On slashhdot: Video Appliance For a Large Library On a Network?
For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It’s been very reliable and it’s fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It’s the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don’t particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that’s probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I’m looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?
Indeed with so many choices and trade-offs, it’s no wonder I still havn’t gotten around to solving this.
Observations of our changing TV viewing habits with MythTV:
- With high-definition free-to-air, the more disk space the better. 500GB is not enough.
- Little interest in paying for Cable TV.
- Rarely watch live TV anymore.
- Radio station streaming is a must-have in every room.
- Noisy computer in the lounge room is undesirable.
- Skipping past all the DVD junk is a must-have. No previews, no FBI warnings, no ads. Life is too short.
- Configuring and maintaining MythTV can be a time consuming prospect.
- Still want NetFlix for MythTV
Nigel Stewart Personal, Tech computer, mythtv, tv
Nigel Stewart Graphics, Personal aliens, austin tx, cyberdyne, ocp, ripley, robocop, skynet, teapot, terminator, Texas, utah teapot
Reclaim ambition
The 40th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon commemorates a supreme achievement of collective will. However, the fact that we have been no further into space since the 1970s should prompt some reflection. Did something special mark that past generation? Have we lost something?
Perhaps the generation of people who made it happen had something special. This generation grew up in the Depression and through the Second World War. The formative years of astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins occurred when the community had to work together in a supreme effort to defeat threats to civilisation. Collectively, they succeeded.
Perhaps this experience imbued the decision makers of the 1960s with a will to make things happen.
Today we face similar challenges. But our near inertia of today, as compared with 40 years ago, as we face threats of pollution, climate change and overpopulation, seem to show we have lost that collective will that once helped us achieve the seemingly impossible. Maybe it’s time to reclaim our ambition.
Andrew Field, Camberwell
Nigel Stewart Australia, Commentary, Tech, USA Australia, opinion
As mentioned over on I’ Been to Ubunutu:
The only netbook running Linux on Amazon’s Top 25 Netbooks list is the EEE 901, sitting at #19. The war is over, folks.
Two thoughts on this:
- If netbooks drifting towards laptops in terms of usage and cost, does the moniker mean much anymore?
- XP is familiar territory for a lot of computer users. It is hard to imagine a Windows being faster and better than XP on low-spec (true netbook) computers.
I was actually shopping for a Linux netbook recently and was a bit shocked to realise that even ASUS seemed to have switched everything from Linux to XP. Virus scanning slowdown and power consumption is one big reason I would be reluctant to have an XP netbook. That and the importance of installing software updates every week or so.
Nigel Stewart Linux, Tech Linux, netbook, xp
35 Free High-Quality Games for Linux – a list of 35 high-quality, well-working games that will run smoothly on Linux.
Nigel Stewart Linux games, Linux
