Build Your Own Linux Home Theater PC

Vic writes "If you have ever dreamed of building a home theatre PC, Extremetech has details on building a Linux-based system, and covers all the details of this epic journey. They did get the unit to run lots of features such as CDs, video, TV, weather, media libraries, guide viewing and show recording." From the article: "To paraphrase one forum quote seen during the research phase of this piece: 'Buy the beer first, this ain't gonna be easy.' But there is some good news here too. Getting a Linux-based HTPC has probably never been easier, though that is admittedly damning with faint praise. So here then is the tale of our ongoing adventure toward building a Linux-based HTPC."

Sure, but...

[Heliologue]

Whoa...

• Store music, home movies, recorded TV shows, digital photos
• Play back all these media seamlessly
• Support a wide variety of audio and video codecs
• Play back DVD movies, and look as good as or better than a DVD player
• Support the playback of DRM-encoded purchased/rented movies and music
• Serve this media up to other client machines on the home network
• Have a simple GUI that any family member can use
• Be rock-solid stable 24/7
• Go in and out of sleep states with no difficulty
• Run quietly enough so that its fan noise doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the content it's serving up
• Be able to handle HD music and movie formats, both present and future, with minimal upgrades (okay, maybe we're reaching a bit on this one)

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a stretch for any OS? Getting past DRM and proprietary formats is even a pain in the ass on Windows.

No HDTV?

[Fulg]

This is all well and good, but until someone manages to get an HDTV-ready HTPC, it's not worth it. Get a HD-ready PVR from your local cable/satellite company, combine with Xbox Media Center, and you're all set :)

Wasn't there an article about HTPCs a few weeks back (though it didn't specifically focus on Linux)?

No HDTV ?

[mybecq]

I find it interesting that very few of these articles attempt to cover HDTV or digital TV. There is more than one DTV card supported in Linux and an article containing this would prove much more valuable that just the "here's how to setup a box with a PVR-250/350" story that I seem to see everywhere.

Where's the cutting edge stuff!?! :)

xbox

[blackmonday]

Just get a modded xbox. It's very easy to use and no headaches. I had it modded and the dude pre-loaded xbox media player. Plays pretty much anything. With the newer xbox 360 coming out, expect older xboxes to take a price dive around the holidays.

As long as it passes the "wife" test

[Drunken_Jackass]

I started a project like this last fall, but abandoned it after i determined that it wouldn't pass the most important test of all. If my wife wouldn't be able to use it, it was worthless.

Not like she's a retarded spider monkey or anything - she's a graphic designer and uses OS X (left myself wide open for that one, i know) but if she's got to use three different remotes and a keyboard, there's no way in hell she's going to use the damn thing. I don't need her calling me at work to walk her through how to watch a DVD or listen to music.

Plus, if it's really easy and slick, then she'll be a lot more accepting of the equipment purchases that i tell her about.

Re:No HDTV ?

[enrico_suave]

"I find it interesting that very few of these articles attempt to cover HDTV or digital TV. There is more than one DTV card supported in Linux and an article containing this would prove much more valuable that just the "here's how to setup a box with a PVR-250/350" story that I seem to see everywhere."

Even though it's HDTV, the DTV cards aren't that sexy because they involved using rabbit ears and getting broadcast HDTV only. (so no DiscoveryHD or HBO HD)... it's dissapointing (unless you live in an area densely populated with DTV broadcasts, then I guess it's pretty cool).

Before I get the nastygram replies:
On some cable company boxes (depending on whether the HD channels you want are QAM "in the clear" you can get HDTV that way via HDTV card.

There's also firewire transport from digital cable box, which I believe the latest mythtv release has some support for (but again I believe it depends on the roll of the dice on your cable providers settings)

e.

Re:Sure, but...

[Mr Guy]

Dear god yes. And you will refuse to watch live TV ever again.

These devices change how you watch TV entirely. I only watch the shows I like, even shows I kinda like, and I watch them whenever I feel like it. I used to never watch TV because I get bored with the shows easily. Now I watch TV and fast forward through the parts that are boring. (Hint: If you watch ST:TNG you can get all the show in 30 minutes if you skip any scene involving Deanna Troi talking about people's feelings).

I've used mine for about a year now and it's completely ingrained. While visiting my inlaws, the reflex to delete a show after it's over resulted in me turning on their DVD player several times without thinking about it.

been there

[Anonymous Coward]

After fooling around with Linux and the VDR (HD recording software for TV) since 2000 and trying PCs for home theater, I quit all this. Too much hassle, 90% fiddling aroung and less than 10% real usage.

Now I got a MacMini here. Its small, quiet, comes with a good pre installed OS.

30$ for a remote control (BlueTooth -> SallingClicker)
and Im ready.

serves video, TV, audio, Internet (without virus probs) whatever.
Runs with or without a TV attached (use your mobile phone as a status display)

And most of all, it works ! Easy to configure and no maintenance required. Also uses much less power (25W, 40W max)

No real HD yet (only live via eyeTV from elGato and reduced resolution), but HD never worked flawlessly on my PC too.

Re:Sure, but...

[Golias]

I see all these home built Mediacenters, but truthfully, how many average people use these for more than one week. I can see this being a novelty, but do people actually use these for longer than one month?

Step 1: Hook up a current Mac to the HDMI or DVI input of your TV.

Step 2: Hook up the EyeTV 500 from Elgato to your Mac via Firewire.

Step 3: There's no step three.

I've been using this set up for my media center for a couple months now, enjoying HDTV with PVR features, DVDs (mostly archived on my hard drives), Doctor Who rips downloaded from newsgroups, my entire music library (which I'm slowly upgrading from MP3 and/or AAC to Apple Lossless format), and World of Warcraft gaming on my 119" projector screen.

So far, nobody can figure out the convoluted way in which I programmed my remote control except for me, but one of these rainy afternoons I might set it up in a more logical way... if I'm not too busy playing WoW or watching shows on it.

Re:Hey, that should be the new OSS slogan

[dsginter]

You'd think that some bright spark would just sit down with the typical hardware - an nForce motherboard and a Hauppauge PVR250 - do all this work and then distribute an ISO of the system for people to install.

That'd do wonders for Linux and OSS.

downloading movies

[The Pim]

One piece that seems to be missing is the ability to download movies from the various (legal) on-line movie rental sites (eg movielink.com). Most of them won't even let you into the site without IE. I haven't tried faking it out, because I'm afraid there will be further obstacles (for example, movielink.com requires me to install a Windows application before downloading). Are there any sites that can be made to work on a free system? And then there's the problem of playing the downloaded movies. I thought that this would be possible, but even with mplayer and the w32codecs, I had trouble with the WMV9 file from movielink.com. :-(

Downloading movies (yes, I mean mainstream movies with restricted licenses, not the few that are free) would be one of the killer apps for a Linux HTPC, but it seems there is no way to do it, even if I am willing to pay.

We do one better

[Trigun]

We have some bright sparks that set their pvr to record, automatically upload and torrent the file, and the rest of us don't have to set up all the esosteric hardware. We just have to subscribe to an rss feed and watch whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want.

Right now, I'm running a via-1000 mb with Freevo, and no tuner card. Plug it right into the tv, set up NFS and SMB shares to my fileserver and just wach TV.

I'm using Windows MCE because of DRM :-(

[slashdot.org]

So they spent enormous amounts of time to build a HTPC, and what's in the list of things that don't work: CSS encrypted DVDs. Which is like every single one.

DRM is killing me. I'd love to run something non-Microsoft, but I personally do not want to sacrifice quality. I want to be able to play the highest quality that's available.

This means WMV9-HD @ 1080p for video and DVD-Audio for audio. (okay, I'm sure some of you will want to debate this, go ahead. Anyone that I show WMV9-HD to is simply blown away.)

One of the most unfortunate things is that you can not run WMV9-HD without using Microsoft binaries. In theory this is something that can be solved, because if I understand it correctly, WMV9 is standardized and it should be able to implement a decoder from the specs.

BUT, the standard most certainly does NOT cover the added DRM layer that a lot of WMV9-HD content has. And Microsoft has no intention to solve that problem. What we need is a DeCSS variant to remove the DRM from WMV9.

I'm unaware of any DVD-Audio playback capabilities under Linux, but again, this is certainly something that's technically possible. Except for, you guessed it, DRM. At the moment there's only one combination available if you want to play DVD-Audio discs that are 'encrypted'; SoundBlaster Audigy (not the lowest end one) and Windows.

For this one, I'm working on a solution (hardware based). The problematic thing is that the encryption scheme allows for key revokation. I think this is specifically designed as a counter act to the Xing key discovery. If they find that we discover the SoundBlaster key (or maybe find some other way to use the SoundBlaster to get the unencrypted data), then they can revoke it, making new content unplayable on the SoundBlaster. This may sound as very hard to believe (it does to me), and I may be wrong. But I don't see how else it would work.

Re:No HDTV ?

[Jeremy Erwin]

If you still connect your DVD player to a television set using a composite or even a S/Video connector, odds are that you'll see no improvement with digital television. But if you connect your DVD player up to your monitor using component video, and want your television programs to be displayed with the same level of detail and accuracy, you can buy a ATSC tuner, set it for 480i or 480p (depending on your existing set's sophistication), Connect the spdif out to a suitable input on your stereo, and enjoy "5.1" surround sound.

Now, it won't match the detail of a 720p or 1080i set, but upgrading your display can wait, if it has to, On the other hand, if all you have is an old set with composite or RF connectors, maybe upgrading your display would be in your best interest.

The major advantage of HDTV from a computing perspective is that it's already digital-- mpeg2 video, ac3 sound.

Then again, I get my signals OTA, not from cable or satellite. I understand that some satellite and cable companies try to charge extra money for the benefit of a few HD channels.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

The xbox360 is going to dominate the living room, sorry to say to all you pro-linux folks. With specs like this the Linux home system has some BIG shoes to fill.

How fast do you think there will be a mod chip for it and someone has Linux on there? DAYS after the release, at worst. HOURS is probably more like it.

Re:Why are there not more turn-key versions of thi

[harryk]

What would you pay for a dedicated backend/frontend system?

Would you be willing to buy a backend/frontend combo, and then buy additional frontend systems for additional rooms?

I'm looking for feed back, as I am working with a small group of people to develop exactly this.

I'm interested in your feedback.

Media Center, Shmedia Center...

[eno2001]

It's not a media center, it's just a computer with some added software to try and simplify things. The problem is that in many cases the simplification leads to an interface that is foreign to the user. It's somewhere halfway between a VCR or DVD player menu system and a GUI. Not good.

Considering how many people these days are VERY familiar with the W.I.M.P. (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) paradigm, there is no need to disguise what these boxes really are unless you are trying to create a very limited use appliance like a Tivo or iPod.

With that in mind, my home theater PC is just a Celeron (P4 family) running Fedora Core 3, Xine (which does nearly everything) and a Hauppaugue PVR250 card (which is perfect for this sort of thing). I wrote some scripts and created some icons to match and my wife finds this WAYYYY easier than the VCR menus system, the Windows ME based system we had before and you know why? She looked at it and said, "Oh, it works like a computer. This is easy'. I've been running like this since about February. It's perfect. Click on one icon and the system becomes a "TV". Hit "Q" (thanks to Xine's extensive kb shortcuts) and you're back to the desktop. Watch a DVD? Just pop it in the drive and Fedora's MagicDev application will launch my "playdvd" script which automatically starts a fullscreen Xine session and starts playing the DVD with full menu navigation support, etc...

Schedule a recording? Just click the scheduler icon and thanks to the magic of Gnome 2.x's Zenity add on, I have a series of nice GUI based dialog boxes that allow me to select the date and time of the recording as well as program name and recording length. It sticks all the info in cron and the show is scheduled. Pause live TV? Just click the "pausetv" icon on the button dock and Xine launches while I have a 'cat /dev/video > /mnt/video1/Pause.mpg' process running in the background. After a slight delay, Xine just starts playing the Pause.mpg file as it's being recorded. I can pause the program at any time and pick up where I left of or go back. When I exit Xine, I'm even asked if I want to rename Pause.mpg to save it for later. And ALL of the playback functions whether it's from the capture card, MPG, AVI or WMV files or a DVD can be stopped using the kb shortcuts. "Q" always gets you out of trouble by quitting Xine no matter what. Music playback and Photos are all handled by the software that comes with Fedora.

My wife loves the new system since she feels it's the easiest I've ever set up. The real key is to put down the pretenses that this box is anything more than a computer. For my next trick, I'll be completely eliminating any TV or stereo gear from this setup. The TV gets replaced by a much higher quality display LCD computer monitor. The Yamaha 5.1 amp is getting replaced with an amp of my own design that will just be an amp leaving all the preamp features to Gnome's Mixer applet. Can't get any easier than that...