TechnoChubby

Ok, one week later and project is not completed.  We have not spent the last week in vain.  We have tested the various parts and we decided to make some changes and have settled on a new plan. 

First off, let’s go over the returns:

We tested the DiNovo Ege from Logitech and decided that as cool as it looks, it would not work for our purposes.  So, it got returned. It’s touch pad and volume control was slightly unresponsive.  The other thing was that it’s bluetooth/wireless connection was single device only.  We were hoping that it would allow for “pairing” to a single bluetooth dongle attached to the system and thereby eliminating the need for a seperate wireles dongle.  (Note:  there is already several wireless devices in that area, I want to keep them to a minimum)

We also returned the LG Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive.  This was an excellent drive.  It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and played Blu-Ray and HD-DVD fine.   This was returned due to major changes in our original plan. (Read on…  this drive has not gone away)

The New Plan:

Originally, we had hope to consolidate all our home service on a single box that would be attached to the TV in the Living Room.  This box would act as our server, media center, and have VM’s for various other things that we need to work on in the home.   After some thought, (and as we were nearing implementation),  we decided that it would be beneficial to keep our services seperated.  You never know when a system might need to be upgraded or resources allocated for whatever reason.  Especially since the system attached to the TV would be used by several people for watching of media on the Television.  So much for centralized.

The “new plan” is to seperate the two main functions.  We will seperate the “Server” and the “Media Center PC”. We also felt that the new Quad core PC would be a bit overkill for just a media center box.  So, we’re adding a 3rd PC to the mix.  Below is a geneeral diagram of what the network will look like after it’s implemented:

For the new “Media Center Only” box, we decided to go with a pre-configured system.  We chose the HP S3330F Slimline PC with the following specs:

 Specifications

• AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5400+ for TRUE multi-tasking (2.80GHz, 512kB +512KB L2 Cache, 2000MHz System Bus)
• Memory: 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM memory (2×1GB)
• Hard Drive: 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• Expandable Drive Bay: HP Pocket Media Drive Bay
• Optical Drive: Blu-ray / HD DVD player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology
• Video Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT graphics card with 256MB dedicated video memory, DVI, and HDMI capabilities with support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10. Up to 1023MB Total Available Graphics Memory as allocated by Windows Vista®.
• Network Interface: Integrated 10/100 BaseT network interface
• Wireless Connectivity: Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g
• TV Tuner: NTSC TV tuner and over-the-air ATSC high-definition television tuner
• Remote Control: HP Media Center remote control with IR receiver
• Sound: High Definition Audio, 6 speaker configurable
• Fax/Modem: 56k modem
• Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium

External Ports

• 15-in-1 memory card reader ? supports SmartMedia, xD, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Compact Flash I, Compact Flash II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro Duo, RSMMC, MMC Mobile, MMC+, Mini Secure Digital, IBM Microdrive
• 6 USB 2.0 port(s) (2 FRONT, 4 back)
• 1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) (back)
• Headphone (front)
• Microphone/Line-in/Line-out (back)
• 2 PS/2
• Digital Audio-out
• LAN
• VGA-out

We will keep the  original server box for our home server but it will be re-configured with CentOS 5.1 running VMWare server and Webmin for administration.  This will have our main files and act as a backup system for our media files.

We liked the Quad Core PC that we built so much, that we are keeping it.  It will be used for our Video/Media editing machine.

This is where we are at on this project.  We’ll do a round up in the next few days once it’s all configured.