RE: Can anyone get the connected home right?

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Then yes, that'd be me.

I had a play with a Kaliedescape a few years ago (so with standard def
material) and it was bloody nice, the kit was beautifully assembled and
presented and as far as I can tell the UI seemed bug free and reasonably
easy to use without being "pre-trained" but then again for the
money I'd
expect it to be! (The servers and DVD drives looked great but they're
intended to be hidden in racks so that's a bit of a waste IMO.) Only thing
=
I
didn't like at the time was that they had separate "analogue"
(composite,
s-video and component video) and "digital" (DVI) players - they
now have a
player that covers all bases with composite, s-video, component and HDMI
outputs.=20

I priced up a Kaleidescape for someone at the time though and it was just
scary ... for a handful of room players, about 600 DVDs worth of storage
an=
d
a single network attached DVD drive (for ripping) I think it came to about
=A348k. I'd expect the storage costs per DVD to have come down a fair bit
(=
I
know that the maximum capacity per server has certainly increased hugely)
but the kit is never going to be cheap. However as an "object of
desire"
then it probably shouldn't ever be cheap enough for everyone to be able to
afford it. No matter how much I'd like a setup here I'm not going to launch
into a tirade of "It's far too expensive and they should sell it
cheaper as
they'd sell more." I see that they've now integrated the DVD drive
into the
latest player which apart from saving a fortune on a rather stupidly (IMO)
thought through system whereby the ripping unit was a separate device also
means that they're now legally able to produce their players (the licensing
of DVD players *WITHOUT* a DVD drive in them has always been something that
has plagued manufacturers and sticking in a local DVD drive gets round all
that).=20=20

I'm still looking for that "ideal player" ... gone through loads
of
possibilities over the last few years and it would be really nice if it
wer=
e
possible to use something like an AppleTV for that purpose as it is a nice
looking bit of kit at a reasonable price and hardware-wise it ticks the
boxes (for video and audio outputs, no external PSU, nice and quiet running
etc.).

Seeing that they've got OSX running on it now then it might be getting
towards being more of an option if only I was any good at writing a UI ...
currently I have a really ropey looking front end that I wrote in a hurry
i=
n
Dark BASIC which simply goes and looks at two network shares - the first
being the network share containing all my DVDs and the second being the
Recorded Programs share of my MCE machine - it then reads the contents of
those folders (i.e. the files in them), does a little bit of manipulation
o=
f
the names of the files from the MCE machine to make them readable (i.e.
extracts the name, source channel and recording date / time) produces two
scrollable lists - one of movie names and one of recorded TV program names
that you can just flip through. Selecting an entry just spawns off
Zoomplayer or TheaterTek and when they've finished doing their bit then it
just returns back to my program.

It looks crude as hell because it *IS* as crude as hell but it works, it
doesn't crash and it doesn't at any point make any references to any
networ=
k
locations or file names within the "user interface" (I use the
term "user
interface" very loosely at this time) - I keep telling myself that
if/when =
I
get some spare time I'll extend it to include some funky smooth scrolling
within the lists (which I like to think would look as slick as the
scrollin=
g
within MCE but I know won't do as I won't have the patience) and also some
better searching and linking facilities (at the moment I can filter the
lis=
t
of DVD movies by a substring but again it's crude and clunky rather than
being slick and I'd like to incorporate cover art and actor searching /
linking).

I don't like devices that try to be all things to all men and then fail to
be properly useable in any of them (the old "Jack of all trades and
master
of none" principle) - or worse prove unreliable and either hang or
crash!
... (TiVo was a superb example of a really nicely focussed product that was
simply superb in how it delivered its core functionality without being
loaded down with unnecessary fluff and/or fripperies.) I have a laptop and
PCs if I want to browse the internet so I don't want that being an option
o=
n
my TV, I have my SliMP3s if I want to play music (and they don't need the
telly turned on to be able to interact with), I have handy remotes if I
wan=
t
to be able to turn things on and off so why do I want a home automation GUI
on my TV screen? Be realistic about what you want devices to do (and what
they really should do) and don't just implement functionality because it
ca=
n
be done rather than because it's a really useful function.

I guess this is a roundabout way of explaining *WHY* I liked the
Kaliedescape when I had a play ... it wasn't because it was feature rich,
i=
t
wasn't because it was loaded down with moronic functionality that was
bolte=
d
in just because the hardware could do it and the software author thought it
would be a good idea. It just "worked" in the way that a normal
DVD player
"works" because you stick a DVD in and it starts to play -
there's the
minimum of confusing fluff between you and what you want to do!

Of course if you can't afford to by the kit that does the job
"right"
there's not that many options for you to take but generally they boil down
to a combination of the following:

1) Forget about doing it. (Doesn't really apply with the crowd on here.)

2) Whine about how much the proper kit is and how the manufacturers should
modify their sales model to get it right. (Which strangely always seems to
manage to include the person grumbling about the current price into their
target market).

3) Wait for someone else to "home brew" a solution and accept the
compromises in UI and functionality that they impose on their solution that
don't fit in with what you want.

4) Home brew your own solution which takes time and you have to wait for
other people or companies to provide the product(s) that plug the gaps in
the solution that you can't fill from your own abilities.

5) Go work for a company that produces (or may produce) a solution to do
what you want to achieve, if you're lucky. ;-)

Phil