The Decision

I read today that if Lebron signs with the Knicks, he'll pay $12.7 million in state taxes over the life of the max contract deal. No state income tax in FLA, can anyone say Heat here I come!

Play On TV with the Nintendo Wii

I didn't know I could use my Nintendo Wii with Play On TV. I had to download the internet channel for the Wii, and it automatically detected it over my network. How cool is that. So, anyone who has a Wii, Xbox, or PS3, which most of us do, can use this service.

I just found a use for my 42" tv in the basement that sees very little use other than playing the Wii.

Western Digital Live TV

This may the one of the greatest devices ever made. Check out the review on Amazon. I can't say enough about it. It was simple to set up, very reliable each use. No longer do you need to wait for a dvd to load, no longer do you have to watch netflix thru an hdmi cable to your laptop, no longer do you have to watch youtube over your pc. All of this and more are done on this device. Pick a movie you want to watch, presto, on the screen instantly. Netflix pulls up your instant queue and allows you to watch on your tv. You can put your youtube favorites and playlists together and watch them as well.

My big problem with no cable tv was my kids shows on Disney channel. Netfilx solves a lot of this as some of the shows they like, Wizards, Hannah, Suite Life, are all there for instant viewing. Their current favorite, Phineas and Ferb, are on Youtube, full episodes for the taking. The Playschool Disney shows are the issue. Nothing on Netflix, or Youtube. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Imagination Movers, Little Einsteins and some others. A few are on the Disney web site, but not much. I found a nice add on for the WD Live called PlayOn TV. It is a pay service, but for a lifetime it cost me $40. Currently it is $40 for first year and $20 per year after that, I got in early and got lucky, but what does cable or satellite cost? Right! They have nice addons that you can get all kinds of tv access. None of it live, but almost. Channels include...

• Academic Earth
• Adultswim
• Cartoon Network
• Channel9
• Crackle
• Discovery Channel
• Food Network
• Fox News
• GameTrailers.com
• HGTV
• MTV
• NBC
• NFL
• Nickelodeon
• Podcasts (OPML Player) -- with dozens of available feeds!
• Southpark Studios
• SyFy
• Spike TV
• International channels: Danish DR and Spanish TVE

Any video on these websites are available for viewing on the WD Live TV thru PlayOn TV.

Hulu is also available thru the WD Live TV. If you have all your subscriptions and favorites set up on the website, it transfers over to the device and you can watch them on your tv.

PlayOn Scripts is a site that has a ton if tv viewing options for Play On TV. You have to go there to see what is available. It will make you wonder why you pay $100 a month for tv. Included is Playhouse Disney. There are currently 91 videos available, full episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and all my kids favorites.

All of this and more is available thru a simple on screen menu, just like any tv or dvd player. A simple, easy to use remote is included.

Media Ripping

This is the longest part of the process. Ripping your media to the computer. When I got an ipod years back, I ripped all of my cd's, so I didn't have to go thru that. Simple drag and drop to the media server. DVD's are another story. I for one was not a dvd fan. I would only buy them if I knew I would watch them more than one time. Therefore, I had about 60 dvds. I didn't have the same rule for my kids. We had about 40-50 for them. I proceeded to look for a dvd program that would make this process easy. I had a program called DVD Copy Pro. This I found out didn't work with Windows 7. So I had to search for something else. I found a free on trial program called DVD Fab. The trial was supposed to last 30 days, but I was able to erase and download it again many times, until I was actually done ripping all of my dvd's. It did finally stop working on me, but I liked it so much, I went ahead and bought it. Ripping 1 dvd takes up to 30 minutes, depending on the size. Just change them to an .avi or .wmv, whatever format you like and save them to the media center. I set up categories, Kids, Movies, TV shows, Documentaries, and sub-categories in each. Makes it a lot easier to view with the device I use to stream them, I explain this in a later post. So, you can do the math, 30 minutes, times 110 or so dvd's. It took a long time. I would spend my nights after the kids went to bed ripping dvd's, weekends, I would make sure there was one always working while I was doing weekend stuff. I finally finished and can now just do them one by one as I acquire them!

Build Information

I did a lot of research on an htpc build. What I was mostly looking for was low power consumption. It is going to be on 24/7, so I don't want to push my electric bill too high. You need to start with the case. I chose a Cooler Master Elite RC-330 ($35). It has 4x5.25" drive bays and 7x3.5" drive bays, plenty of space to add more storage down the line if you need it. I chose a 400w power supply, which didn't come with the case. Plenty of power, brand doesn't really matter. ($18) Motherboard is very important. I chose the Asus M3A78-CM ($100). They are hard to find now, but the Asus brand is known for low power consumption. 11w when in use, 1w idle. It has has 6 SATA ports for plenty of add-ons. 4 gb of ram, don't know a whole lot about it, so went with suggestions from a build I found online. You need an optical drive, if for nothing more than loading your operating system software. Processor was the AMD Athlon X2 4850e. Not much to write home about here, but the key is heat. At only 45w this baby will not put off much. With the server being on all day and night, this is key. Finally, hard drive. I chose the Western Digital Caviar Green series. 2 1tb drives that provide plenty of storage. Since there are multiply drive bays, you can always add on later. I have also bought an external 1tb hard drive to back everything up.

When I finally got it all together and turned on the power, nothing happened. I freaked. All this work and nothing! I checked out all the wiring again to the motherboard. Low and behold, I missed 1 pin on a connection. Presto! The computer came to life! I installed Windows 7 for the operating system and haven't looked back. I love it!

All in all I was very proud of myself for building this computer. I honestly didn't think I would be able to succeed. It has ended up being the beginning of a 6 month, ongoing, never ending process.

I you choose to do this, be prepared for what's to come. It only gets more time consuming. My next few posts will show you how I was able to use this computer to have all my entertainment in one place.

No Cable TV

I am going to start blogging about not having cable tv. We cut the cord on Monday June 28, 2010. I will give daily updates on what I have done to compensate. I have many hours of work to get to this point, and I can show you how to get it done. It is going to save us $85 per month, and we didn't have any movie channels, or sport packages. Tomorrow I will go over building a home theater pc.

Only snow postings lately. Another foot today!!