A Simple, Silent, TV-Based Linux Media Player 67
jamienk asks: "My life has gotten simple. I can easily get the TV shows and movies I want on to my computer, however I get sick of watching them on my computer, and it's a drag to burn SVCDs or DVDs. Instead, I now want a silent Linux box to sit on my TV with TV out. I want to control it with a remote to run Mplayer (or something that can handle lots of formats) and play video files that are on my wireless LAN. I don't need it to record TV shows, play or rip CDs or DVDs, or even to have a hard-disk really, if the software could fit in RAM or something. Does anyone have links, pointers, or suggestions for cheap, easy, DIY solutions?"
links 4 j00!!!!!one!! (Score:4, Informative)
and
www.htpcnews.com
Linux HTPC HOW-TO
http://www.sllug.org/how-to/linux-htpc/in
If you're actually staying silent you'll want this platform instead of standard ATX
http://www.mini-itx.com
TiVo-esque GPL software
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Re:Go XBox (Score:3, Informative)
XBox Media Center [xboxmediacenter.com] installed on a modded [teamxodus.com] xbox really is all you need. Plug it into your hub/router/whatever, and with a little bit of config you can get it to run directly off of a samba share from your desktop.
Get the DVD package, and you have remote control access. The thing also plays DVDs (I haven't got XBMC doing DVDs yet, but running the xbox dash to watch it isn't bad) so that's most of your video bases covered.
Hauppauge MediaMPV (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Buy a tivo. (Score:3, Informative)
XBox (Score:3, Informative)
It runs Freevo, and while not completely silent, could be made so with a bigger CPU heatsink and a silent PSU- the noise it does make simply isn't intrustive enough for me to bother, however
I use Xebian, so no mods were required for the hardware (I did need to rend MechAssault to get Linux on the hard drive), and I can play XBox games if I want to.
Movies and MP3s are played off a samba share on another linux PC, and it mostly works pretty well.
There are a couple of caveats though-
Limux's approach to swapping memory is pretty awful for this type of application. After a long period of idle time, attempting to play a movie results in about a minute of vigorous disk-thrashing before anything actually happens on-screen.
The XPad driver/XBox controller seems to behave erratically - often requiring an unplug-replug cycle upon bootup to be recognised. Currently i dont have the XBox remote, but it can be used in place of the controller.
Disks sometimes get 'stuck' in the drive and won't eject - no matter whether the software 'eject' command is used or the hardware eject button.
Depending on how much time you have, all these issues could likely be fixed, but if i was you, i'd just buy a wifi set top box like this one:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318
The XBox is quite flexible, and it has been a fun toy to have, and does extra things like rip DVDs and act as a 'standard' Linux PC - but as far as a 'plug n play' solution, i doubt you will get what you want with any PC-based solution, at least without spending a lot of time tweaking - there are just too many things to go wrong, from boot time to peripherals to media error handling etc.
Re:MythTV (Score:3, Informative)
Try the Meadia MVP (Score:1, Informative)
Here are some links to get you started.
http://knoppmythwiki.homelinux.org/index.php?page
http://www.byopvr.com/displayarticle191.html [byopvr.com]
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/index.php?h=0&pf=0&c=
Seconded. (Score:3, Informative)
Another vote for the XBox (Score:4, Informative)
Here's some handy links:
Check out the forums on XBox-Scene [xbox-scene.com] and for XBox Media Center [xboxmediaplayer.de] (XBMC) for useful tips rom the thousands of XBox enthuiasts out there. Good luck!
Re:Go XBox (Score:3, Informative)
No chip, unless you've really got your heart set on the LCD. Install a softmod. Very easy to install. Non-intrusive. Won't void the warranty. Works fine on all versions of Xbox. Search for UDE, UDE2 and UXE. There are many tutorials on the web, if you look hard enough.
You will be very pleased with XBMC as a music jukebox. I am over the moon with mine. All my music available, all the time, without having to shuffle my CDs in and out of a stupid carousel. Configure XBMC to be the default dashboard. Will take less than 5 seconds from power-on to music playing.
Re:Go XBox (Score:3, Informative)
However, if I want to do anything with menus, like the misc featurettes from the LOTR "appendices" discs, I do need to boot to xboxdash - though IIRC they were doing a fund drive a few weeks back to see how much people *really* wanted full dvd support, and if it was enough to pay a developer to take some time to do full-time work implementing it for XBMC (and thusly, also mplayer)