I’ve written extensively about home theater PCs, media center extenders, digital music adapters and other similar gear.
I almost never use any of these. I must wear the hubcap of shame.
These are undeniably useful devices. You can get content from your PC or network attached storage device into your living room. What type of hardware you use depends on what you want to accomplish. People who just want music around the home (and can drop a grand or more) will get Sonos gear. If they want to stream video from their PC to their HDTV, they might get a media center extender, whether it’s a Windows Media Center Extender, Apple TV, or other similar piece of hardware.
If you really want a repository for your audio CD and photo collection, or want to store all those ripped DVDs, then a home theater PC is a good bet. It’s pretty easy to build (or buy) a relatively quiet HTPC that can get the job done.
But I rarely use them.
There are a number of reasons for this, and I suspect I’m not alone.
First, I’m not a big consumer of media. Most of my music listening occurs when I’m driving around in my car, for example. I’ll watch TV recorded on the Dish DVR with the family on occasion. Sometimes I’ll pop a movie into the Sony BDP-S350. About the closest thing I get to using media center style feautures is when we use Netflix streaming on the Xbox 360. This is perhaps the single biggest reason. My entertainment comes from reading books (*gasp*), gaming (PC, board games and RPGs) and related activities.
Second, I’m lazy. The DVR just works. The Blu-ray player just works. I don’t need to boot a PC. I’ve also got all the standard devices (including the 360) programmed into the Harmony One remote.
Third, I’ve never settled on a device that does everything I want. For example, I’ve got a Logitech Squeezebox Duet. The Duet is a nice unit, but requires some piece of hardware — a PC or supported NAS drive — to be running SlimServer. Firing up the Xbox 360 as a Windows Media Center extender also means that my PC needs to be turned on. The plethora of competing formats and streaming methods still makes all this less straightforward than it needs to be.
I’ve tried Sonos gear. The Sonos stuff is slick — but Sonos doesn’t do Windows Media Lossless, which is how I rip most of my music collection.
So what happens is I set up the Squeezebox several times a year, whenever I host a party or barbecue, and fire up a playlist. That’s about the only time I use this gear in a practical way.
On the other hand, I frequently tinker with digital media adapters, HTPCs and related gear. I’m still fascinated by the concept of trying to get easy access to all media, all the time, anywhere in my house. But actually leaving something set up and living with it… not so much.
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6 comments
Neil says:
July 28, 2009 at 11:56 am (UTC -7 )
In my view, the largest albatross brought to bear by these all in one devices is that of codec support. I’ve got a Roku Soundbridge that I use in a similar fashion to your SqueezeBox, but you’re right – needing something that “just works” is invaluable when the desire to watch a movie or recorded media is whimsical at best. Who cares if you have all the coolest plugins and filters in your software media player HTPC? If I have to spend 6+ minutes getting a Blu-ray up and running on a computer, I’m much less inclined to just sit down and enjoy it than I would have been were I to just stream the thing or pop the disc into a dedicated player (or pseudo-dedicated player, à la PS3). I’ll chalk up my qualms mostly to the issue of expedition. If I feel like watching a movie, I want to watch a movie NOW, or the inclination will disappear rather quickly. If the dedicated player takes a while to start up, I can make some popcorn. If the HTPC takes a while to start up, I must monitor its progress and start all the appropriate applications prior to playback. Which one is “most ready” by the time I return? Which one is the better compromise? I submit, the player that “just works”. Then I don’t have to worry about driver updates, software updates, and Windows updates just to enjoy a film or video I had to work at convincing myself to watch in the first place.
Tinkering, on the other hand, is another issue entirely.
Tomas says:
July 28, 2009 at 12:25 pm (UTC -7 )
Hy Loyd,
I`m just curious to know why you choose to use Windows Media Lossless? Why not something like FLAC or OGG (wich are, btw, supported by Sonos, but that doesn`t actually matter…)?
Thx
Tomas
admin says:
July 28, 2009 at 12:40 pm (UTC -7 )
OGG isn’t lossless (or wasn’t when I first started ripping CDs.)
It started years ago, when no device actually supported FLAC (other than PCs), but several supported WMA Lossless. So it’s more a legacy thing. I suppose I could transcode everything to FLAC, but that seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of gain.
Plus, the Zune player (yes, I’m one of those) supports WMA Lossless.
Tomas says:
July 30, 2009 at 11:53 am (UTC -7 )
Oh yes…I forgot you where “one of those”! HAHAHAHAHA
trip1ex says:
July 30, 2009 at 10:20 pm (UTC -7 )
Codecs and storage space are big reasons why this stuff is a pain in the ass. The conversion process is also a time consuming process. Also how much media can one watch? And what are the chances you are going to watch the same movie or TV show again especially if you’re over 30?
I’ve mostly stuck to DVD. But lately I’ve digitized a few of my DVDs.
My method of watching them? Relatively low-tech.
Transfer movie from Mac to iPod and then connect the iPod to my TV with a $10 Chinese knock-off iPod AV cable.
Zep says:
July 31, 2009 at 6:20 pm (UTC -7 )
Loyd, I agree. I’ve owned a SqueezeBox for many years now and it works well for me, but there’s too much overhead and learning curve for the masses. I think my brother would love to have something like a SqueezeBox, but I can envision the constant calls or e-mail I would get, walking him through rebooting the server, resetting the SqueezeBox, or something else that he has no clue about…nor should have to care about.