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| Linux MCE: All Your Components Are Belong to Us |
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| Saturday, 22 December 2007 | |
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Page 1 of 2 With almost every cable carrier in the US now offering DVRs with their subscriptions, there are enthusiasts still out there that need more functionality and integration with their every day life. There's even more people that could use a cheap, non-subscription based home-security system and even more people who just want all of their media easily exchangeable and accessible over their home network. Some people just like having one remote for their entire media center.  This is where LinuxMCE comes in: it wraps all these key features into a simple plug-and-play package, as opposed to the "plug and Pray" packages attempted by the alternatives. LinuxMCE 0704 is the solution that may be considered the end-all of media centers. Microsoft's Windows Vista supposedly brought "Wow" to computing, again. Compared to Compiz-Fusion, it is almost like comparing a Model-T to the Space Shuttle in terms of raw horsepower. Moreover, when looking at Windows MCE, there is much to be desired as well. With the DRM and Palladium coming into play, people are shifting towards free and open solutions that are easy to use, but won't break their massive, and more than likely slightly illegal, media collection. Anything possible with media under the Linux enviroment is availible and easy to use. Any feature that one could think of that allows ease of use and functionality has already been thought of, worked out, and implemented perfectly. There are some bugs, of course, but for the most part, the system could not be more fully featured. One walks away from the simple, even ugly UI, thinking, "was that all I had to do..?" And to answer that question, yes... it is. The innovative element about LinuxMCE is that the project has finally addressed the issue that people have with multiple remotes. The developers thought about how many they had to deal with for their "ideal" home theater solution, and finally got fed up with it. A traditional TV installation with all the features of LinuxMCE would take anywhere from ten to twenty buttons just to get to channel surfing. With LinuxMCE, that has been thought out: http://fiire.com/ offers quite a few solutions, notably their Gyro Remote. Every single feature available within the LinuxMCE environment is accessible with 3 buttons. With gestures similar to Wii-mote functionality, one can fast-forward and rewind, flip through pages, adjust volumes, and much more. The control scheme is simple, elegant, and awe-inspiring.  The boxes offered on Fiire consist of
many different variants, and that does not mean that it is proprietarily
available to Fiire. It is Linux, if there's a spare box that is somewhat
close, if not more than the Fiire Engine, throw LinuxMCE on it, get a remote working on it, and boom: Home Theater
Solution. There is the "brain" machine available that can come with
up to 6TB of storage and includes a smart-home solution with lighting, climate,
home security and surveillance, and a full-featured phone system. There are
"stations" that have VESA standard mounts to attach to the back of
most LCD panels and TVs. The "brain" integrates all of the
"stations" and allows resources to be shared such as a TV tuner card.
No matter where the remote is in the house, the nearest interface will take off
where it last left off. A Wii-mote using a blue-tooth connection would provide an
excellent controller But that's not even close to end of the features it offers. With complete plug-and-play interoperability, it has the capability of mapping network drives, external drives and other OS drives for media, at which point, it will catalogue these for the user and put them forth in a nice, easy to use interface. In addition, there are features that go well outside the range of a standard media center. The network-ability of this OS gives the user complete access to anything, from another machine with LinuxMCE installed in the Bedroom that has every DVD in one's collection, to the main Home-Theater room, where all TV is recorded in HD. The functionality of LinuxMCE is only really limited to the abilities of the administrator of it. |