Integrated home theater (TV + PC + DVD)

[snakedjip]

Hi,

Hope I'm in the correct forum.

Here's my wet dream : I want to dump all my DVD's to a hard-disk (or hard-disk array!), and be able to access this "software DVD Juke-box" from my TV, e.g. from my universal remote control.

How far away are we from this integration ?

Does anyone have links to new products or discussions about this ?

Thanks for any insight.

[snafu099]

" from my universal remote control. :

off the shelf, no financial restriction, this is probalble the bottleneck, unless you have that custom made,

From a practical standpoint through, how big is your collection? ??g hdd diveded by 4g/movie=# hdd needed.

bought cheap leadtek tv2000 deluxe for $50-us and ati radeon 7000 w/tv out. This compbo works great for playing back files on computer using remote that came with leadtek and the scheduled cap feature also works good, BUT the quality SUCKS big time. Fortunetly I also had ads usb IDVD-2 for quality realtime mpg capture

the leadtek remote will control the card but the standalone tv/vcr/dvd/??
Would still need reg remote for that

[snakedjip]

If anyone is interested, I found a new product that's getting close to this :

http://www.linksys.com/press/press.asp?prid=142

The article seems to say that source videos must be in MPEG2 or MPEG4 or DIVX to play, so I guess no VOBs...

But it's still a start !

[Kim Jespersen]

I think I know what you're looking for.

http://www.sesamtv.com/index_en.htm

With that remote and it's software you can navigate your computer and it has a program for even easier navigation.

This is the best solution I could find but there's a lot of options :

http://www.vendur.no/catalog/index.php?cPath=1_17

You need some software too :

http://www.girder.nl/

You can find additional software on the Vendur site.

If this is a common wish and people have problems with this multimedia PC 2 TV stuff, I can make a common guide.
Let me know.

[mecg]

I've been kinda keeping an eye on this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/
It's looks promising - kinda makes you wonder what the final cost will be once you integrate existing components or buy new ones.

[Kim Jespersen]

Looks amazing ..... but I can't find the pricetag?? any reason for this

[Kim Jespersen]

Ahh forget it. Media center is good as JAPS*. You still need to buy the remote and everything.

My reply wasn't linking for the software but for the hardware and where to get it.

The software is easy, you can make it yourself.
I do not disagree that MS have made an interesting piece of software. It is just of no interest to me, as I love 3. party software, like PowerDVD, which I know, WILL play the DVDs from the HD and I don't know if Media center will do that.

Notes :
* Just Another Piece of Software

[dun4cheap]

I am currently using and ATI AIW 9000 which comes with a nice rf remote, it controls DVD, EZ Look is great for playing the video files, TIVO functionality comes with all this and you can rip as many DVD's as you want. An alternative to this is the Pinnacles new external box going for $299 which will play AVI, DIVX, mpg1 and mpeg2. I have a celeron 2.5 and mb integrated into my home entertainment system. I use an audigy2 card which allows Digital out and analog out simultaneously. I broadcase the signal from that system through out the hole house via RF and its hooked up to my amplifier via Svideo and Digital out. Works great and now with the Catalyst 4 drivers it can stream video to your networked computers.