The HTPC Thread - Dont buy an HTPC - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The HTPC Thread - Dont buy an HTPC

namlosh: Feb 11, 2014; I name this haircut "The Sad Rhino".

wolrah posted:

That sort of a setup still seems to be pretty common in the pirate TV world. I've seen a lot of DirecTV interfaces show up on streams of sports events. The component input has of course been replaced with an HDMI capture device, but the principle is the same. The popularity of game streaming has driven the prices way down on the capture devices too.

A lot of higher end boxes support some kind of serial interface to be linked in to fancy home theater or commercial control systems, if you use boxes that support those you can avoid the quirks of IR blasters.

TheScott2K posted:

it was a rad 2 years or so where doing CableCard on a PC didnt necessitate ebaying the single-tuner ATI thing that came with prebuilt PCs and only using Windows Media Center.

Back in 09 or so I actually had a cable box hooked up to a Hauppage HD PVR, this hot USB monstrosity that would take a component HD signal and bark to your cable box via an IR blaster. I had a special piece of (paid) software that would trick WMC into thinking it was a digital cable tuner card, so every time you changed channels you'd see it typing in the channel name in the cable box's interface. Audio would also gradually go out of sync over the course of an episode of something unless you used TOSLINK. Managed to kill that bit of hardware by plugging the wrong unlabelled AC adapter into it. Fucker just never turned on again.

I still have one of those external ATI cards in storage where it�s sat since I got the HD homerun 3 tuner cablecard pci adapters when it first came out. I used that thing for a solid 6 months before deciding I didn�t need cable and sold it on eBay for what I paid because they were still scarce at the time.

There�s nothing like having that much power and space to record tv to show you that tv isn�t really that important... at least for me. I burned out

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 00:11

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 22:38

namlosh: Feb 11, 2014; I name this haircut "The Sad Rhino".

The biggest piece to me is the database of devices and IR codes... I�ve been a harmony user for forever and have 3 of their remotes right now. That DB had everything in it. What I would do to get my hands on that...

I feel like this could be a huge opportunity for someone to come in and fill the vacuum with smart home enabled stuff

# ¿ Apr 12, 2021 14:44

namlosh: Feb 11, 2014; I name this haircut "The Sad Rhino".

tuyop posted:

I have an app called "mobile mouse pro". You install a server on the computer and run the app and your phone becomes a keyboard and trackpad over wifi. Bluetooth is an IAP but it doesn't work very well.

seconding this� i think this was one of the first apps I ever paid money for like 10 years ago and I�ve been nothing but happy the entire time. I don�t use it all the time at all but when I want/need to control my mouse or volume or whatever on my pc from far away, this little dude�s server is there waiting to oblige.

I hope it doesn�t turn out to be a horrible security/privacy threat or something

# ¿ Oct 17, 2023 15:04

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