User:Ray N

Background I'm a Professional Engineer with a 1999 undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering. I was born and raised in beautiful Puerto Rico (http://welcome.topuertorico.org/index.shtml). Have development history and experience in hardware and software. Started getting involved with Linux based media centers and DVRs through LinuxMCE in March 2009. After a motherboard crash and realizing that LinuxMCE was more than what I was looking for, started looking at other options and found the sexy and solid XBMC for our media center experience. Started playing and setting up XBMC in June 2011. Thank God the motherboard was still under warranty!

Our original intent was 1) to be able to watch some TV in the living room as there was no cableTV connection in that room (bizarre construction arrangement, we know), and 2) to watch DVD (or BluRay) movies. To tackle the sending the cableTV signal up to the living room without having to lay coax cables around the house, I thought, why not sending it through the network. So I started looking at options and that's how we came to Linux based media centers.

I decided to build our own system as we wanted a nice looking "appliance-like" box that would take the place of the DVD player. We'll start with a very simple one-machine setup, with the idea to have one in almost every room in the house. This is my server shopping list from March 2009.

Total: $705.91 Does not include shipping and handling.

Setup

Other stuff Total: $451.80 Does not include shipping and handling.
 * Connected to a Samsung LN-T4061F 40" TFT-LCD display through HDMI @1080 resolution
 * Had to purchase a powerline networking adapter because of the location of the system.
 * Also, later purchased the pcHDTV card when realized the HDHomeRun only received digital signals
 * Added one 1TB SATA drive for videos
 * 2011.08 - Bought two of the awesome Shuttle XS35GT-V2 as clients for a 3-XBMC household setup

Installation
 * Used XBMCLive 10.1 Dharma release CD
 * On server, original 80GB drive crashed. Bought new 360GB drive and partitioned like this:
 * 4 GB: Swap
 * 5 GB: XBMC (ext4)
 * 5 GB: "Factory settings" reset backup (ext4)
 * 340 GB: MythTV Storage (XFS)


 * Got HDMI sound working by following instructions here: HOW-TO_set_up_audio_over_HDMI_on_nVidia_GeForce/nForce_controller
 * Installed XBMCLive 10.1 Dharma on the client's by following this: HOW-TO:Install XBMC from a USB thumbdrive
 * Had to manually enable the network interface by editing /etc/network/interfaces

Configuration
 * Installed and configured MythTV DVR on server box
 * Using the Add-on:MythBox as mythtv client (super nice!)

Here's the setup in the kitchen area:

And here's a close-up of the Shuttle client with the custom-made glass shelf:

Plans
 * To have a setup of three TVs with XBMCs through the house with synchronized playback.
 * To actively contribute to the XBMC community and its progress.

Will be adding more to this page as time permits.