Boxee media center on an Acer Revo 3700

It's amazing that you can get a full HD 1080p home media center for under £200. The Acer Revo 3700 is a prefect piece of hardware for running Boxee's free media center software. If you're thinking of gettin something like this for your home, it's definately worth checking out Boxee's own hardware - the Boxee box by Dlink, which is an acquired taste in design, but also comes with the Boxee remote with a full keyboard on the back. I decided to go with the Acer Revo instead, as it left more options for updating or switching to other software down the line. Note Boxee is built on xbmc and if you're not keen on the social sharing side of Boxee, it's well worth checking out! So here follows a brief guide to setting up your Acer Revo 3700 as a home media center.

1) Assemble your kit, hook up your Revo to your TV for audio or sound, i use the VGA and standard audio out, but there's HDMI there too, either way you'll get the full 1080p presuming your TV can handle the resolution.

2) Install Ubuntu. The cheaper Revo comes with Linux Linpus installed, I created a Live USB of Ubuntu 10.10 and booted to usb. To do this press f12 when you turn it on at the initial Acer screen and select the USB stick from the menu. Then once the desktop loads, use the icon on the desktop to install Ubuntu, let it use the entire disk and replace Linpus on your Revo.

3) Once instaled there's some tweeking to be done, first is to fix the wireless card. Open the terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

then add the following line to the end of the file:

blacklist rt2800pci

press 'Ctrl + O' to write the file, then 'Ctrl + X' to close it. That's it! the first time you shutdown the machine it'll freeze, when this happens, hold the power button in for 6 seconds and it'll power down suddenly. Press it again to power it on and it shouldn't freeze again now the fix has been applied.

Then apply the updates. Go to System -> Administration -> Update Manager install all updates. It'll take a while. Then go System -> Administration -> Additional Drivers and enable the nvidia driver (recommended). This will require a restart to take effect.

4) next install Boxee. Go to www.boxee.tv and download the version for Ubuntu Linux. Once downloaded install the software.

That's essentially it. You're now ready to go, launch Boxee and add your videos to the library and enjoy watching some videos!

LOVEFiLM to stream Movies to Xbox - UK! (maybe)

America's streaming movie service provided by Netflix has been a huge success!

The Xbox LIVE service seems really unfair, if you read MajorNelson's blog (xbox developer), how often to you read his new announcement folowed by (US only).

and with the currency exhange at the minute, we are paying a lot more than our American friends, for what is a much more limited service.

They pay $38.99 (which is £27.35)
We pay £40.00

But there's not a lot we can do bout it... I've asked MajorNelson bout it, but he refuses to respond.

I asked him why they don't make a similar arrangement with LOVEFiLM to provide a streaming service in the UK as well, and whilst he didn't respond, interestingly LOVEFiLM would reply to the same question.

Their response:

"It's something we're investigating and definitely and area that we'd like to explore."

so there's hope for us yet eh? Lets hope they get round to sorting this, before Netflix entend their coverage to the UK, surely there's a huge un-tapped market for both to grab at?

Lets face it, until you can stream movies for a membership fee of £5/month like they do in the States, we're not paying to rent movies from XBOX LIVE.

Xbox media streaming and New Dashboard Update

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I show you how to configure both your Xbox 360 and your PC to enable streaming of Music and Video - including DIVX.I'll also walk you through some of the new features expected in the Fall dashboard update later in 2008, including new avatars, 1vs100, and the new streaming movies deal with Netflix.

Turn your old Xbox into a HD media centre - Video Tutorial

In this Podcast Tamak and I show you how to hack your old xbox to load XBoxMediaCentre turning it into a HD home theatre system with surround sound support, streaming any kind of media right off you home network.

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This video uses Adobe Flash 9, to update your version of flash click here

Warning: this is a fairly big project, which we've rushed through. It does work but as with all projects you may face issues, we dont take any responsibilty for the consequences.

19" Samsung Wide Screen Monitor

I just got an absolute deal!

DVD Wars - Blu-ray or HD-DVD?

Dammit! Toshiba, the company behind the HD-DVD technology has backed down, meaning Sony's Blu-ray will be the new standard.

DivX playback on Xbox 360

There's now new support for video playback on the 360.

Hooking up your ipod

Using your ipod with your xbox360 is so easy, and works like a dream.

I thought it would just connect as a removable drive and you'd have to browse through looking for your songs, but no. It connects (the same as when it connects to itunes) and the xbox media center lets you browse through Artists, Albums, Genres, it even reads playlists straight from your ipod.

It's so good that they have gone to all the bother of making it compatible with Apple's Ipod, cause listening to your own music whilst playing games is a real advantage and improves the whole gaming experience.

You will need to make sure you xbox dashboard is up-to-date though, as i dont think the ipod support is available straight outa the box, but you dont need to subscribe to use your free silver membership so plug it into your hub and let it update.

Xbox Surround sound

I had my xbox360 hooked up to my surround system using the red and white phonos and relied on Dolby ProLogic II to provide me with surround sound in my games.