I got a bright idea about a month ago. I decided I was tired of paying Direct TV $80+ a month to watch 4 TV shows and throw some stuff on for the kids every once in a while. So I canned their service. Now since I have Xboxs with XBMC and Xbox 360s running as media centers around the house I figured there had to be a way to still get my favorite programs (and some of my kids favorite ones) still pumped out through out the house.
Turns out, there is a way, quite a few ways actually. The best way I found was a pay product called PlayOn. Play on offers a UPnP media streaming program that can stream, Hulu, Netflix, MLB.com, CNN.com, etc. My solution was simple I ditched my $80+ Satellite bill in exchange for a 1 time fee of $40 (PlayOn) and a monthly fee of $8.95 (Netflix). Then I threw in free Hulu just for fun. So now I can watch Netflix instant streaming movies and TV series, and anything Hulu has to offer anywhere in the house via my Xboxs and Xbox 360s.
I would love to say that the journey stopped here, but I have long been know for what my friends describe as "Zeal". After a few days of use I really came to like the interfaces of Hulu and Netflix, and wanted all my downloaded TV shows and ripped movies to have the same kind of look. I tried several different ways to reproduce a similar look and feel. I will go over these and the rest of my overhaul of my media center in a couple articles. Keep an eye out for part 2 if you are interested.
Showing posts with label XBOX 360. Show all posts
Showing posts with label XBOX 360. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My home media setup.
A while back I realized kids + optical media = bad. I also realized kids really like to watch movies. So I made the decision to look into a media center and media center extenders. I looked over Myth TV and Windows XP Media Center originally. I ultimately decided to go with MCE. Therefore my initial deployment consisted of a Windows XP MCE2005 box, and 3 Modified XBOX's with XBMC installed. It used Samba shares, was relatively in expensive and all in all worked pretty well.
Times change things get updated and HD is king. These days I am using a Vista Ultimate machine as my MCE, and XBOX 360s as my extenders. This offers a couple advantages to my old setup.
-Streaming of Live TV
-True extender capabilities
-HD quality
Setup for a Vista MCE is pretty simple. I personally use a pair of Hauppauge HD Video Capture devices, there are a few to choose from almost all are compatible with Windows Media Center. I use a generic IR blaster for the remote as well. As for the XBOX 360s it is a relatively straight forward set-up to add these as extenders.
As for the DVD-Less media I eluded to in the intro, well that is slightly more complicated and quite frankly treads upon a legally gray line.
I use DVD rips on a file share to keep my kids from destroying originals. I personally use Xilsoft DVD Ripper to rip the DVDs into xvid or divx formats. After you have ripped the DVDs and stored them on a files share (you will need to give read rights to the everyone user) you can use the "Video" option on the 360s launcher screen. In the video option the 360 will have you point to your share. After you have pointed your 360 at the share, you can go ahead and try playing a video. The 360 is going to want you to connect to XBOX Live and download an update in order to play the content. After you have downloaded, and installed the content the 360 will restart. After the restart, grats you can save your DVDs from the terrors of toddlerhood.
There are a lot of other advantages to this setup. For example I have 4 TVs... 2 HD digital converters (Direct TV in my case). Then I simply use the extenders to watch TV in whichever room I am in. There is also the DVR capabilities of Media Center (Without the extra cost providers throw at you) And having access to other media (photos, music, etc.) anywhere in the house.
I have also come across several hacks and tricks for Windows MCE, I will go over those in a later post.
Related Links:
http://www.hauppauge.com/index.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/media-center.aspx
http://www.xilisoft.com/dvd-ripper.html
http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/xboxlive/troubleshooting/NetworkHelp_mcxpc.aspx
Times change things get updated and HD is king. These days I am using a Vista Ultimate machine as my MCE, and XBOX 360s as my extenders. This offers a couple advantages to my old setup.
-Streaming of Live TV
-True extender capabilities
-HD quality
Setup for a Vista MCE is pretty simple. I personally use a pair of Hauppauge HD Video Capture devices, there are a few to choose from almost all are compatible with Windows Media Center. I use a generic IR blaster for the remote as well. As for the XBOX 360s it is a relatively straight forward set-up to add these as extenders.
As for the DVD-Less media I eluded to in the intro, well that is slightly more complicated and quite frankly treads upon a legally gray line.
I use DVD rips on a file share to keep my kids from destroying originals. I personally use Xilsoft DVD Ripper to rip the DVDs into xvid or divx formats. After you have ripped the DVDs and stored them on a files share (you will need to give read rights to the everyone user) you can use the "Video" option on the 360s launcher screen. In the video option the 360 will have you point to your share. After you have pointed your 360 at the share, you can go ahead and try playing a video. The 360 is going to want you to connect to XBOX Live and download an update in order to play the content. After you have downloaded, and installed the content the 360 will restart. After the restart, grats you can save your DVDs from the terrors of toddlerhood.
There are a lot of other advantages to this setup. For example I have 4 TVs... 2 HD digital converters (Direct TV in my case). Then I simply use the extenders to watch TV in whichever room I am in. There is also the DVR capabilities of Media Center (Without the extra cost providers throw at you) And having access to other media (photos, music, etc.) anywhere in the house.
I have also come across several hacks and tricks for Windows MCE, I will go over those in a later post.
Related Links:
http://www.hauppauge.com/index.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/media-center.aspx
http://www.xilisoft.com/dvd-ripper.html
http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/xboxlive/troubleshooting/NetworkHelp_mcxpc.aspx
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