a PC like in the master bedroom or my wife's office or from one of the TVs in the house. This setup makes MCE = Media Center EVERYWHERE!

The TVs don't use Media Center Extenders to access the MCE interface and content. The s-video output of the video card and the sound output of the sound card of our media server running MCE 2005 goes into a Leviton modulator that outputs the MCE audio and video as a channel, 78 in our case. The incoming cable signal provided by Comcast has a Leviton notch filter on it that blocks channels 75-80 of the cable feed to allow for some space for the modulated channels to be added. The signal from the MCE on channel 78 and a signal from another DVR (TiVo Series 1) running into another modulator set to channel 80 are combined with the digital cable signal using a Leviton 3x8 video module. This allows all devices connected to the cable feed to see the MCE on 78 and TiVo on 80.

So, how do you control it? The IR is relayed to the IR receiver on the media server using X10 Powermid transmitters in the TV locations and one Powermid receiver in the basement. The output of the powermid is connected to a dual output emitter (one emitter goes on the eye of the MCE receiver and the other to the remote eye on the TiVo). We use Home Theater Master MX-500 remotes on the main and top floors with the MCE remote codes programmed into them and both remotes are setup with the same button layout so the contols are pretty seamless from floor to floor.

This setup is really flexible and can serve up your MCE content (or TiVo or ReplayTV or any composite input with audio) all over the house to any of your TVs or PCs with a TV tuner. The other nice advantage is being able to use the picture in picture function on your TV if it has the feature. The main picture can be the video in from your digital cable box and the PIP window can be the modulated channel - really nice! The main drawback is that all TVs are seeing the same output of the MCE, but you could always add an extender if you need to see different sources.

I have a few more notes in the photos on Flickr.

Nintendo's Miyamoto is not gaming!

Home theater is a really great place for gaming. A huge screen with a HD projector and 5.1 surround sound create a truly immersive experience for gamers, but there is a problem -- the games. For some of us with the responsibilities of a career and family, and the desire to maintain some social life, it is tough to find games that we can play in the few hours (or few minutes) that we have available for gaming.

In the old days, we could drop a quarter in a slot at the local arcade and enjoy gaming for as little as a few minutes (or a few hours if you were really good). Gamers like me from the late 70s to early 80s are missing some of those games when playing current consoles. Some of us are using our Xbox platform to run emulators sites like MAMEoX to access some games that you can "pick up and play." I guess we are not alone in seeking some gaming that this both challenging and interesting, but quick and accessible.

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto agrees with us... take a look this article... [from cnn.com]
Quote from the article... "This might come as something of a shock to the gaming world, but Shigeru Miyamoto – the man who created Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda – really doesn't feel like playing games these days."

"What he misses, he said, are games you can pick up and play – something the company hopes to accomplish with its next generation home console, currently code-named "Revolution".

With that said, there are some games out there that give this experience. Huge kudos to publishers Lucas Arts and Giant Interactive and developer Traveller's Tales for creating Lego Star Wars... my 5 1/2 year old son and I are having a great time playing this game together! We are playing about 30 - 45 minutes each night and over the last week or so we have made our way through all of the episodes I - III and are working on getting into the mystery episode (IV). We finally found a game that we can play together that doesn't make dad look dumb! I guess I should keep shopping for games targeted to gamers 8 and under...

Widescreen Wallpapers

After you get your widescreen LCD monitor to go with your MCE PC, like the Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch Monitor you'll need some wide aspect wallpaper to go with here. Here is a really nice collection of wallpapers for your widescreen display...

Widescreen Wallpapers