Here I Am

Alright so six months ago I rented a new two-bedroom apartment to call my home, started work at RIM, and life was good. What was missing? A BADASS MEDIA CENTER. I’ve wanted to really step it up in this area for a long time, but lacked the funds and had shared living arrangements. But now… now it was time. Come with me on this journey.

First step: A massive fucking television

This one sort of dropped into my lap. Not literally – a friend was getting rid of his and I offered to buy it from him, mostly just to take the opportunity to drive his $70,000 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution across town. I ended up with a 42″ LCD HD tv for a few hundred bucks; probably the best deal I’ve ever gotten in my life. I’ve mostly just watched TV and movies on my computer, so this was a big step and quite exciting. I didn’t even know what to do with it.

Side note: I don’t believe in paid television programming

I made this decision a while back… I hate being exposed to countless advertisements and reality TV shows. Yes, I know that some reality shows are good, but that’s the problem – I’d definitely get hooked on a few and then just end up being one of these guys that comes home from work and sits on the couch all night. Okay I still basically do that most of the time but I don’t know, it’s a principle I was raised with and it stuck. So, just so you’re aware, none of this will include bringing cable or satellite into the mix. BUT, it is totally workable with this system and it is primed and ready for a signal.

Second step: The engine

It’s important to have friends in life. Good friends. Good friends that you can exploit into giving you free stuff, or fixing your free shit after they’ve given it to you. I’ve got another old friend who works in IT at an insurance company (love you buddy), so I threw out the question… “Any machines laying around?” Long story short I ended up with an old Dell desktop (old but definitely workable). All I needed to do was buy a new video card that could output 1080p resolution – it was about $40 at the local computer store. The desktop isn’t actually that bad, and is perfect for a media center. It’s got an okay processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 50GB hard drive (don’t worry, I’ll address media storage later).

Edit: I ended up getting my mom’s old computer, which used to be my old computer, and pulling out a TV tuner card (PCI slot) that I transferred over. For the non-techies, this allows you to plug a co-ax cable into the back and watch your paid cable programming on the TV – the program guide, everything. Even better, the tuner card came with a remote control.

For peripherals, I jumped onto tigerdirect.ca and grabbed a long-range (30 feet) wireless keyboard and mouse with extended battery life. I keep this under the coffee table and pull it out when I use the media PC. Or, I can just use the remote control for the TV tuner for limited functionality.

Okay, we’re done with the hardware

At this point I have a working TV/computer that I can use to store media files, stream Netflix (which I love… $7 a month well spent), or watch TV if I had a cable subscription. Bonus, it has a full operating system so if I want to watch a YouTube video or settle an argument with someone, I can just load up a browser. For most people this would be enough, but I want this to be a top notch media experience. So what are the next steps?

Windows Home Group: One of the few things Microsoft did right

Networking two computers together, WINDOWS computers with the SAME OS, used to be a royal pain in the ass. But, with Windows 7 and the home group functionality, it’s super easy and maintains the connection even if your IP address is constantly renewing. So, I set up the media PC to connect to the PC in my office, which happens to have 4,000 GB of movies and TV shows. All of which I purchased after I won the lottery in a single weekend spending-spree. I also added my music folder to gain access to my 30,000 songs – also purchased via the iTunes store after I went to Vegas one weekend in the 90′s and struck gold.

Operating Systems and Software

There are a few options to really customize the software and OS aspects. Sure, you can just have a regular computer, but that’s designed for.. well, using an actual computer – not a TV/Media-PC setup. The first question was operating system – Windows 7 or Ubuntu Linux? Both would run fine on the computer’s low specifications (Kudos Microsoft), and Ubuntu would be fine since I’m not running any games. Yet. Well, in the end I went with a dual-boot option so I can pick which one I want to use. Basically I’m still deciding.

As for software, XBMC is definitely the best route. For those who don’t know, XBMC is the X-Box Media Center, packaged as software that runs on either Windows or Linux. It serves you up a gorgeous user interface (that can be custom skinned to whatever you want by downloading skins from the web site) that provides access to your music, movies, TV channel, weather, you name it. The best part? It automatically reaches into the Internet and grabs the DVD cover image, synopsis, and even IMDB rating for all (well, almost all) of the movies that you own. Amazing.

Icing on the cake

To make it even better, I’ve grabbed software called Air Video Server that runs in the background on my office computer, and dishes out all of the aforementioned media via Wi-Fi to any mobile device that I have. Yes, I have four or five phones and three tablets in my house – most of which can now live stream my movies and music.

Conclusion

So to recap, here’s the setup:

• 42″ LCD HD TV
• Media PC (desktop) – *with video card that outputs HD
• Long-range wireless keyboard and mouse
• TV Tuner card in the PC with remote control
• Windows or Linux OS (choice from boot)
• XBMC media center software
• Home group local network
• Access to 4,000 GB of media
• Air Video Server software for streaming media to wireless devices
• For anything else I need: The whole fucking internet, like GrooveShark and Netflix

What’s next?

Maybe games? I’ve always been a PC gamer, but if I ever wanted to switch to a controller I can easily grab some wireless X-box controllers from Future Shop, plug them into the media PC via a USB transmitter, and play games on the big 42″. The caveat here is that I’d definitely need a better computer to run any half-decent games. For now, I guess I’ll have to settle for my office PC with it’s Intel Core i7, 12 gigs of RAM, and 3 monitors.

I’M A HUGE NERD I KNOW but my house is wired up like a fucking Christmas tree and I have everything I’d ever want at my digital fingertips. I can’t complain.

EDIT 1: If anyone wants a more detailed guide on any of this, drop me a line and I can explain further how to set up any of the hardware/software/networking.