We are building a home network. Network media player. How to create a home media center: programs and devices

I admit, I’m not much of a movie fan, but sometimes I still want to watch some new film (especially when I’m 55 television channels, which my Internet provider provides for free, there is nothing to watch). My TV is not small (the screen is 40 inches diagonally) and works quite well, but it was purchased at a time when availability USB TV The connector was very rare and greatly increased its price, so my Samsung does not have one. What can we say about the network connector... Therefore, to watch a movie (downloaded from the Internet) on big screen TV, I had to burn it to DVD and turn it on home cinema. My home theater is also far from new; it can only read video in the “avi” format and DVD discs. But for the time being, this was enough for me. Option to connect the TV to a laptop via HDMI cable was not considered due to the distance between the devices being too large.
IN lately The speed of your home Internet has increased significantly and it has become possible to watch movies online without downloading them to your hard drive at all. As a result, it was decided to purchase a media center that would manage all the multimedia content of our devices at home (there are two laptops at home, not counting the same number of tablets and a bunch of phones).
Having studied ready-made offers in online stores, I came to the conclusion that for the money they were asking for, I could easily assemble a much more powerful device myself by purchasing components in the same stores. Began to study homemade devices, I watched a lot of videos on YouTube about assembling media centers at home, but in the end I realized that I would like to assemble the same one for myself, ready list components are not available due to their lack of availability in stores.
I had to pick out the filling myself. The budget I allocated for the media center was limited to 13,000 rubles. The toad did not allow me to spend more on such a toy))). I also wanted to buy all the components in one specific online store, which gave a noticeable discount on the purchase (my favorite store, which has been successfully operating in our city for several years now, I use this store all the time, I am confident in its reliability and I have a loyalty card).
For a long time I could not decide on the choice of case; there were quite a lot of options. In the end I settled on Thermaltake Element Q


The case is quite roomy, in my opinion attractive and has a built-in power supply. The disadvantage of this model is the slightly noisy power supply fan. But, this problem Easily solved by replacing the fan with a slower one. There is a lot of information on selection on the Internet. the desired model fan I’ll say right away that I didn’t change anything, because... The power supply fan is the only source of cooling for all components of the case, and it actually doesn’t make too much noise.
The advantages of the case also include the presence of two USB connectors on the front panel. They may come in handy if you need to play videos or photos from flash drives of friends and acquaintances.
The motherboard chosen was GA-J1800N-D2P


Among the advantages is a fairly fast, soldered processor with passive cooling, built-in video and a low price. And Gigabyte products personally have never let me down.
There is only one drawback of this motherboard - only a pair of SATA connectors, which limited the number hard drives. Initially, I planned to install two disks in the media center - a 256 MB SSD for the operating system and a 1 TB HDD for data storage. But I had to abandon the SSD, simply because there was nowhere to connect it.
But I didn’t want to give up DVD-ROM at all, since quite often friends bring videos (from various celebrations and family holidays) on DVD discs (and my home theater is not always able to play them).
As DVD player LITE-ON IHDS118-04 was chosen (although by adding 100 rubles you can buy a writing drive, but I thought that there would be no need for recording discs).

HDD drive - WD Caviar Green WD10EZRX, 1TB (does not heat up too much and makes little noise, thanks to high speed spindle rotation).

Memory – two 4GB sticks (the maximum this motherboard supports), PATRIOT DDR3- 4GB 1333, SO-DIMM, Ret

The only one PCI slot on the motherboard, it was occupied by the Wi-Fi board D-Link AirPlusG DWL-G510 (the speed is quite enough for watching videos online and surfing the Internet). I didn’t even have to buy it - I found it among old computer components.


To control the media center I bought a small wireless keyboard with touchpad
RAPOO E2700

After all the components were purchased, I proceeded directly to assembly. No differences from assembling a regular PC in in this case No. Well, maybe only the dimensions of the case and motherboard are slightly smaller than usual. In general, my “media center” is the most regular computer, whose main task will be to work with multimedia.

A small surprise for me, after unpacking the case, was the presence of USB 3.0 connectors on the front panel (there was not a word about this on the online store website) and a large connector with which they connect to the motherboard (I had never seen one like this before - I haven’t built a PC for a long time, I’m behind the times).

Naturally, there was no such connector on the purchased motherboard, because although it has USB 3.0, it is connected directly to back panel, and on the board itself there is a regular connector for connecting case USB 2.0

I started looking for adapters on the Internet. I found it only on a well-known Chinese website, where I ordered it for 90 rubles. But my hands are itching))), I decided to re-solder the connector myself while the order was on its way from China (it’s still on its way). I found a USB 3.0 pinout on the Internet, and in an old, unnecessary case there was a “tail” with a USB 2.0 connector (for connecting to the motherboard) and carefully soldered the case connectors to the “new-old” cable. Naturally, they will only work via USB 2.0, but, as I already wrote, the choice is still not great - the motherboard has only one USB 3.0 and that one is on the rear panel.




I won’t describe the assembly process; even a child can handle it.


The housing includes all the necessary screws and plugs. All you needed was a Phillips screwdriver.
After all the elements were placed in their places and connected to the motherboard and power supply, I turned on the media center for testing.
The computer started working immediately and without any problems. Carefully laid the cables inside the case and tied them with plastic ties and closed the lid. The mechanical part of the assembly was completed.

The total cost of the parts was less than 11,000 rubles, and I successfully met the allocated budget.
Now the task is to install the operating system (OS). The motherboard website contains drivers for Windows 7 and Windows 8. I stopped at the latter. When installing the OS, I allocated a partition directly for Windows and programs (100 GB) and allocated the remaining space for data. Still Wi-Fi network, although it is quite fast with my Dlink DIR-850 router, but with such a number of home consumers, it is a bottleneck. And I transferred most of the films from the network drive (connected to the router) to the HDD of the media center.
Actually, there were no problems with installing the OS, the system fit like a glove, everything necessary drivers Found on the motherboard website. I spent a long time choosing a shell for the media center to make it more convenient to manage files. I went through about five of them and in the end... I realized that the most convenient thing is not to install any shell at all, but to create shortcuts to folders with videos, photos and music on the desktop and launch required file, simply clicking on it in Explorer (or even working in the eight-tiled interface). But, as they say, it comes down to taste and color... Maybe someone can tell me good shell, I'll be glad to try it.
To watch videos I installed the free and omnivorous Light Alloy, and for music, again free (in the basic version) JetAudio.
Yes, I forgot to write - I connected the media center to the TV with a VGA cable, and connected the sound with a regular shielded cable with 3.5 mm minijack connectors. The same cable, but with tulips on one side, connected the media center to the home theater, in case you wanted to listen to sound in decent quality (fortunately, the sound cards of modern motherboards allow you to output the required signal to almost every connector).

That's all, perhaps someone will find this note useful when assembling a similar device.
Thank you for your attention.

That's all, now in our system one remote control controls only MediaPortal and the TV, and the keyboard and mouse are used in other programs.

There is really one more small detail that bothers me for a long time annoying. When I was working at the monitor, the mouse cursor kept trying to get out onto the TV and this was very annoying. Unfortunately, Windows is terrible at managing multiple monitors, and standard means nothing could be done. So I asked a friend to write a small program that would limit the cursor to one screen, which he soon did, for which I thank him. True, later I discovered a wonderful project - . It not only has a program with which you can limit the cursor, but also several others that make working with two monitors much easier. For example, the DisMon program will allow you to run games on a second monitor (in our case, a TV), even those in which this feature is not provided by the developers.
Well, at the same time we solved another problem - launching games on any of the installed screens. If you don’t like the DisMon program for some reason, you can use another one - UltraMon, but keep in mind that this program is not free.

It is worth noting that when playing on a TV, you also need to somehow switch the sound to it, this is decided by choosing HDMI output as sound device by default before starting the game. In order not to spend a long time crawling through the system settings every time, you can use a wonderful program that allows you to do this with one click of the mouse on a shortcut.

There is nothing special to describe with television. Insert the DVB card, install the drivers, configure it in the MediaPortal server. There are of course many subtleties and pitfalls, but if you talk about it, you’ll have to write a separate article.

Finally, I will describe my home system to you for clarity.

The first room contains one of the personal computers.

Configuration:

• Motherboard: Asus F1A75-V Pro
• Processor: AMD A4-3300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (2500 MHz)
• Video adapter (integrated): AMD Radeon HD 6410D (512 MB)
• RAM: 3 GB
• Disk drive: Western Digital 1 TB and 750 GB
• Power supply: 350 W
• Monitor: Samsung 19"
• TV: LG 32"
• Operating system: Windows 7 x32

His tasks:

• Act as a personal computer in the first room. Surfing, watching movies, internet videos, music, etc.
  To carry out this task, a monitor, keyboard, mouse and sound speakers are located in the first room next to the system unit.
• Serve as a media center in the second room. Watching movies, TV series, TV programs, as well as communicating via Skype.
  For this purpose, in the second room there is a TV and a remote control receiver. remote control, as well as a webcam. The TV is connected with a fifteen-meter HDMI cable that runs through the entire apartment, and the cable is the cheapest, even without ferrite rings. Remote control receiver and camera are connected USB cables. Two passive cables of five meters each are connected together (I couldn’t find ten meters). It is worth noting that the Microsoft Remote Control receiver has a five-meter cable.
• Responsible for reception satellite television and subsequent broadcasting of streams to clients using the running MediaPortal server.
  The signal from the satellite is received by two DVB cards, to which cables from one satellite antenna are connected.
• This computer also serves as a media storage and torrent downloader. It works around the clock, non-stop.

There is another one in the third room personal computer.

Configuration:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3
• Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X3 445 (3200 MHz)
• Video adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (1024 MB)
• RAM: 6 GB
• Disk drive: Western Digital 640 GB
• CPU cooler: Scythe Ninja Mini (no fan)
• Input devices: Keyboard, Mouse, remote control
• Power supply: 450 W
• Monitor: Asus 24"
• TV: LG 32"
• Operating system: Windows 7 x64

Tasks:

• Act as a personal computer in the third room.
  Next to the system unit there are a monitor, keyboard, mouse and sound speakers.
• At the same time serve as a media center for watching videos from YouTube and Vimeo, films and TV series.
  To do this, in the same room there is a TV connected by a five-meter HDMI cable and a remote control receiver.
• The computer is also actively used as a gaming platform.
  If the game is conveniently controlled with a gamepad, then I play on the TV while lying on the couch, if with a keyboard and mouse, then I play while sitting at the table in front of the monitor. If, for example, someone is watching a movie on TV, and I’m playing at the same time, then instead of speakers I use headphones so as not to interfere with each other.
• If you want, you can watch TV or record programs.
  The MediaPortal server running on the first computer is responsible for this; the second computer connects to it as a client via the home network. By the way, at home I have a 100 megabit network and this is enough to watch not only SD, but also HD movies.

And this results in two full-fledged workstations located in the first and third rooms, plus two full-fledged home theaters located in the second and third rooms. Soon we plan to buy another small computer like Nettop-nT-330i and a TV for the kitchen, but it will work exclusively as an HTPC. The MediaPortal server supports as many clients as you like, so you can also watch satellite TV in the kitchen.

And finally, the pros and cons of such a system.

Pros:

• Does not require significant costs. Of course, if you already have a personal computer at home, designed not only for work, but also for games and entertainment. A TV is also not a purchase, since it is obvious that it is necessary for any HTPC. In fact, if you have a gaming PC at home, you will only need to buy the remote.
• The system is universal and scalable. By purchasing one computer, you get a lot of possibilities. If you want to improve it somehow, then it will be easy to do, and you won’t need to change the entire device.
• Omnivorous. That is, this HTPC will play almost any video and audio formats.

Cons:

• I would consider the “reliability” of the system to be a disadvantage. It's worth explaining here. If it is assumed that people who do not understand the intricacies of its operation will work on a personal computer, then minor problems will inevitably arise. Moreover, if they use MediaPortal exclusively (watch movies, TV and series on the TV), then there will be no problems. Here, of course, everything is decided by competent Windows settings, antiviruses and, of course, backups.
• I also recommend using only proven hardware. For example, I started having problems only after I upgraded my “server” to new platform from AMD. The previous system on their 785G chipset worked stably. What was I thinking when I started the upgrade...
• Also, the disadvantages include non-trivial system setup. If installing MediaPortal is quite an easy task that any user can handle, then setting up codecs, a remote control and especially a TV server may be an obstacle for some. Especially after it stopped working a while ago

After studying the market situation, I realized that there is no at the moment truly universal and relatively inexpensive devices that allow you to watch most of the variety of codecs and video containers high resolution, which is actively walking around the Internet.

With Blu-ray and HD DVD, in general, everything is clear - players have already appeared, are on sale and are quite actively falling in price. However, even if inexpensive universal players- in reality, this will not solve the problem, if only due to the fact that Blu-ray and HD DVD discs will not appear in more or less massive quantities in the country soon - in a year, not earlier. At the moment, we have officially released only about five Blu-ray discs (I have never seen HD DVDs), they are sold for wild money of 50-70 dollars (in the West they cost about 25 dollars and there is already a very large selection there), and in in their right mind, people would only spend that kind of money on “Casino Royale” - after all, it’s a spectacular movie, or on “Spider-Man 3” (out of great boredom), because they would buy the same film “Closer” on Blu-ray ", which, due to its intimacy, looks the same on Blu-ray, on DVD, or even on the fish-eye of a kitchen TV - it’s just stupid.

However, the Network exists to open up various interesting opportunities for wide-channel users (what a wonderful word). Currently circulating on torrents large number compressed from original Western Blu-ray and HD DVD high-resolution films (from 720p to 1080p), and you want to watch them on something, not on a monitor screen, but on a panel, through a projector, and so on.

There are two ways out.

The first is to purchase some kind of special device. However, inexpensive devices are crooked and not universal; expensive ones (from $700 and up) are more universal, but also quite crooked. I considered several similar options - from Dune Ultra to TViX-HD, but somehow I didn’t want to spend under $1000 (or more) for devices whose versatility and flexibility are in great doubt. And then I looked at my second home computer, which was assembled for various auxiliary tasks using half of old components, and I thought why not try to make do with little blood and see what happens.

As a result, I conducted an experiment - I turned an old computer into a media center and tried to use it as such. Typically, everything worked out, so now I’ll report on what exactly was used and how.

Just in case, I’ll immediately emphasize: I was not faced with the task of purchasing components most suitable for a universal media center and assembling the corresponding unit from them. The guys from THG solved this problem and wrote a very informative article about it "Building a multimedia PC (HTPC) for Blu-ray, HD-DVD and HDTV". I just took an old computer, modernized it very slightly, installed the appropriate software and saw what would happen. Well, here's what happened...

So, for these purposes I had a computer with the following configuration:

• "mother" ASUS P5GD1 Pro;
• processor - single-core Intel P4 3 GHz;
• memory - 2 gig;
• video - NVidia GeForce 8500 GT 128 MB ;
• screw - 300 gig Seagate Barracuda SATA.

The “mother” with the processor and memory are left over from the old working machine, and they are already about three years old. I recently bought a video card and hard drive. The body of the machine was good - Ascot 6AR6-F/420, but I decided to change it, because such a body is clearly inconvenient to install in a rack with equipment. I needed something desktop and, if possible, inexpensive - it’s clear that there are special solutions like SilverStone GRANDIA, but they cost around 7.5 thousand, which was clearly a bit steep.

Nothing special at all, but:

• looks decent and can be positioned vertically and horizontally;
• it can accommodate a full-size ATX motherboard (many analogues only install microATX, which was not suitable for me);
• has two coolers, one of which is switched on automatically based on the set temperature inside the case;
• has a liquid crystal display that shows the temperature inside the case, operation hard drive and warning numbers light up when certain temperatures are exceeded;
• two bays for hard drives in different compartments of the case;
• two DVD bays;
• good 400 W power supply.

With a 350-watt power supply, this case cost about 1800 rubles, with a 400-watt one - a little more than 2000 rubles. In my opinion, quite decent.

True, I was a little worried about installing a full-size motherboard into it - I had to first disassemble absolutely everything inside. However, with microATX such stress can be avoided, and I spent about twenty minutes on all this - also, in general, not so much.

An assembled computer in a rack with equipment looks like this:

I won’t say it’s worth a million dollars, but it’s quite decent, and my task was to make the most economical option.

Control panel

Remote control with IrDA block from WMC

That’s what I used, although in fact, any universal remote control with an IrDA receiver will do to solve this problem - for example, this one:

Such devices cost around 1000 rubles. The Microsoft remote didn't even require drivers - all players and media centers that can work with external remotes used it without problems.

Media center

To effectively control your computer from the remote control, you need an appropriate media center program. There was such a thing in the already mentioned Windows Media Center, and a similar system is available in Vista. However, I didn’t want to install the outdated Windows Media Center (I had a licensed disk from 2005), and I also didn’t want to use Vista for these tasks (especially since I don’t have a second licensed Vista). So I installed regular Windows XP and began looking for a suitable media center.

It turned out that the media center is not a problem. The eighth Nero has a similar media center (Nero Home), and other packages also have similar programs.

However, they suggested to me an even more convenient, and most importantly, completely free program called MediaPortal.

The installer weighs 27 megabytes, and after installation it is quite flexibly configured. It easily understands all audio and video codecs installed in the system, and you can either select them in a separate configuration program or change them inside the media center itself.

The interface of the media portal is simple and convenient. You can select any type of media files - DVD, pictures, music, video, TV, after which you go to the appropriate folders and select what you will play:

All this is perfectly controlled by the remote control, the video player is quite convenient and allows you to change various parameters: screen output mode, subtitles, audio track, bookmarks, and so on.

In addition, while watching, you can not only speed up playback forward and backward, but also, which is very valuable, jump forward and backward by a specified number of minutes or seconds (the range bar is set in the configuration), and this works without any problems on any containers and codecs.

This is very, very convenient, because, for example, the same Dune One rewinds HD movies absolutely disgustingly, or rather, practically does not rewind them, and if you accidentally press the Stop button on the remote control (which is no wonder with their remote control), then the movie It turns out that it’s at the very beginning and it’s easier to hang yourself here, because skipping, for example, until the middle is completely unrealistic. They say that some other players that play HD video also have such problems.

With a computer player, and especially a media center, you are deprived of these problems - it is instantly positioned where you need it.

Codecs

If, if you have a media center, you generally don’t need to look for some kind of software player, then quite a lot depends on the codecs installed in the system, especially when playing 1080p video encoded with all sorts of exotic codecs.

I studied this issue for quite a long time, downloaded and installed a variety of codecs and codec kits. As a result, I settled on the following option.

2. If you are not installing K-Lite Codec Pack Standard, and, for example, K-Lite Codec Pack Basic, then you will also need Haali MatroskaSplitter (download) - support for the most popular Matroska container on the Internet and other containers:

• MP4,
• AVI,
• OGG/OGM,
• MPEGTS.

After installing MatroskaSplitter (now called MediaSplitter, because it supports not only Matroska), any players in the system will play MKV and other containers - provided, of course, the appropriate codecs are available, but almost all of them are included in the K-Lite Codec Pack. For example, after installing the K-Lite Codec Pack and Matroska Splitter, even the most standard Windows Media Player I played MKV movies made with the H.264 or VC-1 codec without any problems or stutters. The same applies to the player built into MediaPortal.

If you install exactlyK-Lite Codec Pack Standard or Full , then you don’t have to install MatroskaSplitter separately, this program is included in the codec package.

3. The third codec, in general, is not required, and, unlike previous programs, it is not free, but this package is considered optimal for playing movies encoded with the H.264 codec and packaged in MKV (Matroska). With it, even on not very powerful computers, it was possible to avoid brakes and jerks during playback, so I purchased and installed this particular onecodec for H.264 playback is CoreAVC.

So, in theory, one free K-Lite Codec Pack Standard should be enough for you. Well, if some codecs slow down during playback, then you will have to start optimizing the codecs and players (for example, there is a Crystal Player, which, as they write on the forums, saves in many problematic situations). However, on my computer configuration, nothing else was needed -K-Lite Codec Pack Standard, CoreAVC and MediaPortal.

Iron

Well, the last thing we need to talk about is bringing all this splendor to the home theater. With video, the situation is resolved, in general, simply. If you have a modern LCD TV, plasma panel or a projector (in my case we are talking about a projector), then they must have HDMI input. A DVI-HDMI adapter costs 200 rubles and can be purchased at any store. I also saw DVI-HDMI wires - especially for such cases.

The situation with sound was also resolved quite simply. My motherboard has 5.1 audio installed (it has been included in many motherboards for several years), and the outputs include optical and coaxial S/PDIF. I bought a regular S/PDIF coaxial cable and connected the computer's audio output to a similar input on the receiver. In the case of TVs and panels, purely theoretically, it is possible to display ordinary stereo sound on them, but what the hell do you need with ordinary stereo sound when playing high-definition video? And the sound is output to the receiver via S/PDIF, that’s all.

The only thing is that, of course, a maximum of DD/DTS will be available and you will be deprived of the delights of 5.1 PCM HD sound. However, for my purposes this is not a problem - usually in HD films distributed over the Internet, there is a regular DD or DTS track.

Also, this option does not solve the problem of playing Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

However, as I already said, you can start thinking about Blu-ray and HD DVD no earlier than in a year, and even in this case for this kit you will need to install a universal Blu-ray and HD DVD drive, as well as change the video card to something like ATI HD 2600 XT/Pro - this will solve the problem with HD sound and HDCP (encrypted content) support.

In this case, these problems are not yet a concern, so the computer is simply placed in a rack, connected to the projector’s HDMI cable via an adapter, connected to the receiver via an S/PDIF cable, and off you go - watch movies in high definition.

I've been chasing this joy for three days now - the flight is quite normal. The only thing missing is the ability to turn on the computer from the remote control (I'll have to dig into the BIOS - maybe it still supports wake-up via USB), but this is not a problem - I'm not too lazy to press the button.

Yes, to local home network it is connected via a regular WiFi adapter that plugs into USB (I did not have Ethernet connected to the rack). The transfer speed is about 2 megabytes per second. This is clearly not enough for playing HD video from other computers, but I use the network only to upload new movies to the media center disk - in this case, this speed is quite enough. In addition, if necessary, you can connect some external screw to the media center via USB - and download movies at a noticeably higher speed (usually about 40 megabytes per second).

In general, the experiment, I think, was a success. The task was to assemble a multimedia computer with “little effort” from virtually unnecessary components - that’s how it was all done. You only had to purchase a housing, a DVI-HDMI adapter and an S/PDIF cable (in your case, you will also need to buy a universal remote control with an IrDA sensor).

The computer has turned into a universal media center and now plays both DVDs and any media content from the Internet (and I still don’t use it for playing and recording television and satellite programs, since I simply don’t need it). Taking into account the use of some old components, this pleasure was quite inexpensive, and in terms of versatility, compatibility, customizability and customizability, such a kit is noticeably superior to any ready-made solutions, which usually only start at $700.

However, thanks to Kodi (formerly XBMC), there is a free alternative for it that will make playback problems a thing of the past. To prepare collections of music and video, the program receives additional information from the Internet: for example, for music - the album cover and its description, for video - posters and a summary. Thanks to this, you can bring order to your media collection, and, for example, select films only from a certain director or genre. Kodi "lives" in an active community (kodi.tv), which develops free add-ons for a media center: for example, for online services such as YouTube, customizing the user interface or for accessing cloud storage.

Absolutely free

Kodi is worth trying out without delay. After installing it on your home PC, you can add your videos to the Kodi media center by going to the “Video” menu and selecting “Files.” First change the language from English to Russian in the “System | Settings | Appearance | International | Language". Now click on “Add Video...” and then on “Browse”. Here you can choose the location where all your movies are stored. This can be either a folder on the computer or on the server, or shared folder on your home network. Once you have specified the name of the media source, categorize the content that is in that folder. In our case, select “Movies”. Once you click OK, Kodi will automatically download the movie's cover, description, director, genre, and rating information from the Internet.

Do the same with the music and photos you want to access. To expand functionality, click on "Add-ons" under the lines "Video", "Photos" and "Music". Next, go to the list of installed services. In the "Video" menu you can, for example, find online video libraries of TV channels, numerous video portals such as YouTube, or streaming services. Audio extras are also available in the form of Internet radio stations and streaming music services.

To play your Kodi Home Library on your smartphone, tablet, TV, or network audio device, you must enable the UPnP server. To do this, in the “System” menu, go to “Settings” and click on “Services”. Now in the “UPnP/DLNA” section you can activate the “Enable access to media library” item and enjoy viewing photos, movies, and listening to music on your mobile device.

Playing content on your home network

While most network-capable TVs and audio devices come out of the box capable of streaming media via DLNA, smartphones and tablets often require additional applications. On devices under iOS control For this you can use, for example, VLC and mconnect players for mobile devices, and on Android gadgets - BubbleUPnP. Thus, Kodi home use provides exceptional services. And for gaining access to the media library while traveling, there are other, more suitable programs.

The idea of ​​making a home multimedia system has been around for quite some time. The prerequisite for the creation was getting rid of a large system unit and installation on workplaces laptop with a connected monitor. The first implementation option that did not start is a media server from an unused Android smartphone. This idea ran into hardware limitations (weak Wi-Fi module, small amount of built-in memory, slow reading/writing files via OTG) and software (lack of stable “server” software for Android system). Afterwards, the workplace was reorganized and there was nowhere to put the monitor. Then it was possible to stop, recycle the monitor, take it to the dacha, connect the TV hanging above the computer to the VGA port, and move the window with the movie running on the computer for everyone to see, but a 20", 16:9 format monitor with a resolution of 1600x900 is preferable, than a 15" TV, 4:3 format, with a resolution of 1024x768. Having replaced the TV with a monitor, one could have stopped, but the TV was controlled by a remote control and was used by household members who, with a computer, were like, “Oh, what is this?”

If you are interested in the idea, welcome to cat.

Note:

Initially, the project involved using an old netbook from which the display could be removed. Fortunately, it turned out to have insufficient memory for a multimedia device, only 160 GB, and the laptop has hard drive for 500 GB. It could have been changed hard drives in places, but it didn't seem like the best idea.

When finishing the hardware, you can add a cool USB hub, because the laptop has only 3 USB ports, one of which is USB 3.0, used to connect flash drives, and you need to connect a printer, scanner, IR receiver and mouse.

Full list of hardware used:

• Laptop ASUS K46CM;
• Monitor ASUS VE208N;
• IR receiver Lenovo eHome OVU430006/01;
• Lenovo MCE Remote RC1974511/00;
• USB hub CBR CH 165 ;
• Logitech M185 mouse;
• Router D-Link DIR-615.

Software implementation

We install XBMC. After installation, the remote control is immediately supported, but the launch is performed on the main screen of the laptop. The standard interface language is English. We do the initial setup.

To change the language go to:

System > Appearance > International > Language

System > System > Video Output > Display Mode > select Full Screen #2

1. If the XBMC window is not in focus, then XBMC cannot be controlled;
2. If the XBMC window is not in focus, control is transferred to Windows;
3. You cannot launch XBMC from the remote;
4. Insufficient control settings, for example, you cannot call the context menu;
5. It is not possible to independently configure the remote control buttons to trigger an event in the player.

The point of departure for the search was the article “How to make a “two in one” from a home computer - home theater + personal computer”, which uses MediaPortal, which contains standard setting Require focus. To solve the problem of transferring control to Windows, the author manually edited the registry.

In the process it was found how possible without third party programs assign application launch to the green button on the remote control Windows icon. The point is that we set up quick start program to any key combination, and add the code for this key combination to the green button. You can read more in the topic “Reassigning MSRemote buttons and starting XBMC with the “GREEN” button” on XBMC Russia.

Another search led to two articles on how to completely (without a blinking diode) turn off the monitor using software methods. Articles on Habré, for different OS:

Run EventGhost as administrator. Let's add a plugin for managing XBMC.

Configuration > Add Plugin… > from the Program Control folder select XBMC2

From the plugin settings, it is clear that, by intercepting the signal from the remote control buttons, EventGhost sends a command to XBMC. Therefore, let's go to the XBMC settings.

System > Settings > Services > Remote control> check the box Allow programs on this system to manage XBMC

All that remains is to find the following:

• Launch XBMC from the remote control;
• Switching display modes from the remote control.

To automate switching screen modes, let's create two *. bat file A:

Taskkill /im XBMC.exe %windir%\System32\DisplaySwitch.exe /internal
To switch to a computer where we first terminate the XBMC.exe process so that XBMC does not jump to the built-in display.

%windir%\System32\DisplaySwitch.exe /extend
To switch to advanced mode.

Let's create our own macro:

Configuration > Add Macro... > Window > Find a window > select XBMC

This event will check whether XBMC is open on our system. To enable a macro in the Find a windows setting, there should be a checkbox at the top called Stop macro if target is found (if we have an XBMC window running, it does not need to be turned on again).

The regular tool from EventGhost, called Start Application, does not have the ability to run *.bat files, so you need to add Python script execution to the created macro. Let's select the macro we created and proceed further:

Configuration > Add Action… > EventGhost > Python Script

Import os import time os.system("C:\Media.bat") time.sleep(2) os.startfile(r"C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\XBMC.exe")
Those. we launch the *.bat file, wait 2 seconds for the display mode to switch so that XBMC starts on the second screen and launch XBMC.exe

In the image and likeness of the previous macro, we create a new one to turn off external monitor and XBMC
In Find a window you need to check the box Stop macro if target is not found, and the Python Script to turn it off:

Import os os.system("C:\Computer.bat")
In both created macros you need to move the event that occurs when you press the On/Off button on the remote control.

Using command line scripts has a small drawback: when the script is executed, the cmd window blinks. You can avoid this by writing a program that executes the script code on your behalf.

As a result, we should get something like this view of the EventGhost window:

When using the functionality created by EventGhost, a problem arose that XBMC starts out of focus and the taskbar is always lit on top of the media center.

Because of this, I made the window move ahead of all others using the familiar Find function a window, with a check mark Stop macro if target is not found. I hung a green “Start” button on this on the remote control, together with going to the main menu, when controlling XBMC. I won’t go into detail about creating the macro; I’m attaching a screenshot:

On the colored buttons of the remote control, in the bottom row, I hung the following events:

The result is the final EventGhost configuration:

Let's save:

Lusrmgr.msc

Users > right click on Administrator > uncheck Disable account

Login to the Administrator account, set a strong password . We log out of the account.

Any text editor, which can be saved in DOS-866 encoding, create a *.bat file with the following content:

Runas /savecred /user:Administrator "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\EventGhost.exe -h"
That is, run the EventGhost program, saving the password, as an administrator, with the -h switch (run to tray). Be sure to save in DOS-866 if you did not change the encoding on the command line.

Turn off EventGhost, run the resulting script, enter the password.
Place the script in startup:

Shell:Startup
The way will open C:\Users\%user%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, into which we will move the resulting script. When %user% logs in, EventGhost is automatically launched, with full rights. When using other startup methods, full access was not transmitted, including through the Task Scheduler.

Now turning on the computer will greet us with a blinking command line window, which will notify us that EventGhost has started.

In terms of startup, IR Server Suite would be better, since it starts as Windows service, but I didn’t really want to deal with its settings when EventGhost started working for me.

For more complete remote control from the remote control, you need to make some Windows settings, in power options:

1. %power plan% > Require password on wakeup > No;
2. USB Settings > Temporarily disable USB port option > Disabled;
3. Power buttons and lid > Close lid action > No action required;
4. Power Buttons and Cover > Power Button Action > Sleep.

We reboot the computer (using the remote control button, of course), check the operation of everything that we have configured and configure XBMC to our liking. For example, I enabled full support for UPnP so that you can access your home media library from your smartphone or, conversely, run a media file from your smartphone in XBMC.

System > Services > UPnP > put a dot next to each menu item

Let's add the promised IPTV.
First, let's download the PVR IPTV Simple plugin for XBMC. GitHub page, download (Google Docs).

Install the add-on in XBMC:

System > Add-ons > Install from ZIP file> select the path to the downloaded *.zip file

System > TV > General > set the dot to On.

System > TV > General > Clear PVR database

System > Add-ons > Included add-ons > PVR IPTV Simple Client > Configure

#EXTM3U tvg-shift=3 #EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="id1" tvg-name="Channel_1" tvg-logo="logo1" group-title="Group 1",Channel 1 http://STREAMURL #EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="id2" tvg-name="Channel_2" tvg-logo="logo2" group-title="Group 2",Channel 2 udp://STREAMURL ... !}
Although I also had this plugin:

#EXTM3U #EXTINF:0,Europa Plus TV rtmp://europaplus.cdnvideo.ru/europaplus-live/mp4:eptv_main.sdp ...
The main thing is to save the *.m3u file in UTF-8 encoding in order to correctly display Russian names of TV channels.

We assign any convenient button on the remote control to open TV channels in EventGhost (XBMC2 > Buttons > Remote > Live TV) and by clicking on it a list of available TV channels will open.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to configure stream recording, which apparently is not supported by the plugin, since the record button is not active, unlike the other buttons.

Full list of software used: Add tags