The Digital Living Room Showcase is LIVE!
June 9th, 2005 at 3:11 pm by Christina
See the first of a series of SnapStream living rooms in our Digital Living Room Showcase. As mentioned in a previous post, the showcase will feature a series of living rooms using SnapStream Media products. A new living room will be highlighted about once every two weeks.
It’s not too late. Submit your living room today.
Featured Living Room One (6/9/05)
Submitted by: Percy Bell
Here is my current HTPC running Beyond TV and Beyond Media. It is a 4 tuner monster with over 1 TB of drive space. I have another 480 GB of drive space accessible over GigaBit from my BTV Link Box in the Bedroom. I use that box to store all my DVD’s while I record my TV on this one. I need alot of space to record the shows that I record on this box hence the large drives!
COMPONENTS:
- Beyond Media on my Panasonic PT-50LC13 50″ HDTV via RGB
- AMD XP2600+, 1GB, 1040GB HD, Running Dual PVR250 recording DirecTV and Dual "other" tuners
recording "other" content. - DSL Router, Wireless G Router, and GigaBit Switch
- Kenwood Surround Sound Receiver connected to my PC via SPDIF
- HD DirecTV Receiver
- Samsung HD DirecTV Receiver
- Direct TiVo used for Comparisons
- Kenwood Mini Disc Player/Recorder
- Sony 5 Disc DVD Changer
- Kenwood 200 Disc CD Changer
- Legacy Sony VCR (for old tapes)
- Xbox
July 7th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
This looks quite similar to the set up I am planning. My question: what did you choose for a DVD storage solution? I imagine you are ripping them to your hard drive. What software are you using to make this work and still maintain the original quality?
July 7th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
I use Beyond Media with the DVD Libary plugin. (You can get the plugin here http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22124) This plugin is just great! I have to rip the DVD to the hard drive using a third party ripper and don’t loose any quality.
July 17th, 2005 at 7:31 am
How did you cool the AthlonXP and keep it quiet? What case are you using?
July 18th, 2005 at 10:51 am
I’m using the Antec Sonata (http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15138). These cases are designed to be quiet. I’m also using a Zalman Cooler for the processor (http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=33&code=). This is an older cooler but with it’s low speed fan it keeps my CPU cool while keeping it quiet!
August 12th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
I’m in the process of building a “DVD Server” with about 3 TB of drive space to store just movies running over a gig ether that goes to two bedrooms and the living room HTPC. Have you noticed any lag in the DVD when going from the box in the bedroom to the the living room? You store all your DVDs on the one in the bedroom right? If you try to watch a DVD from the bedroom in the living room do you notice any performance loss in the bedroom box?
August 15th, 2005 at 4:43 am
I noticed you use SPDIF to go to your audio. I am considering stepping up in sound cards… (lot of PC karaoke). Does the SPDIF really improve your sound much over the regular connection?
August 15th, 2005 at 10:49 am
The machine in the bedroom has no lag associated with serving up DVDs. And as for watching DVDs in the living room I see no lag there either. I didn’t see a lag with a 100MBit connection either. It just takes a long time to transfer those DVDs over 100MBit
As for SPDIF the main improvement is for watching DVDs. With SPDIF to my Dolby Digital Receiver I actually get Dolby Digital sound from my DVDs. This allows me to replace my DVD player totally and not lose any features that a normal DVD player has but I gain alot of features that a DVD player doesn’t.