ok - before i get into this here's a bit of background on my ongoing quest for the ultimate mediaportal setup throughout my house. i work in a computer store so all the hardware i need i scrounge up from bits and pieces we've got lying around at work. which helps a lot - because my budget is basically $0 
so my project started when a customer comes into the store all in a fluster cos her lcd screen has stopped working (real estate agent... grrr.... worst people ever to work with!) 10 minute later she leaves with a new lcd (she's happy) and 30 minutes later i decide to try replacing her vga cable and score myself a pretty decent working lcd (i'm happy).
i decided this would probably look great if it was mounted on my living room wall, running mediaportal, with all my cds stored on the hard drive so it's basically like a giant jukebox.
so the first thing i do is rip off all the surrounds and end up with a flat panel screen thing:
(with all the circuit boards and crap taped down with masking tape...)
then it sits in the corner of my room for ages.
couple of months later we do a total replacement of all the pcs in this office - they were planning on throwing all the old ones out so i score a pretty modest p3 866, with 256mb ram and a rage 128 pro vid card. (i also managed to scam a p4 with 512mb ram, but that's being used for my main mp 'home theatre' pc. more on that later maybe). not bad for free i think!! (actually - i made $30 by selling some of the other pcs i scammed from there :wink: which basically got me a mce remote)
this sits in the corner of my room for ages until i finally get a free weekend and decide to cut a hole in the living room wall :twisted: (and the WAF hits an all-time low). had to feed the vga cable, the power cable for the lcd screen, and a usb cable up through the wall. getting the vga cable up there was an absolute pain of a job :evil: :evil: :evil:
everyone who visits the house in the next couple of days asks what the heck i did that for...
next step - need a picture frame to properly mount the lcd. $0 budget... decide the most appropriate frame is holding my degree. meh. degree sits on the floor of my room for now... and i score a pretty acceptable frame for the screen
it's not quite deep enough to fit the whole screen so i gotta make a deeper frame for it:
that's sitting waiting for the glue to set so i can paint it up properly.
in the meantime i decide to start work on the mce remote receiver. stupid thing has these tiny little star shaped screws that i couldn't find a screwdriver that fit. so i do the next best thing and smash all the plastic up :twisted: . good enough. then i find a screwdriver which fit anyway. oh well :roll:
that's waiting for me to finish the frame and mount the screen inside, and the little remote receiver somehow to.
in the meantime, i've installed mp on the machine and was really surprised how well it runs on it. i expected the pc to be wayyyy to underpowered for it to run smoothly, especially with that video card. everyone always goes on about needing a dx9 cable card but for something like this (music jukebox) this card is working fine!
so yeah - i'll post more when i've had a chance to finish it all and mount the screen properly!!
so my project started when a customer comes into the store all in a fluster cos her lcd screen has stopped working (real estate agent... grrr.... worst people ever to work with!) 10 minute later she leaves with a new lcd (she's happy) and 30 minutes later i decide to try replacing her vga cable and score myself a pretty decent working lcd
(i'm happy).i decided this would probably look great if it was mounted on my living room wall, running mediaportal, with all my cds stored on the hard drive so it's basically like a giant jukebox.
so the first thing i do is rip off all the surrounds and end up with a flat panel screen thing:
(with all the circuit boards and crap taped down with masking tape...)
then it sits in the corner of my room for ages.
couple of months later we do a total replacement of all the pcs in this office - they were planning on throwing all the old ones out so i score a pretty modest p3 866, with 256mb ram and a rage 128 pro vid card. (i also managed to scam a p4 with 512mb ram, but that's being used for my main mp 'home theatre' pc. more on that later maybe). not bad for free i think!! (actually - i made $30 by selling some of the other pcs i scammed from there :wink: which basically got me a mce remote)
this sits in the corner of my room for ages until i finally get a free weekend and decide to cut a hole in the living room wall :twisted: (and the WAF hits an all-time low). had to feed the vga cable, the power cable for the lcd screen, and a usb cable up through the wall. getting the vga cable up there was an absolute pain of a job :evil: :evil: :evil:
everyone who visits the house in the next couple of days asks what the heck i did that for...
next step - need a picture frame to properly mount the lcd. $0 budget... decide the most appropriate frame is holding my degree. meh. degree sits on the floor of my room for now... and i score a pretty acceptable frame for the screen
it's not quite deep enough to fit the whole screen so i gotta make a deeper frame for it:
that's sitting waiting for the glue to set so i can paint it up properly.
in the meantime i decide to start work on the mce remote receiver. stupid thing has these tiny little star shaped screws that i couldn't find a screwdriver that fit. so i do the next best thing and smash all the plastic up :twisted: . good enough. then i find a screwdriver which fit anyway. oh well :roll:
that's waiting for me to finish the frame and mount the screen inside, and the little remote receiver somehow to.
in the meantime, i've installed mp on the machine and was really surprised how well it runs on it. i expected the pc to be wayyyy to underpowered for it to run smoothly, especially with that video card. everyone always goes on about needing a dx9 cable card but for something like this (music jukebox) this card is working fine!
so yeah - i'll post more when i've had a chance to finish it all and mount the screen properly!!
