Now that we have an official “playroom” downstairs, the question of a second TV has come up. Frankly I’m not really keen on having a TV out of ear and eye shot – call me old fashioned (or paranoid).
Anyhow, the thought occurred to me that we could set up a dumb terminal downstairs that would allow someone to watch DVDs and recorded shows from the DVR upstairs, but not have access to plain old cable.
I have started looking around for a small, quiet computer to put downstairs then – one that can connect to my DVR and play movies, DVDs, and music. One that takes up almost no room, very little power, and doesn’t do much else unless you know what you’re doing.
I started looking at building one, but found that the components are just too big if I want to keep it affordable. I couldn’t get a small form factor without paying through the nose. Then I came across this new ASUS computer that looked like a great candidate. Until I confirmed that it has no optical (DVD) drive. Nuts, it looked good too.
Then I came across Sony’s little troumph – the Playstation 3. Sure, sure, it is a game console. But it can also serve as a high definition video and audio player. It comes with a Blu-Ray DVD player (which retails for around $150.00 right now). Sony was also smart enough to permit and encourage others to install alternate operating systems on the system.  So along comes PSUbuntu which will allow me to run Ubuntu on the PS3, which means I can run MythTV, which would give me access to my DVR shows. So it has a DVD player, I can get my DVR shows, and I can control it completely like any other computer on my network as it will be running Ubuntu. And it retails for slightly more than that ASUS PC I was thinking about. Oh, and it plays games I guess.
So, where do I get one?
Sony’s decision to include an expensive home theatre drive in its game console was a great strategic move. It has brought me to their table immediately, even though I am not a game console buyer. It was either a great strategic move on their part, or they are just lucky. The fact that Microsoft went with a similar idea but different DVD format makes me think it was strategic. But I remember the uproar at the time as the Blu-Ray drive brought the price of the console way, way higher than most people were wanting to pay for a console. Little did they know that Sony actually had a different vision for their little gaming system … one that involves my playroom.