HTPC Discussion (pretty much 100% negative reviews)

[ew2x4]

why wouldn't you just use a mac mini? only downfall would be no blue ray.

There are some replacement kits you can get for it too. Only downside with the mac mini is the price, and you get hardware that's a bit overkill for just an htpc. It's pretty sexy though.

[asava]

why wouldn't you just use a mac mini? only downfall would be no blue ray.

There are some replacement kits you can get for it too. Only downside with the mac mini is the price, and you get hardware that's a bit overkill for just an htpc. It's pretty sexy though.

agree on the price. there needs to be a compromise between full blown mac mini and apple tv. give me something that can run a handfull of programs like plex (with streaming), itunes and other minimal browsing needs and store like a tb or 2, wifi, and cut the price of a production mac mini in half and i would be extremely excited.

which is basically what i have, a mac mini core solo upgraded to a core duo and upgraded ram. don't know about the replacement kits for the blue ray though. whats the deal with those?

only wish mine had true optical out and hdmi. also wish it was a little quiter. i would love to get one of the new ones. coupling it with an iphone makes the experience that much better.

[ew2x4]

why wouldn't you just use a mac mini? only downfall would be no blue ray.

There are some replacement kits you can get for it too. Only downside with the mac mini is the price, and you get hardware that's a bit overkill for just an htpc. It's pretty sexy though.

agree on the price. there needs to be a compromise between full blown mac mini and apple tv. give me something that can run a handfull of programs like plex (with streaming), itunes and other minimal browsing needs and store like a tb or 2, wifi, and cut the price of a production mac mini in half and i would be extremely excited.

which is basically what i have, a mac mini core solo upgraded to a core duo and upgraded ram. don't know about the replacement kits for the blue ray though. whats the deal with those?

only wish mine had true optical out and hdmi. also wish it was a little quiter. i would love to get one of the new ones. coupling it with an iphone makes the experience that much better.

I've seen some bluray drive upgrades available. I'm not sure how the software is, though. That's the big difference, since OS X doesn't support it natively.

[ew2x4]

http://www.neowin.net/news/major-networks-block-google-tv

Someone (me) called this a long time ago.

[pissclams]

http://www.neowin.net/news/major-networks-block-google-tv

Someone (me) called this

I read this on Engadget this morning.
Here's what I don't get about this.  Why do the networks care how their streaming content is accessed?
I can watch it on my television streaming from my computer today, with no GTV in the middle.  Their streaming content has commercials in it...

[Rage Against the McKee]

http://www.neowin.net/news/major-networks-block-google-tv

Someone (me) called this

I read this on Engadget this morning.
Here's what I don't get about this.  Why do the networks care how their streaming content is accessed?
I can watch it on my television streaming from my computer today, with no GTV in the middle.  Their streaming content has commercials in it...

They probably think that if they play hardball, they can get google to pay them for access to the content.

[pissclams]

they're getting paid for access to their content.  their payment comes from the advertisers who pay to for time during their show, and it comes from my time sitting there watching the commercials.

[Rage Against the McKee]

they're getting paid for access to their content.  their payment comes from the advertisers who pay to for time during their show, and it comes from my time sitting there watching the commercials.

Yeah, but if google has to pay them, they get paid twice.

[pissclams]

they're getting paid for access to their content.  their payment comes from the advertisers who pay to for time during their show, and it comes from my time sitting there watching the commercials.

Yeah, but if google has to pay them, they get paid twice.

and if i had to pay my cable bill twice, so would Time Warner.
they (the networks) can either take what they've been given, or suffer the same consequences as the recording industry did.

[ew2x4]

they're getting paid for access to their content.  their payment comes from the advertisers who pay to for time during their show, and it comes from my time sitting there watching the commercials.

Yeah, but if google has to pay them, they get paid twice.

and if i had to pay my cable bill twice, so would Time Warner.
they (the networks) can either take what they've been given, or suffer the same consequences as the recording industry did.

Completely different though. Why would they agree to every single proprietary piece of software/hardware? With music, there is a common format that everyone uses. This made a single formidable opponent. That's not the case with TV. Distribution is everything with TV. Which is why I think we're a long ways off with how exactly to distribute it. There is no common format. There is no single method for obtaining it. There's no timely way to obtain it either. It's going to have to be a Hulu/netflix like avenue. But at the same time, why should they agree to every single distributer?

[pissclams]

they're getting paid for access to their content.  their payment comes from the advertisers who pay to for time during their show, and it comes from my time sitting there watching the commercials.

Yeah, but if google has to pay them, they get paid twice.

and if i had to pay my cable bill twice, so would Time Warner.
they (the networks) can either take what they've been given, or suffer the same consequences as the recording industry did.

Completely different though. Why would they agree to every single proprietary piece of software/hardware? With music, there is a common format that everyone uses. This made a single formidable opponent. That's not the case with TV. Distribution is everything with TV. Which is why I think we're a long ways off with how exactly to distribute it. There is no common format. There is no single method for obtaining it. There's no timely way to obtain it either. It's going to have to be a Hulu/netflix like avenue. But at the same time, why should they agree to every single distributer?

They, the network is still distributing the television show.  A TV network makes the decision to purchase the rights to a show from a production company based upon the network's belief that they can make more in advertising revenue than the show costs to license from the production company whom actually owns the show.  

My observation is that GoogleTV is really just an internet browser of sorts acting as a portal to the television shows which are still hosted and controled by the network.  Why does NBC care if I access its streaming content via Netscape over Firefox over IE?  At the end of the day, the network is still selling advertising time to ad companies and collecting on that revenue.  The commercials are still getting watched by viewers just as they would be on a traditional television set.

The only thing I can conclude is that the networks don't charge advertisers the same amount to advertise via the web as they do via OTA or through cable.  And that's why they don't want to shift the model to where people would be inclined to watch via the web, their ad revenue would go down.

I'm going to be in LA next week and staying at BigTimeHollywoodProducerCat's house. I will get the the bottom of all of this with BTHPC then...

STAY TUNED   <---

[ew2x4]

From what I've gathered, they make a lot less. I'm not sure why. DVR's have pretty much made it to where I never watch commercials with cable.

[pissclams]

From what I've gathered, they make a lot less. I'm not sure why. DVR's have pretty much made it to where I never watch commercials with cable.

That's got to be it.  So if the networks just said, this is the flat rate for advertising time, independent of what/where the advertising is viewed, this might all go away.

Did you like my "Stay tuned" joke? 

[ew2x4]

From what I've gathered, they make a lot less. I'm not sure why. DVR's have pretty much made it to where I never watch commercials with cable.

That's got to be it.  So if the networks just said, this is the flat rate for advertising time, independent of what/where the advertising is viewed, this might all go away.

Did you like my "Stay tuned" joke? 

I could see that possibly working, but I honestly don't know jack about it.

And I chuckled a slight bit. Subtle yet relevant. That's the clams we all love.

[Rage Against the McKee]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/not-so-shocking-tv-networks-block-google-tv.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

This provides some explanation.

In short, the tv networks are being bitches. I wouldn't be too surprised if tv as we know it today is like the land line telephone in about 10 years. It will still be around, but it will be MUCH less popular.

[asava]

so i just got a mac mini that will serve as my media server. i have it set up as the media server through plex and other things for all my movie and tv streams/downloads. however i know it is possible to use it for so much more. it is connected to 1tb of memory.

i would like to be able to connect to the machine via this thing they call the "internet." i would want to do simple things like remotely control it, upload and download files from it, possibly set up an ftp (if thats the best way to go about it) in order to have a small ring of music explorers share. and anything else that could be possible.

other computers that are in the household are two macbook pros.

whaddya got?

[pissclams]

did you buy it new? apple just reduced the price of the mac mini.

[asava]

did you buy it new? apple just reduced the price of the mac mini.

no. bought it used off the bay. got a good deal on it. brand new quality.

[ew2x4]

so i just got a mac mini that will serve as my media server. i have it set up as the media server through plex and other things for all my movie and tv streams/downloads. however i know it is possible to use it for so much more. it is connected to 1tb of memory.

i would like to be able to connect to the machine via this thing they call the "internet." i would want to do simple things like remotely control it, upload and download files from it, possibly set up an ftp (if thats the best way to go about it) in order to have a small ring of music explorers share. and anything else that could be possible.

other computers that are in the household are two macbook pros.

whaddya got?

You're gonna need to probably ask an Apple forum. I'm doing all of that stuff right now with Window Home Server. Have no clue how I'd do it with OSX.

[asava]

so i just got a mac mini that will serve as my media server. i have it set up as the media server through plex and other things for all my movie and tv streams/downloads. however i know it is possible to use it for so much more. it is connected to 1tb of memory.

i would like to be able to connect to the machine via this thing they call the "internet." i would want to do simple things like remotely control it, upload and download files from it, possibly set up an ftp (if thats the best way to go about it) in order to have a small ring of music explorers share. and anything else that could be possible.

other computers that are in the household are two macbook pros.

whaddya got?

You're gonna need to probably ask an Apple forum. I'm doing all of that stuff right now with Window Home Server. Have no clue how I'd do it with OSX.

is there any other functionality that i am missing? how do i make it to where my dog tweets every time he does something? can it control the temperature of my fridge? how can i get it to open a beer for me when i come home?

but srsly is there a function that would be good to have besides the ones listed.

[ew2x4]

so i just got a mac mini that will serve as my media server. i have it set up as the media server through plex and other things for all my movie and tv streams/downloads. however i know it is possible to use it for so much more. it is connected to 1tb of memory.

i would like to be able to connect to the machine via this thing they call the "internet." i would want to do simple things like remotely control it, upload and download files from it, possibly set up an ftp (if thats the best way to go about it) in order to have a small ring of music explorers share. and anything else that could be possible.

other computers that are in the household are two macbook pros.

whaddya got?

You're gonna need to probably ask an Apple forum. I'm doing all of that stuff right now with Window Home Server. Have no clue how I'd do it with OSX.

is there any other functionality that i am missing? how do i make it to where my dog tweets every time he does something? can it control the temperature of my fridge? how can i get it to open a beer for me when i come home?

but srsly is there a function that would be good to have besides the ones listed.

Do you use it to record tv at all? I am able to record from my htpc, send it to my home server, it will encode it to whatever size and file type, so I can stream it.

I can rip a CD/DVD/bluray on any computer in the house and have it end up formatted in the file type I want on my server.

There's some cool stuff with deploying programs. I can put exe files in a folder and just get easy access to all the programs i want on all my machines.

Probably a lot of other stuff I'm too dumb to figure out.

[asava]

well considering i will be using it as my home server as well i should be alright there as long as i can access it. however i definitely am interested in recording tv onto it. i have att uverse set up with a dvr. but i'm sure there would be a way to do it. any ideas? the only way i would be able to do it is if my plasma can act as an intermediary between the two. unless i can use usb?

[ew2x4]

You'll need a tv tuner. I'm not sure what is available, but you may need a cable card tuner. It's the card you stick in TIVO's than decodes the signal. Not sure if you need it with Uverse or not. That should take the signal straight from the raw coax and be independent from the dvr. I don't think you can take the raw dvr recording and transfer. It will have to record live.

[pissclams]

for OSX i recommendo the elgato tuner.  pete has one too.

[ew2x4]

http://gizmodo.com/5686886/every-major-network-website-is-blocking-google-tv