Media streaming to TV

[tycho]

Guys,
Most of the products I have seen which can stream video and music to your tv and music system need a server with specific software on it. Is there a system which will connect to a NAS drive such as the Buffalo Linkstation and take the files from that rather than having them on a pc drive. The pc I have is a big old machine in the study which is quite noisy and this disturbs the chinchilla so I have it on as little as possible and use my laptop with a wifi connection. The NAS drive is quiet and I would just dump all the files from my pc to it and then share it to my laptop, PC and media streamer.

Rob

[catretriever]

How much are you looking to spend? You might think about going the whole hog with a media center PC. There are plenty of living room friendly set-top-box type jobbies about ....

[Podie]

I'd go media centre... you can buy the software from ebuyer... but you must buy OEM hardware at the same time (like the remote).

It's a sod to install though...

[robertuk]

I agree, you can now purchase a small cube shaped PC
which is very quiet.

Useful links:

www.hoojum.com great case designs

www.mini-itx.com Website for small form factor PCs

www.thegreenbutton.com Community website for users of Windows Media Centre

I've occasionally connected my PC to my Widescreen TV and ...WOW. You can watch HDTV .
I played back some of those sample HDTV Windows Media Video files and the quality was great !

Only trouble was getting the right windows resolution to display on the TV.

There is a useful utility called Powerstrip.
You can assign hotkeys to a working resolution and keep trying new ones until you find the best res your tv can handle.

R



>> Edited by robertuk on Tuesday 15th March 13:14

[tycho]

Cheers for the replies guys, I am looking to spend about £500 which sort of rules out the media centre pc's. The Buffalo linkstation is about £150 with 120Gb hdd which would leave about £350 to play with.

The other alternative would be to buy an X-Box and have this permanently on with the xbox mediacenter on it but this is a pain in the arse to set up.

I have looked at the small pc's and they start to get a bit expensive when you spec them up. What is a decent one to look at?

[robertuk]

You could get the barebones system then carefully select components.

Shuttle XPC SB61G2V1 - intel P4(S478)
about £130 inc Vat

Which leaves £220 for components
(A Hitachi 160GB SATA drive is around £60)

Some people have used a PS 1 small LCD fixed to the case as a display device or config/testing.
(since primary display is going to be elsewhere)

See www.bit-tech.net/article/136/

The designer metal cases are costly.
If you just need something which can be tucked out of sight go for a small Shuttle case.

[Plotloss]

Google for something called the Pinnacle ShowCentre.

£150 well spent.

[tycho]

Plotloss said:

Google for something called the Pinnacle ShowCentre. £150 well spent.

I have seen this but it needs a pc to connect to if you want to use it.

I might get a very low spec cube pc and just use it as a file server without monitor and keyboard and get the Showcentre.

thanks for the help guys.

[Alex]

I use a Shuttle XPC as a media centre that I built for about 400 quid. I use it with an infrared keyboard with built in trackball.

[catretriever]

just found this which may be of interest

<a href="http://shop.eaf.co.uk/desktops_i.php?ID=16">http://shop.eaf.co.uk/desktops_i.php?ID=16</a>


edit: Also, Mesh do an entry level machine at £599

www.meshcomputers.com/updated/media_range1.htm

>> Edited by catretriever on Tuesday 15th March 17:18

[slinky]

Whilst not strictly legal it's worth considering a chipped xbox with xbox media centre installed..

I use one and it's capable of playing pretty much all formats of video as well as MP3, Wav, WMA, jpeg, jpg etc etc etc..

Xbox can be had for 99quid new or however much they are selling for on ebay, then chip it for about 30 quid..

You then have a games console and media player machine all in one..

In addition to this you can install a larger hdd in the xbox and use that for storage of media.

hth,

slinky

[catretriever]

And finally (well, from me anyway)....I was looking thro' the latest edition of PC Pro magazine last night and saw that they have a step by step guide on "How to build your own media jukebox". It details using a mini-itx based system in a HIFI style case & gives component lists for three systems ranging in price from around £130 to £450....

[tycho]

catretriever said:

And finally (well, from me anyway)....I was looking thro' the latest edition of PC Pro magazine last night and saw that they have a step by step guide on "How to build your own media jukebox". It details using a mini-itx based system in a HIFI style case & gives component lists for three systems ranging in price from around £130 to £450....

Might have to pick up a copy. This is more of the price I'm looking at rather than have a super dooper pc which does everything including games. Just really need it as a file server which can stream MP3's and vids.

The Pinnacle Showcenter looks like a good piece of kit to use as I could then put the mini atx box in a cupboard and remote desktop to it if needed.

[SotonS2]

Plotloss said:

Google for something called the Pinnacle ShowCentre. £150 well spent.

I've got the ShowCentre running via a wireless connection. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is great for playing and displaying MP3, WAV, AVI, JPG etc.

Minor critisms: The response time from pressing the remote to action on the screen is not as quick as I would like.

To access the Internet you have to enter URLs using the numeric keypad on the remote, just like typing a text message. Bit of a pain.

It pays to properly tag all of your MP3s as well. The search functions on the ShowCentre (Artist, Album, Genre etc) work well and make it easy to find specific tracks or music to suit the mood.

The ShowCentre is definitely not as versatile as a dedicated PC / Shuttle running Windoze Media Centre but for the money, its a pretty good compromise.

[basil brush]

The Asus Pundit is a pretty cheap basis for a media pc. I'm looking at getting a Nebula DigiTV card as it can stream TV over a wireless network as well as providing all the recording stuff.

Anyone used one?

[docevi1]

slinky said:

Whilst not strictly legal it's worth considering a chipped xbox with xbox media centre installed.. I use one and it's capable of playing pretty much all formats of video as well as MP3, Wav, WMA, jpeg, jpg etc etc etc.. Xbox can be had for 99quid new or however much they are selling for on ebay, then chip it for about 30 quid.. You then have a games console and media player machine all in one.. In addition to this you can install a larger hdd in the xbox and use that for storage of media. hth, slinky

A friend does this as well, works well for him - he can even stream movies and the like from a main PC over his lan connection should the need be apparent.

[slinky]

docevi1 said:

A friend does this as well, works well for him - he can even stream movies and the like from a main PC over his lan connection should the need be apparent.

Works very well, just make sure your network isn't 10Mb and your HDD isn't super slow, as this can cause "lag"..

MP3's, videos, photos, Web Radio etc can all be streamed to the telly..

slinky