December 2004
Beginner
336 pages
14h 32m
English
Content preview from Home Hacking Projects for Geeks
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127
7
In 1997, Mike Ramsey and Jim Barton came up with a concept that would
forever change the way people interacted with their televisions. The product
of their vision, TiVo, created an entirely new category of electronic appli-
ances called
personal video recorders, or PVRs. These devices allow you to
automatically record your favorite television shows without having to pro-
gram the exact time and date and without using videotapes. You can even
pause live TV if you get a phone call during you favorite show, or rewind if
you missed something.
But why stop there? TiVo was built using standard computer hardware, so
it stands to reason that you could build your own from scratch. If you did
build your own PVR, you could use it for things that computers are meant
to do, such as playing music and games. It would also be nice to load video
from your camera and view your digital pictures. Add these features to your
PVR and you’ve got a home theater PC, or HTPC. This project, concep-
tualized in Figure 7-1, will show you how to create your own HTPC with
some special features that are not even available from TiVo, ReplayTV, or
Microsoft.
Build a
Windows-Based
Home Theater PC
Cost
Time
Difficulty
$150 - $1000
six hours
4 out of 5
What You Need
• A PC with an available PCI slot (a
complete list of the components I
used is available in Exhibit A)
• A TV tuner card
• Windows XP CDs
• An Internet ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.