[clug] Article on building Linux 1080p media player + DVR for AU$600

[Nathan O'Sullivan]

Some list members may be interested in this, but!! please note the site 
is run by my employer and has banner ad at top of the pages - so please 
stop reading if this sounds too commercial for you


Late last year I wrote an article building a 1080p media player with the 
new Asrock ION330, which is one of the first machines available with 
Nvidia's new ION platform. In short, the ION provides for 
GPU-accelerated video playback and is well supported by XBMC on linux.

Due to the site's demographic, the article is written with a Windows 
user in mind - so it covers some basic stuff in a quite a bit of detail. 
The software used is Ubuntu and XBMC, and I tried to cover everything in 
terms of getting 1080p, 5.1 surround sound over HDMI. The hardware cost 
me $510 inc. delivery

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/2810841


In January, I finished the followup article - purchasing a USB TV tuner 
for about $60 delivered, setting up the recording software Tvheadend, 
and finally integrating it with XBMC.

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/2841622


I'm using the resulting system fulltime (after having used a combination 
of MythTV + XBMC for some time) and overall I'm pretty happy with it. 
Tvheadend is certainly no match for MythTV in the scheduling department, 
but XBMC is so pleasant on the eyes. If you tend to primarily watch 
ripped DVDs and listen to MP3s as I do, I think its perhaps the better 
choice.

Regards
Nathan