DVR update (again)

After a few nights of work, this is where we stand. Right now I have a system that boots up and auto-logs in to an XFCE desktop. I can use my remote to start/stop the screensaver, open/close the DVD tray, play and control a DVD through xine, and shutdown/reboot the system.

So it's not totally complete or overly fancy or anything, but I'm pretty damn impressed with it. I've had to recompile a few things and dig a bit into how some of this stuff works. It's been pretty interesting to learn about. I think it's made for a fun project and that's basically what the point has been. Not so much getting a working DVD/DVR machine, but more just dicking around with cool software and cool hardware.

Tomorrow night is my night for getting mythtv setup and configured. My commitment moment will be signing up for the $20/year Schedules Direct TV listing data. When I've done that, I don't see any chance for turning back. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to figure out, but we'll see. I'm also getting kind of worried about the amount of heat this thing generates. In order to fit my PVR-500 in there, I had to jack the blower from the CPU. That means all of the heat from the CPU is mixing with the heat from the capture card and the HDD and the DVD-RW and whatever else in there is contributing to the heat death of the universe. I need to try dremeling out the blower and putting it back in to see if it helps a bit. If not... well... who knows. Best make sure I back up everything I'd need to rebuild, just in case.

In non-DVR news, I got my official Athene DVD and it was as funny as I thought it'd be. It made for a fun test of the new remote functionality. I'm also considering catching Cloverfield tomorrow. I dunno if that will happen, but I'm stoked to see it on the big screen. It'd cut into my mythtv time a bit (it's a short movie), but it may just be worth it.