At the moment I can’t get what I want. And it’s a bit frustrating as normally technology is ahead of my requirements, not behind. Normally it’s me looking at these cool new tech toys and going ‘neat, one day I’ll get one of those’
My annoyance is that convergence (of PCs and home entertainment systems) hasn’t taken off as fast as I would like.
If you want – in your lounge room – to watch digital TV plus record it to a hard drive, as well as play DVDs and watch any media files off your PC…you currently need 2 or 3 different boxes in the lounge. Of course, I want it to be one. And not a full blown Home Theatre PC.
The more I think about this, the more I realise I’m really after an X type solution. As in Xfree86 and X.org – a small, media terminal in the lounge room, with no moving parts, but controlling the powerful PC sitting in study.
The PC does all the work; recording TV shows, managing the MP3 files, possibly even DVDs. It serves them up to the media terminal.
The media terminal would have Ethernet networking and have outputs for the TV and surround sound system.
I would use a remote to control the terminal. Setting up digital TV recordings and playing them back etc. Not just recordings and DVDs, but any media the PC itself can play back. MP3, Wave and OGG audio. Jpeg, Tiff, BMP images. And video: XviD with GMC/Qpel, Quicktime…even WMV.
An open system on the terminal ensures easy addition of new codecs.
There, I’ve designed it. Now someone please build it. Thanks.
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