I’m a media junkie. Whether it’s music, TV shows, or movies, I like it. I’m especially fond of podcasting. Not only do I produce a podcast, I love listening to them.
Several years ago, I bought an Apple TV. I loved it. It was a great way to serve up my iTunes library to my TVs and stereo systems. I especially liked that I could play audio from my computer using iTunes and have it come out of the speakers hooked up to my Apple TVs (I have two). If I was moving around the house, I could have the music or podcasts I was listening to played in several rooms at the same time.
I’ve been using my Apple TVs less and less though. I still like them, but I’ve come to like something else better.
It all started last winter when I built my first Home Theater PC. As I was moving away from DirecTV and toward a life as a cord-cutter (someone who gives up cable and satellite TV), I quickly came to like using Windows Media Center as a DVR for over-the-air television. For the shows I used to watch on cable/satellite, Amazon Instant Video was an excellent substitute. Paying $3 per episode ($2 if you don’t mind standard definition, lower resolution) is much cheaper for my family than the $100/month we were paying for DirecTV.
In addition to my new DVR functionality, I quickly came to like another program: Plex. Plex is a derivative of XBMC, a media player that was originally built to play audio and video files on the first XBox, but was ported over to the PC. Plex is a little different in that it requires that one computer on your network act as a server. If you only have one computer, that’s no problem, it can serve to itself (it just requires two programs: the server and the client). The server is nice because it keeps track of everything. If you start watching a show or movie on one machine, stop part way through it, and continue in another room, it will remember where you left off.
What I love about Plex so much is that it is much more flexible than iTunes. It will handle many more file formats, and you can create your own sections. For example, instead of just having one section for TV shows, we have two. One of them is the standard TV show section, and another is for German language shows, since our kids watch all of their shows in German (which we get from save.tv, an online DVR service from Germany).
One feature that I mentioned loving about iTunes was one I missed with the HTPC: the ability to play audio to multiple places. This is a feature that Apple calles “Airplay”. However, I’ve been discovering other ways to use Airplay than just using Apple hardware. I won’t get into any real depth here, but Lifehacker has an article on how to send audio to a whole host of different places, from your phone to your HTPC and others. I can now send my podcasts from my Mac running iTunes to all of my HTPCs, as well as my Android phone, as well as my old Android phone that is hooked up to a radio in my kitchen. I’m now at a point where I can have a player set up in every area of my house (though not quite every room, so the volume needs to be turned up a bit and bedroom doors left open.)
My Apple TVs are first-generation. I haven’t used any of the newer ones (they are currently on the third generation), but I’ve come to use mine so little I don’t foresee updating to newer models. There is nothing more flexible than a computer. The newer Apple TVs have app support, but Apple has had a history of limiting what apps it will allow on their hardware. Not so with a computer.
Since building that HTPC, I set up an old laptop to act as an HTPC (mentioned in the post in March), but now have also added an old Mac Mini. For the time being, the Mac Mini mostly runs Plex, but the plan is to get a copy of Windows 7 to load on it via Boot Camp for a full-fledged HTPC for my bedroom.
If you’re going to record TV to an HTPC, DVR style, it’s good to have a current-generation machine with the power to handle several video streams simultaneously. However, older machines work great for clients. The old laptop, which works just fine as a client, is a Pentium Dual Core (the hardware that is between the Pentium 4 and the Core Duo). The Mac Mini is a Core Duo. If you’ve got an old machine that you’re looking for a use for, try hooking it up to your TV and using it as a media center.