{"id":38,"date":"2007-12-21T11:27:18","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T10:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/12\/21\/htpc-home-theatre-media-center-from-old-junk\/"},"modified":"2008-01-18T13:30:32","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T12:30:32","slug":"htpc-home-theatre-media-center-from-old-junk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/12\/21\/htpc-home-theatre-media-center-from-old-junk\/","title":{"rendered":"HTPC Home Theatre Media Center from old junk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATED on 18th Jan &#8211; Someone (somehow) managed to attack this page&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Dear Avid Reader,<\/p>\n<p>Here we are once again with one of my &#8216;real world&#8217; hack&#8217;s&#8230; This one gets used almost every day!<\/p>\n<p>In my modest home in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lathingdon-residents.org\" target=\"_blank\">Latchingdon, Essex<\/a> &#8211; England, I have a &#8216;Bar in the Garden&#8217;. This &#8216;Bar&#8217; is approx 25&#8242; x 18&#8242; and has an indoor BBQ, Gas Heating and a Bar Counter with cupboards, fridges and glass shelves.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly I needed to think carefully about the entertainment system!<\/p>\n<p>My key requirements were:-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Music, TV &amp; Internet<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now the Music would obviously come from my huge MP3 collection (and even bigger CD collection), TV would come from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/10\/08\/sky-satellite-enhancing-your-satellite-installation\/\" target=\"_blank\">Satellite TV<\/a> via a dish on the side of the bar.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/home-system.jpg\" alt=\"Home Media System\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After messing about with Windows Media Edition, I decided on using Media Portal (www.team-mediaportal.com)\u00a0 which is a fantastic open-source Media Center application. Not only does it provide the usual DVD\/MP3\/Pictures interface, but also supports TV Cards, EPG and even a TiVO-style recording facility.<\/p>\n<p>All the sound hardware was derived from old HiFi amplifiers and surround-sound systems, and the TV was a \u00a3150 HD Ready no-name from Comets.<\/p>\n<p>The app plays nice with Hauppauge TV \/ Remote combination cards, and has a very configurable interface (with skinning capabilities).<\/p>\n<p>At the other end of my bar, I have the Guitar stuff &#8211; As you can see below, I&#8217;ve set up a 2nd LCD panel (using a TV Interface board I purchased off eBay), add a \u00a320 DVD player from Tesco and you have a play-along-with-the-music system!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/guitar-system.jpg\" alt=\"Guitar Amp Setup\" \/><\/p>\n<p><noscript> <\/noscript><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATED on 18th Jan &#8211; Someone (somehow) managed to attack this page&#8230;. Dear Avid Reader, Here we are once again with one of my &#8216;real world&#8217; hack&#8217;s&#8230; This one gets used almost every day! In my modest home in Latchingdon, Essex &#8211; England, I have a &#8216;Bar in the Garden&#8217;. This &#8216;Bar&#8217; is approx 25&#8242; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff","category-hacking","category-modding","category-satellite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.internet-tools.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}