HTPC – nah!
Some of you may recall a brief series of articles I wrote about my experiences in choosing and building a new replacement Home Theatre PC (HTPC).
I then had a bit of a break from the blog due to lack of time – sorry about that!
Well, the HTPC I put together is still very much in everyday use, but I thought it worth a brief update.
The experience hasn’t been totally without fault. While in general the HTPC works fine, there are a couple of “niggles”. Firstly, for some still unknown reason, the IR remote control seems to take about 5-10 seconds to register a command on the HTPC if it hasn’t been used for a while. For example, if I press the Pause button, I then have to sit and wait for it to take effect. Once it has, then subsequent presses are instant as expected. I’m still trying to track-down the problem – maybe it’s something to do with devices powering-down, or maybe it’s delays in Windows 7 – suggestions welcome!
The 2nd problem I’m experiencing is stuttering of the video on occasion. The seems to happen in the evenings at varying times, but generally around either side of 9pm. Other computers in the household continue to work fine, as does general internet access, and the video is being shared (via Windows CIFS shares) from a central PC. Everything looks fine on all of these, and yet the problem remains. Upgrading the Revo R3600L by adding a D-Link DWA-140 802.11n Wireless LAN dongle has helped, but hasn’t totally solved the problem.
So, where to go from here?
Well, during my blog-break I decided that I also wanted to watch video from my central PC in the bedroom. Unfortunately, the TV in the bedroom isn’t as new as the one in my living room, so it’s lacking a PC/RGB input, and no DVI/HDMI either – ruling out another Revo-based HTPC. It does, however, have standard Composite inputs (video and left/right audio). After a bit of searching I came across the WD TV Live. This is a great little (and I do mean little) box that simply plugs into your TV using either HDMI, Component or, in my case, Composite connections. It has an Ethernet port and a USB port. Using the USB port you can connect an external USB thumb-drive or even a USB hard disk, or you can do as I do and connect a USB Wireless LAN dongle, such as the DWA-140.
You can find them on eBay, and Play.com sell them for around £99 (make sure you get the WD TV Live – the one with the Ethernet port – as they also sell one without for video playback from a USB HDD).
Now, with this setup, I have a very simple and easy to use way of watching video in my bedroom.
Thinking forward to my family holiday in July, I am going to take the WD TV Live together with my WD Passport 320GB USB hard drive (loaded with most of my video collection) with me – which is a god-send if you have little kids as I do!
The only real down-sides I can see with the WD TV Live is that the user interface isn’t fantastic, and it really would be good if you could disable unwanted options, or add short-cuts to your favourite places such as Network Shares. Also, it would be really good if it showed you which video’s you had already watched (like ZoomPlayer on my HTPC does).
All in all though, for about £120 (including the DWA-140), this is a great little media player and so much simpler to use and manage than a full-blown HTPC.
So what’s in store for my Revo R3600 HTPC? Well, nothing right now – I can’t justify replacing it just yet (at least, not if I’m to have any hope of buying that HTC Desire) – but be sure – it’s days are numbered…
Filed under: Hardware
