Of course a project encompassing all these aspects was not going to be plain sailing. Along the way I wasted quite a lot of time (and money) on ideas and products that just didn't pan out. Among the more memorable are:
Right at the beginning I knew I wanted digital radio as well as digital TV. DAB - Digital Audio Radio seemed the right solution. So I purchased a DAB PCI card from Modular Technology. No sooner had I done so than the BBC (bless 'em) put all the digital stations I wanted on the Freeview digital TV service. So the DAB card languishes unused.
Actually, this is no bad thing, as reception was never very good, the card was poorly manufactured and would often pop out of the PCI slot, and the software was very idiosyncratic and would have been very difficult to control via Girder.
Total Remote is an infra-red transmitter for Pocket PCs with the software to layout the buttons on the screen. The idea is quite clever - it uses the Pocket PC sound output at ultrasound frequencies to modulate the IR. However, it proved very unreliable, and the software was almost impossible to program - and even worse to change a layout.
As soon as I discovered NetRemote, Total Remote was gone!
One problem I have is that I still have to switch the TV screen on via an infra-red remote control. The TV-out from the PC does not contain enough signals to control the SCART pins which switch the screen on and off.
I tried TIRA - an infra-red transmitter which can be driven by Girder. It works, but I can't get it to "look pretty" in the home environment. The transmitter is quite directional and so must be in front of the TV pointing towards the screen's receiver. This means an ugly wire coming forward.
One plan was to resolve the problem with a custom circuit to drive the appropriate SCART pins. This was because I thought I could turn the TV on and off via SCART. Wrong! SCART can be used to cause a TV (already on) to switch to the appropriate AV port - and that's all. Back to the drawing-board.
Maybe I'll just save up and wait for a flat screen large 16*9 LCD display.
It's a pity. I tried really hard to get ShowShifter to work for me. I had not planned to use it for TV as it did not at the time support a digital card (although it does now). But I thought it could work as the DVD, CD and Jukebox player.
However, I found it very difficult to control from a rich Girder/NetRemote interface. It would have been OK if I wanted to use a remote with just six buttons (up, down, left, right, ok & exit), but I had lots of button possibilities and it was just too clunky to drive in that way. I also looked at using the ShowShifter SDK for my Pocket PC jukebox controls. But it appeared just too hard - the Windows Media SDK seemed much easier.
Zerama sounded promising - it was a Pocket PC controller for Windows Media Player. But it proved to be unreliable, it did not handle CDs, and I could not fathom out the "usage model" (though I usually got it to do what I wanted eventually). Also, it was untidy to have to switch look and feel in order to drive the jukebox function.
I also tried but just "couldn't get along with" a number of other Home Theater PC projects, including 4am Music Console and MyHTPC. I guess they didn't do what I personally wanted from Avid. But other tastes will differ.
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