I’m researching a story about digital media and am interested in any stories you want to share about how you use digital media in the living room.
Do you have a TiVo? A Media Center, with or without extender or Xbox 360? A cable or satellite company DVR? Have you connected an iPod or other music player to your home stereo? Do you use a third-party program like Sage TV or BeyondTV?
If you don’t currently have any of this hardware, why not?
Ed Bott 
Ed, I don’t currently have any of that hardware. I don’t watch enough TV to justify recording shows. On the rare occassions when I do record something, I still use a VCR. I have considered getting a DVR from my cable company and may yet do so sometime in the next year.
Ed, we used to have a bunch of VCR’s, but now we have two PVR’s (a Philips and a Panasonic). They both have 120G hard drives and can burn DVD’s. The Philips has the best features, but its firmware is a little flaky. We just recently bought a D-Link Media Center and hooked it into the network with cat-5 (more reliable than the wireless connection). It is fantastic. We can watch videos and photos as well as mp3’s from the computer on the network that is dedicated only for that purpose. It is so easy. We couldn’t live without it.
Ed,
I have a standard DirecTiVo hacked with the Home Media Option features that DirecTV refuses to provide. I only have one TV, so I don’t use the multi-room viewing feature. I’ve had TiVo since about 2000 and would never live without a TiVo or its functional equivalent.
I wanted more than music (which is all the DTiVo does via wireless), so I bought a DLink DSM-520 that I use for both music (VBR MP3) and video (mostly XviD). I useTwonkyvision’s TwonkyMedia UPnP server to serve music/video from my file server and JRiver Media Center as my music and video organizer. I don’t use any portable devices to play video.
The device works reasonably well, though I don’t use the HD features (no HDTV). The DSM-520’s biggest functional problem is its halfwitted support for video fast forward and rewind. Note that it would be a MAJOR hassle for Joe Sixpack to set this up with any level of customization.
Feel free to e-mail me at arrangingmatches(at)gmaildotcom if you have any other questions about my setup.
Had a DVR from cable but never used it.
What I’d really like is to be able to add an additional video card on my PC for TV viewing and recording. The all in one’s haven’t come up to my specs yet since I’m using PCIe.
Maybe there’s a way to do this already but I haven’t found one.
I have a Media Center pc hooked up to my primary television. It’s a 5 year old Dell with the cheapest hardware that would work for MCE (a GeForce 5200 and cheapo TV card).
Since the pc is rather loud, I keep it in a closet and run wires to the tv, no extenders.
I like it, but the hardware age is starting to show, browsing to My TV takes a long time, and the music section just crawls.
Scott, which version of MCE is it running?
We use the DirecTV Tivo for both of our TVs. We love it but it is annoying that the software DirecTV varies from the standard Tivo software. So when our contract nears termination I will be looking for options to share content between TVs and adding them to my network.
Ed,
We first had two ReplayTV, then we I built a Media Center 2005 PC for my living room, got an Xbox 360 in my bedroom, a Linksys Extender in the loft, and a Xbox (1gen) in the basement. We use the MCE for 95% of all TV watching and 100% for music and pictures. The MCE has to analog turners and 2 HD tuners. Once in a while if there is something on cable in HD I use the cable DVR.
This may actually be more insight than you need into how my household works….
I wanted a PVR, but my wife didn’t really want to add another monthly fee, even the relatively low one for a TiVo. We did, however, need a new PC. So, I got a Media Center PC (Media Center 2005) with dual tuners, and life was good.
Over the following year, my wife got used to the idea of watching TV through the Media Center. Suddenly she understood why we didn’t have to keep using a VCR anymore. The only problem was that we couldn’t watch the recorded stuff while sitting on the sofa in the living room. Then I got the Xbox 360…
I was planning to get one anyway, but the Extender part has made my wife a big fan, too. She would agree that it’s definitely made our lives better (in a small way, but still…) Now we just need to upgrade to HD….
Ed
Pack rat has several VCR’s and satellite TV.
Cable anything here in FL goes out every 5 minutes and is much more expensive.
Sat tv is reliable, and only has a minimal down time (really hard rain and dark skies).
All are in den and not living room.
May get dvd recorder/player, but why spend $20 bucks on DVD movies when costs $3 to make?
Wait a month and its on sat tv for your subscription price.
Home stereo has VCR’s connected.
Ok, so we’re old fashioned but it works!!!!
I agree with Ken, not really much on to record.
Like new layout of your pages. Easier to navigate and read.
We have a Scientific Atlanta PVR through Rogers in Canada. We also have a Panasonic DVR for burning shows to dvd, watching dvds, and avi/xvid/divx files (directly as data files).
For parties we bring the Sirius Car radio into the apartment powered with a multi-adapter from ‘The Source’.
A Dish Network DVR feeds into a Panasonic VCR/DVD Recorder for archiving purposes. The Panasonic is also being used to dub video tape collections to DVD.
I also use a home brew computer loaded with FLAC music files and running Foobar 2000 to feed a dedicated headphone listening setup composed of an external DAC and tube driven headphone amplifier.
Ed, 2005 with the R2 rollup installed. Once Vista comes out I’ll be updating my workstation and shifting the old one to MCE duty.
I have an old P4 machine running MythTV that I use for the majority of my TV viewing/time shifting. It only has an analog tuner, so for HDTV I use the Scientific Atlanta 8300 from Time Warner. I could get an HD tuner for the Myth box, but the majority of my HD viewing is the cable networks, not the locals, so it would be no help to me. The SA8300 is pretty reliable, but storage is limited, the interface is not very nice, and the Myth box is infinitely more flexible when it comes to scheduling, transcoding to save space, etc. When I get some spare time I’ll try out the firewire option, though if TW has encrypted the cable HD channels in my area firewire will not be much use to me. The MythTV box is also used for mp3s, pictures, and movies in the living room.
In the bedroom I have an Xbox running Xbox Media Center. It connects through my home network and can play all of my recorded shows from the MythTV box, as well as music, pictures and movies. When I finish my “man room” in the basement I’ll buy and modify another Xbox for the same purpose. The XBMC interface is the nicest I’ve seen for any HTPC software.
We have a Windows Media Center 2005 PC set up in the office with 2 analog TV cards. We then have two Xbox360’s used as extenders in the living room and basement.
The whole setup works extremely well, and has been up and running for about 3 years now (with Xbox v1 and HP extenders before the 360s). Access to music, pictures and home videos is great to have, and the kids really enjoy watching slideshows. A nice change from Boobah! 🙂
The fan noise of the 360s is my only gripe so far. I’ve heard different reports about how loud the 360 is though, so maybe I’ll try another unit and see if its any quieter. The music performance in MCE2005 is pretty slow too, so I’m looking forward to trying it on Vista.
We don’t currently own an HDTV, but it’s on the list. Hopefully Vista will support clear QAM, as our cable company offers the local channels in HDTV that way. I don’t want to go down the CableCard or set-top box route if I can help it, as I prefer to build my own PCs, and don’t want the hassle of IR blasters.
I’ve used a Portable Media Center (the iRiver unit) to sync music and TV for on the go. It worked pretty well, but the battery life on the iRiver is a deal breaker. I’m waiting for some new units to see if they’re any better. And hoping they also have support for reading SD cards to I can also offload pictures from my camera. A unit with stereo bluetooth would hopefully be a nice solution for the car too.
We used BeyondTV with a Hauppauge MediaMVP before we got the MCE2005 machine, and I like MCE much, much more. MCE focuses on the entire experience, and makes it work well. The BeyondTV+MediaMVP solution had some quirks (like FF and RR through video). We also had a connected DVD player for a while (a GoVideo unit), that also suffered from strange quirks and usability problems. I used to tinker with things a lot until the MCE unit arrived, then I needed to find a new hobby because it worked so dang good! 🙂
Forgot to say, I also use My Movies and a tool called DVD-WMV to rip my DVDs to WMV for watching on the Xbox360s. It works pretty well, but I have some minor issues still to fix. There are some sound dropouts after loud sections of the movie, and the usual 30 second skip gets a bit laborious with a DVD 🙂 I remember Steven Toub talking about a tool he built to jump to specific times in a video though, so I want to give that a try.
Most of my entertainment is DVDs and CDs, all of which I use my desktop PC for. I haven’t used my TV for much of anything in years.
i have 2 comcast dual tuner HD-DVR’s – one directly connected to a 52″ pioneer elite RPTV and the other connected to a slingbox for on-the-go watching.
i also have a MCE running windows vista RC1 and connected to another comcast dual tuner HD-DVR – although i don’t get HD through the receiver as i don’t have an OCUR card yet for this box. as of about a week ago it was running MCE 2005 and it is connected to a tv directly and i have 1 xbox 360 and 1 xbox that are used as extenders in my kid’s rooms. since an earlier thread talked about media sharing i also had been using transcode 360 to play avi/divx/etc from my MCE 2005 box to the 360 although that apparently is broken in vista RC1 but supposed to be resolved in later builds…
We have a
Motorola HD/DVR Cable Box for recording/watching in HD only in family room.
Samsung 46″ DLP TV in family room connected to MCE with DVI and cable box via Component.
HP z552 Media Center in family room for most normal tv watching. Screen saver goes to family pictures. Audio is connected to whole house speaker system.
Xbox with Media Center Extender Software in kids playroom.
Xbox 360 for games only in family room.
HP Media Center extender in master bedroom.
Creative Portable Media Center for the van. I have a couple episodes of Clifford and Dora on this for the kids.
When I switch to Vista I’m really going to miss the extenders. Hopefully someone will figure something out. To me, the extender was/is the coolest part of the system. I may not switch to Vista if this isn’t supported.
I’m devoted to Tivo. We have two, which are also connected to my home network. I can watch on box 1, watch on box 2, transfer box 1’s shows to box 2, transfer box 2’s shows to box 1, transfer either box’s shows to my computer, burn those shows to DVD, transfer saved shows back to either box, view my photos from my computer using either box & its tv, and listen to music from my computer using either box & its tv.
That doesn’t include being able to log on Tivo’s website, browse the tv listings, and tell it to go add selections to the recording queue to either box at home.
For music, Tivo only recognizes mp3 files, however, and I’d ripped all of my CDs using wma. I found a conversion program that works nicely, but only if the file isn’t protected by DRM. Hmpf…
I’m a Media Center + XBox 360 Extender man myself. In fact I’ve never once used just Media Center, I’ve always extended it via the XBox or XBox 360.
I’ve always felt that Media Center Edition should really be Media Center Server, something running far and away from the living room while something sleek and solid state sits next to the HDTV streaming music, video and live TV. Microsoft was almost on to something when they let third-parties create extenders but none of them were that well marketed. MS could really push MCE if they created their own non-XBox 360 extender that was in the $99 range. No DVD player, nothing but a little screen, ethernet, wifi, HDMI and other high end connections and then you’d be set.
I use an Xbox running the newly released XBMC 2.0 with MC360. The UI rocks and with HD support and the ability to playback nearly any media format (divx, xvid etc) I think it’s the only way to go.
“If you don’t currently have any of this hardware, why not?”
We have neither television nor cable service in our household. Have no newspaper subscriptions either.
We do have five computers running on a household LAN, and one of them is the Media Center PC that we use to watch DVD rentals on and that is my work-horse desktop system at other times.
We have a couple of FM receivers, including the car radio, if we need more, although I listen rarely and my wife has recently tired of even NPR.
Why? Well, I found that couching out was sucking too much of my life and distracting me with things I can do nothing about. I reduced those distracting stimuli and am now more productive.
We do liike to go out to the movies though.
For me it’s Vista Media Center, with Xbox 360 Extender.
We’ve got:
A Squeezebox, streaming losslessly compressed music files from the computer.
A cable company HD DVR, because $800 plus service fees for the TiVo seems ever-so-slightly excessive.
An XP MCE computer hooked up to the AV system with an Xbox 360. I don’t use the audio part, because the Squeezebox is much better at audio; I don’t use the video part, because I don’t have any video on the computer; but it’s great for showing photos to people.
About the only physical media I use these days are for movies, and I’m hopeful that huge cheap disks and the Managed Copy feature of AACS will change this in the future.
Xbox 360
Dell Media Center 2005
Comcast Motorola 6412 HD DVR
XBMC on original Xbox
Netflix
As far as TV and movies, we watch a lot of Comcast HD movies channels, Comcast VOD and use XBMC extensively (XBMC is great and version 2 was just released). Too bad the Xbox 360 extender can’t stream VOB files like XBMC can. I still find it amazing that XBMC can still do more than the Xbox 360 extender can. However, the games on the Xbox 360 really are great.
We haven’t had a VCR for quite awhile and rarely use our DVD player to play DVDs anymore.
We play music either directly from the computer or thru the Xbox 360 extender.
However, even with a very good home theater setup, I definitely spend more time on the Internet than TV and movies. The Internet is just more interesting.
We have a homebuilt MCE2005 PC in the office. This running on Athlon XP 3000 with Hauppauge 1300 DVB card. (Freeview here in th UK). In the living room we have a xbox360 to extend the MCE onto our SD tv. This is all connected via Homeplug (ethernet over the power lines) networking running at 85Mbps. Performance is acceptable although sometimes network congestion freezes the tv pictures.
The extender makes it very easy to do slideshows to guests & to entertain the kids. Keeps them all ouot of my small office ;->
I don’t have any of the hardware (or software) either. It’s really a matter of time. I’d rather archive and save a lot of stuff, but the DVRs don’t hold enough data and I’d have to pay a premium price for the programming I want (international channels at this point in life, as I have no use for US corporate media). But even if I did, I don’t have the time to watch it. Life is very, very full right now with more meaningful compulsions.
MCE 2005, connected to an Xbox extender in the living room…
I got the first DirecTV TiVo when it was released in Early 2000, the Sony T-60. I have since upgraded to a Series 2 DirecTV TiVo HDVR2 with added disk space to a toatl of 160 GB. I also got the DirecTV HD TiVo the day it was realeased and have been loving it for 2.5 years, it has a total of 750 GB of storage. (It got a whole lot better this week with 6.3a as well.) I am hopeful that MRV can be unlocked so I can trade shows amongst the TiVo’s. I am curious to see what comes of the announced Vista + DirecTV + MCE. I would really like to have a single multi-tuner box and stream to XBox 360 Extender. Just don’t want to switch to cable. I have hooked up my ipod to stereo on occasion as well as to my 360.
I have wondered about getting some of these sorts of things, but haven’t really found it to be worth it.
I did buy a projector, screen, and sound system, with which we mostly watch dvds or vhs. (can’t beat the 100″ screen)
I grew up in NH getting channels from various surrounding states (sometimes Rhode Island if the weather was right) so it seems odd to pay a monthly fee for tv service, either cable or Tivo, et al.
I saw someone use the rewind feature of their DVR the other day, that was kind of neat, though hardly worth the money.
I have wondered about something to replace our 200 cd changer for music, but my wife doesn’t use it, and I am usually at work, so that probably isn’t worth it either.
I’m a little late to reply, but here goes…. I have 2 DirecTiVos which have been hacked to add the Home Media and Muti-room viewing features that DirecTV normally does not include in the TiVo software. Only the one in our living room is activated with DirecTV so it is used to record shows and I can play music and show pictures on it using J River Media Center as the TiVo server.
The unactivated DirecTiVo is in a spare bedroom where it is used for playing music and streaming shows from the other TiVo while using the treadmill. I also have a couple of exercise DVDs that were ripped and copied to that TiVo so we can use them in there without swapping discs.
Out by the pool I have a wireless speaker plugged into my PC’s rear speaker output. I use NetRemote on a Dell Axim Pocket PC to control the output through J River Media Center.
In my bedroom I use a Slim Devices Squeezebox for music only. I probably would have done something different there if I had known about J. River Media Center before I bought the Squeezebox because it needs its own server software and I miss having access to ratings, play counts, and smartlists when I use it.
My husband went kicking and screaming into the “Tivolution” but now he thanks me on a regular basis for getting TiVo.
I have a 2.8 GHz Pentium PC with a Hauppauge USBPVR2 external PVR device. I record ALL TV shows using GBPVR, an open source and free PVR software. It is a little buggy but works for me. The PC also has 1 TB of storage. All of my Pictures, music, audio books, TV shows, home movies and my entire DVD collection, currently close to 300, are on the PC. The TV shows and DVD’s are compressed to Divx to save space.
I have a 108MB wireless network which I use to access my music collection via an old laptop I have connected to my sound system. The laptop has an external Creative SoundBlaster card which produces superb sound quality. The laptop also has an Irman infrared receiver, which allows me to control what I listen to remotely. The music management s/w is Jriver’s Media Center(awesome product and absolutely the best out there)
The whole thing works well with one exception. I still have to copy what I want to watch to a DVD-RW so I can play it on my 62 inch projection TV. I have tried several times to implement a wireless video streaming device, most recently the Phillips Streamium and have had little success. They wind up being returned. I have been in the tech industry for 15 years so it is not due a lack of knowledge.
Most of these streaming devices fall short on some areas unless you are commited to Microsoft Media Center and Xbox. I refuse to entertain this solution as I do not like the restrictions placed on us by MS. I don’t pirate anything but do not like restrictions.
Hope this help
Dave