posted by on January 05, 2009 at 03:25 PM
Some of you know hypem (hypemachine) as the badass mp3-blog-indexing site or just a cool place to listen to tracks. Its definitely one of the simplest and fastest ways to discover new music that is a bit off the beaten…
posted by on January 04, 2009 at 10:08 PM
I’ve been a bedroom DJ since 96, sporadically making appearances at clubs, parties and on the radio over the years. Its the hobby that won’t go away, and the one I wish I had more time for. I’ve written a…
posted by on January 04, 2009 at 08:48 PM
Im not going to lie. I have been playing a lot of Call of Duty: World at War on xbox live. Approximately 18 hours since it came out in November, I know this because it keeps track for you. Just…
posted by on December 22, 2008 at 07:49 PM
This was easier to compile than I thought. I kept my iTunes library clean this year. And man, what a year for music. In no particular order here are my top ten albums… Black Mountain – In the Future Such…
posted by on December 21, 2008 at 09:49 PM
You might have noticed some weirdness with my feed. Im in the process of consolidating my BrosBeforeBlogs blog and Ravegression podcast under the nice n’ simple flag of www.justinbaum.com. So please forgive any duplicates or old posts floating to the…
posted by on December 16, 2008 at 02:10 AM
My pal and fearless leader Bruce wrote a post about his defunked Sony Bravia and how life was sans TV. Apparently he is carrying on thanks to all the web has to offer these days. I’ve been up to some…
posted by on December 16, 2008 at 02:10 AM
My pal and fearless leader Bruce wrote a post about his defunked Sony Bravia and how life was sans TV. Apparently he is carrying on thanks to all the web has to offer these days. I’ve been up to some…
posted by on December 16, 2008 at 02:10 AM
My pal and fearless leader Bruce wrote a post about his defunked Sony Bravia and how life was sans TV. Apparently he is carrying on thanks to all the web has to offer these days. I’ve been up to some webified living room antics myself lately. Steve Jobs was recently quoted saying that the digital home theatre is still the hobbyist’s domain- . After sinking more time than I care to mention into my current rig over the past month… I have got to agree with him. Its a tinkering persons endeavor. I set out to achieve a few goals with version 2 of my home theatre rig. Here they are…
- Absolutely no mouse and keyboard ever (unless something breaks or crashes).
- All 10ft UIs (ie no squinting at apps designed for a 3ft viewing experience).
- One remote.. no exceptions, no cheating.
- Must accommodate all video codecs / filetypes. Everything from xvid to DRM’d itunes video.
- Must take advantage of the 120hz feature on my TV (only available via hdmi)
- Must output dolby digital and DTS surround sound.
- Video browsing must be pretty – I want metadata, movie posters, dvd box covers, episode names etc
After staying up way too late and skipping out on doing the dishes a few times I managed to meet those goals. Here is the rig I accomplished it on… * Sony Bravia
LCD (1080p)
- Mac Mini running Boxee for tv and movie rips (plays all my xvid, avi, mkv content). Hooked up with a DVI to HDMI cable and an optical out.
- Apple TV for my itunes video and my iTunes music library. The Apple TV is the only component that takes advantage of the 120hz feature of the TV, looks ridiculously crisp and smooth. Running optical audio out of this unit as well.
- Onkyo Audio Reciever for dts and dolby digital surround. The onkyo receivers are cheap, powerful and have lots of optical inputs.
- Harmony universal remote (the brains of the operation). This guy controls Boxee and the Apple TV thanks to Rick’s tip and some futzing in logitechs awful remote software…
So how did I get rid of my mouse and keyboard in the living room?
The main problem was I have two incompatible libraries of content. One from the itunes store and one from usenet / torrent sites. The latter is always non Apple-friendly codecs that won’t play in iTunes let alone on an Apple TV. I found myself constantly in a position where I had to switch apps using a mouse and keyboard depending on what content library I wanted to check out. Super annoying when your reclined on the couch with a beer balanced on your chest. I played around with automator for switching between Boxee and Frontrow.. even thought about making a weird foot switch or some sinfully lazy contraption (helper monkey / poker stick?). Then I found out Boxee could be installed on an Apple TV. Even better it shows up as a menu item in the Apple TV UI so you can bounce back and fourth between the two. I had no trouble with the install and it worked fairly well. Seemed like the Apple TV was going to replace my Mac Mini. Unfortunately the Apple TVs processor struggled a bit with playing higher resolution mkvs and avis, especially the 720p stuff. I decided to run boxee on the mac mini to access my avis&mkvs and use the Apple TV for my iTunes content. This turned out to be the perfect solution. I can just flip inputs on the TV between boxee (on the mini) and iTunes content (on the Apple TV). This turned out to be faster than loading and exiting Boxee on the Apple TV which actually takes some time.
While it would be ideal to only have one media center application I don’t think I could give up either Boxee or Apple TV. The convenience and quality of the iTunes store vs the sheer amount of non-DRM content available on torrent sites / usenet puts things in a total stalemate. But, I am happy to finally be able to browse my xvid and mkvs videos using a remote in a pretty media center app like Boxee. Its still an overly complicated and geeky setup but the absence of a mouse and keyboard does wonders for my ability to slothfully sink deeper and deeper into my couch. Good thing I blogged the heck out of this… Yah… maybe I should go read a book…. How do I even have a girlfriend?
