DigitalSandbox

As promised long ago, I have a written an article on configuring the ultimate home entertainment center to be controlled through Bluetooth. I took a long time getting around to this because I initially wanted to write up something that included HDTV. Unfortunately, this is not currently possible, at lease as far as I was able to determine. So I decided to proceed without it as I figure this setup should translate alright to HDTV when it becomes more readily available. So let’s get started.

First off, some disclaimers. This setup is based around an older Mac system. The reason for Mac is so that you can use Salling Clicker. I am not aware of a comparable product for Windows. The reason I say older is that I recommend that if you want to do this, you don’t have this setup running from your main computer. I say this because I personally find it inconvenient to have my computer running as the entertainment center for everyone else. If I want to check email or do some work, I don’t want to be taking performance hits because the kids want to watch a DVD. Therefore, I am using an older Mac to keep costs down a little. Also, this setup assumes you have regular cable service, not digital cable or satellite. Digital cable and satellite TV require an extra receiver to tune in the channels. That would mean that we cannot control the TV via Salling Clicker, which is kind of the whole point here.

The following is a list of compenents that will be needed to get this thing up and running.

Required Parts:
• Apple PowerMac G4 733 MHz or better - available on eBay for $600-$700
  • 256 MB RAM minimum (recommend 1 GB if you can afford it)
  • DVD-ROM drive minimum (recommend a SuperDrive or at least a computer with SuperDrive be available to burn recorded programs onto DVD)
  • Loaded with as much hard drive as you can afford - a 250 GB HD is pretty reasonable right now and would give you some room (recommend multiple drives for various tasks - i.e. one for iTunes, one for DVR, etc.)
  • Video card with TV out
  • D-Link Bluetooth dongle - $40

   

• AlchemyTV DVR - $159
• M-Audio Revoution 5.1 Sound Card - $69.99
• Bluetooth capable phone or handheld - $200-$400 maybe more, this is up to you
• Salling Clicker software - $19.95
• AlchemyTV DVR scripts for Salling Clicker - free
• 5.1 speaker set - $150
• TV - Standard Definition, this setup does not support High Definition TV

 

Recommended Extras:
• Bluetooth keyboard and mouse - $131.10
• Indigo software and Salling Clicker scripts - $89.95 and free, respectively
• X10 hardware to control TV and lights in room - at least $34.99

When one designs the ultimate Home Entertainment System they need to consider what this systme will be used for how you are going to implement that functionality. Most peole use their entertainment system to do the following:

• Watch TV
• Wath movies
• Listen to music

Well this setup will easily handle all this and quite a bit more. Aside from the fact that we will be controlling this setup from our Bluetooth enable phone or handheld, there is a lot of other great functionality in here. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Let’s start with the basics. Salling Clicker will be used to control everything in this setup. This is done for a couple of reasons. First, and foremost, the cool factor on this is off the charts. Additionally, besides the fact that it will make you cooler/more-attractive-to-the-opposite-sex, there are a lot of things that you just can’t do with an infrared remote. For a final point—have you looked at your remote collection lately? If it is anything like mine it probably looks like this:

• 1 TV remote
• 1 DVD remote
• 1 VCR remote
• 1 Receiver remote
• 1 stereo remote
• possibly even more remotes

By using Salling clicker we can reduce that down to the following:

• 1 Bluettoth enabled phone
• ...and…ummm…yeah, that’s all

So let’s see how Salling clicker will reduce our remote clutter. We’ll start with the TV. Since I couldn’t find a Salling Clicker compatible TV, I had to turn to our old friend, X10. With X10 we can turn the TV on (very useful for actually watching TV), but we can also control things like the lights in our Home Theater Room. With Indigo installed on our system (which we will can the EntertainMac) we can now control indidual componets in the room. But that isn’t quite cool enough. Since Indigo supports sequences of actions why not set up scripts to automate some of our activities. You could set up a script for TV watching and another for movies that do different things. For example, the TV script might turn on the TV and lauch (or bring to the front) the AlchemyTV program, while the movie script would launch the DVD player, eject the tray so you can insert your DVD, and dim the lights to a level appropriate for movie watching. All from the comfort of your sofa. Needless to say, if you don’t have an X10 setup, then you need to keep at least your TV remote around.

Now that we have the TV under our control let’s look at what we can do with AlchemyTV. Alchemy TV comes with a small infrared remote to control the device, but you can just store that away with the box if you like. We will be using Salling Clicker to control our channel surfing which allows us to not be concerned with details like line of sight and other short-comings of infrared. And you get all the great DVR functions like pausing live TV and rewind, but the the AlchemyTV DVR offers even more functionality.

One of the best features is that the DVR can be program through iCal. You just set up a schedule in your iCal calendar and AlchemyTV DVR takes it from there. This is where that Bluetooth keyboard and mouse is going to come in handy. Now you can sit on your couch and schedule in you favorite shows. If you don’t like the idea of doing this from the couch (which I personally don’t) an alternative method could be to set them up on your main computer and then publish that calendar to your .Mac account and have the EntertainMac subscribe to that calendar (obviously, this requires a .Mac account and an Internet connection for the EntertainMac). Alchemy TV then records them to your hard drive and you can watch them later.

Once they are on your hard drive they can be recorded to DVD. This could be done directly on the machine via either iDVD (using the bluetooth keyboard and mouse) or directly from AlchemyTV using the Moviegate plugin. This could also be done on another machine by transferring the recording to the other machine and then creating your DVD and burning it (requires a network of some variety between the two).

So you surfed all 183 channels and there is nothing worth watching on. Already watched all the recorded shows on your DVR? Why not watch a movie? Just activate that script we made for moives and pop in a DVD. Of course, why should we mess with a disc at all? If you added a lot of hard drives to your EntertainMac you could just rip them onto the hard drive. Then you can start a movie with out getting off the couch. It’s a couch potato’s dream come true. Just use a program like DVD Backup and copy the discs onto your hard drive and you are all set. Of course, you will need a lot of hard drive space for this as the typical DVD takes up from 6-8 GBs. On a 250 GB hard drive that would be about 30 movies (or discs if you have movies with multiple discs). This is why I recommend a different hard drive for each program (one for the DVR, one for DVDs and one for Music). If you only need the movie part and plan to use the actual disc for the special features then you could save some of space and get a few more on there.

Maybe you aren’t in the mood to watch TV or movies. Maybe you just want to listen to your music. Well, we have that covered too. Salling Clicker makes a great remote for iTunes. With all of your CDs and iTunes downloads stored on the EntertainMac, you can listen to anything you want and never have to change discs. And thanks to Salling Clicker, you can search your iTunes library for your favorite song or change your playlist. Without Salling Clicker you would need to turn on the TV and use your Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in order to do this.

Another note about iTunes. Why should you have two iTunes libraries, one on the EntertainMac and one on your main computer? The answer is you shouldn’t (except possibly as a backup, but there are better methods for that). If you have the two on a network you can use iTunes super cool library sharing feature. I would set mine up with the main library residing on the EntertainMac and the main computer pulling it’s tunes fromt he network. This keeps my hard drives clear for more important things and my entertainment all in one location. And since the computers are networked I can add music to the EntertainMac remotely.

So I guess that about covers everything you would want to do with your Entertainment System. Of course, since we have a computer at the heart of our Entertainment System, we can do more than you can with traditional methods. One thing that gets added easily is the ability to look at photos. Companies have been trying for a long time to get us to use our TV to show off our pictures. Unfortunately, none of them made it very easy. But now we have iPhoto running on our EntertainMac and Salling Clicker just happens to be able to control that program, too.

Now when company comes over you can jsut gather them ‘round the EntertainMac and bore them with show them pictures of your last vacation. Salling Clicker allows you to search your library or albums and also start a slideshow (set to music if you desire). And with iPhoto 4s sharing feature you can use a similar setup to your iTunes configuration.

And why stop there? I am sure there are even more things that can be done using this setup. Video Games spring to mind right off the bat, but at the low resolutions offered by TVs we might want to wait until we can figure out the EntertainMac HD. And who knows what kinds of things we could do using both the EntertainMac and the main computer. I think that you can stream TV from the EntertainMac to the other computer so that you could watch TV while working, but not have to install another TV Tuner card. I’m sure others will think of even better ideas than these, but I’ll leave that to them.

If I ever get around to actually building an EntertainMac I will be sure to let you all know how it turns out.