Hi Everyone. My Girlfriend's Dad ('s dog's mother's owner) has recently bought a nice HD TV. Unfortunately they have a horrible humax box for receiving freeview, which has only 1 output.. a SCART. Obviously converting a digital signal to analogue, to transmit across a crappy SCART cable, then converting it back to digital before it's displayed, is far from optimal! On top of this he's looking to upgrade his DVD player to a blu-ray. Personally, I think it would almost be possible to build a media-pc for a cost that is near-to, or not that much more than a blu ray player and a new set top box. Requirements include (importance out of 10 in brackets: 1. (10) HDMI out, preferrably, DVI out if not. 2. (3) Size similar to set top box + dvd player stacked. 3. (6) Quiet. Inaudible when watching TV or Blu Ray at moderate-low volume. 4. (8) Decent sound output. 5.1 Ideally. I imagine most of the time this will require a dedicated sound card. 5. (7) Dual TV tuner. Just because that's what they're used to. 6. (8) Decent remote, and user interface. There are several slightly impatient female users that would not tolerate complex combinations of remotes! Also, it'll be running linux, not windows. 7. (4) Low power consumption. Doesn't want something that's going to cost the earth to run 8. (9) Blu-ray drive. So does anyone have experience building a similar system? I don't want to do any modding on this, just buy the components and stick them in the box. Any hardware recommendations, words of warning or advice? All will be appreciated. How much do you think this sort of thing would cost? Thanks in advance for any help!
Yes it does, but he was using his old HUMAX box because it has dual tuners + more capacity for recording.
I vote for a new tuner box and seperate BD-rom player, as most PC based options even when low power still burn alot of power in comprassion, and are let down at times with crap software.
You want a really simple near silent HDTV dual freeview HTPC that plays blu ray under linux..... For the cost of a bluray player? Two reasons why you can't get this - Linux + Bluray - Do a google! - Cost - Far cheaper to buy a BR player I'm sure someone will have the time to do a cost breakdown of components, or you can do your own (on this very website!)
Was in Richer Sounds last night. BD players start at 160pounds. A decent Freeview HDD recorder can be had for the same amount. Bluray on Linux is coming, the codecs are here (with the arrival of ffmpeg 0.5), but the disc decryption is still in its early stages ie: you have to rip the disk to HDD first.
as much as i love linux, i have to agree with this. blu-ray+linux is a bad idea. especially if you want high quality audio.
I feel a great deal of sorrow echoing the above comments, but there's just no suitable solution for Blu-Ray playback under Linux yet. I've been looking at it a lot myself recently as I'm really looking forward to the point in time where I can afford a fat HDTV and build myself a nice media centre, although it looks like I'll be waiting quite some time before I'll be popping in a Blu-Ray disk and have it playback pitch-perfect under Linux. Edit: If standalone Blu-Ray players have dropped to under £200, then that's a winning solution right there.
