Welcome to HTPCHouse.com!
This site tends to be my personal tutorial for building something that is these days called Home Theater PC or HTPC for short - computer setup with only purpose to function as a substitute for all video/audio equipment that is usually found in our living rooms: TV sets, DVD/MP3 players/recorders etc. Imagine only one such component, which is basically a quiet and nice-looking but otherwise regular PC, that has all the functionalities (and some more) in just one piece of hardware. I did, few years ago, and this is my tutorial of how I've made it. My way :)
Of course, building a Home Theater PC has a lot in common with building any usual personal computer - it's a true religious experience for any living geek and buying preconfigured boxes is a deadly and shameful sin among fellow geeks. Instead, personal HTPC box must be exactly that - personal box, unique in the world (having unique features coupled with equally unique bugs) and true mirror of owner's geekish skills. At least, that's the way I see it :)
Seriously, for a long time I wanted a decent HTPC box, had idea in my head and money in my pocket, but not after many months of googling could find product that would give me what I've needed. And system that I've needed had to be:
completely controllable by single remote controller - no keyboard or mouse required
capable of running several applications (TV / video player / picture viewer) simultaneously - because I don't want to exit movie player (loosing my current playback position) just to see what's on TV
able to provide all of its content (movies, pictures, music, ...) via some kind of network share
controllable via web interface - I desperately needed ability to schedule TV recordings while I'm not at home
and besides all that still be very quiet and decent looking, because its place was in the center of my living room
After failing to buy preconfigured hardware with these characteristics, I've started building one on my own. And that was long time ago - if I remember correctly it all began in July 2005. Since then, I've tried many different approaches, two different hardware platforms, two different OS-es and MANY different applications. Countless nights are spent reconfiguring whole system, countless tutorials read and way too much money spent to get where I am today - satisfied with my media center finally running almost as I wanted it to :)
Since I read many useful tips in other people's HOWTOs (some of them taking me to a completely wrong path, but I forgive them :) ) I've decided to give something back and finally write one on my own, mainly to save you time and money needed for experiments that I had to make before I found Right Solutions (tm). Moreover, it seems that there still aren't available any tutorials on how to build media center box like this one - most of the systems described on the Net are build around one PVR application (Beyond TV, MythTV, etc.) and neither of them gave me desired ability to just pause my movie playback, change viewing mode to TV, watch the upcoming episodes of Simpsons, and then simply go back to (still paused) movie playback and continue where I stopped. That was possible with my ancient VCR/TV couple and I wanted it on my Home Theater PC (at least) equally functional.
I certainly hope that this tutorial will be in continuous state of flux, since I'll appreciate all of yours This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it that could advance this setup even further. Many applications used here are not ideal for the job, but I couldn't find any better - maybe you will, and if you do, I hope you will let me know. Also, I really doubt that all configuration hacks that I did to accomplish desired functionality are best that can be done, so it would be best if you consider this tutorial only as a starting point for further advancing its design and/or its building components, notifying me of important enhancements you came up with to make these articles more useful to future readers and enthusiasts.
So, lets see what this is all about...
