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> HTPC > Overview
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12th Nov 2004
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The word HTPC stands for 'Home Theatre Personal Computer'. Basically, it's a normal PC which is dedicated to the purpose of controlling a home cinema setup.
Whilst window shopping for electronics that I really didn't need in the Summer of 2004 in anticipation of moving into my first appartment, I found a reliatively cheap
(£150) digital terrestial harddisk recorder. There already
existed Sky+, a totally overpriced (£99-£400 installation/box, then about £10 a month
ontop of normal
subscription starting at £12 a month!) service by Sky and TiVO, a simular concept, but this beat them clear out of the water on value for money.
What's a harddisk recorder? Well, basically whatever you're watching live you can choose to pause, at which point the unit will start recording your program to memory.
When you unpause it starts reading from disk. They can also be used as a VCR, except with a typical disk size of 40gb, you can store 20 hours of dvd quality video and
skip through it like a DVD.
Of course I was completely sold on the idea, and got extremely close to buying. But alas the store that sold it wouldn't sell it to me because I'm not in an area which
can officially recieve digital TV signals (although I can, perfectly, on account of my arial being located on the top of an appartment block). In the interim period
before finding another store and waiting for them to get in some stock (very popular units!) I realised that I was being incredibly lazy and could probably make a much
better solution myself. After all, I seem to spend all my time at work these days building incredibly sexy aluminium SFF (Small form factor) linux PCs, and using a PC to
do a set task (an appliance) is after all what my company designs and sells. So, I decided to get off my lazy arse and build my own unit from scratch.
I'm not the first person to do this, not by a long shot, but the ones which work really nice tend to cost several grand, other people's that I've seen done on budget have
worked, but had really clumbsy interfaces etc (if it's going in my living room it's got to be silent, blend in and not had a keyboard trailing across the room!). There's
a couple of Linux solutions for HTPCs in development, so I thought I could combine my knowledge of programming with one of them (MythTV) and make something really special
(and naturally on the cheap of course). Needless to say the quality of a PC acting as a DVD player etc is far superior to even expensive standalone DVD players,
especially when connected via a digital output (ie no loss of quality).
Thus these pages document my ongoing project to building a HTPC for my living room. The goals of the project are to be able to:
· Play, record and jukebox DVDs (ie backup my collection to harddisk)
· Watch, record and pause live digital TV
· Play other types of media, including audio CDs, MP3, DivX etc
· Use any remote control with it
· Watch video stored on it from any other machine in the house, including wirelessly on my laptop(s)
· Connect to it over the internet and control my recording schedule
· Have TV listings for the next month and set reminders etc
All from a stylish, silent case with an easy to use menu system, at least 100 hours of recording time (with more easily added (currently about 70 quid per 100 hours)),
all for under a few hundred pounds.
Wish me luck!
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