LinuxMCE

LinuxMCE
I am overwhelmed at the AWESOMENESS of this product.
A free media centre & home automation operating system (it's actually an add-on for Ubuntu GNU/Linux).
It is fucking amazing what it can do.
You set up a 'core' system (which is the only PC that you have to install anything on), then place 'media directors' around the house (at any TV or stereo), and they run a network boot version of the Linux client, and synch with it. This means that Windows clients only need a reboot to become 'media directors' and then a subsequent reboot to turn back into Windows clients - with no changes to anything on the PC.
These 'media directors' then supply you with all the media you want - music, movies, weather, stock reports, photos of the day (courtesy of flickr) etc etc. Any movies you have downloaded, any music you have, any pictures you have are all made available to them using an easy interface - which is designed for remote control navigation.
Now, what else is awesome is that the 'core' can control your home automation system, so it will be in charge of dimming the lights, closing the blinds, delivering phone calls etc, etc.
Now, it ALSO controls your alarm system (is it good to have this much hooked into it? Well, it doesn't so much control you alarm system, as interface with it... if your core goes down, then the alarm will still be up and running), and you can set it to give you a call if it is tripped.
Now, this is where it gets cool.
If you have a 3g card SIM-card installed in it, it will video call you when the alarm is tripped and show you the security camera feeds throughout your house. Now, because it controls your stereos, when you talk through your phone, it will announce it throughout the house. That's fucken cool (albeit largely useless, but still cool).
Now, in terms of hierarchy there is one more device below the 'media directors,' these are called 'orbiters' and they are basically remote controls.
But they aren't limited to standard remote controls, for instance you can easily make your bluetooth enabled PDA or smart phone a remote control (of which my current and future mobile phones are compatible).
All you have to do is turn bluetooth on and synch it with a 'media director' (your media directors will need bluetooth modules for this to work), this then installs the necessary application on your phone. And because a mobile phone is a unique identifier (you don't share them across family members), the system now knows where you are in the house, and displays your preferences accordingly. This is made possible because of the lack of range bluetooth has (it won't reach across rooms), so if you are in range of a bluetooth module, the 'core' can safely assume that you are in the same room.
So anyway, if you're listening to music, it will follow you through the house. If you are watching a movie, it will follow you through the house. If you want to permanently live in dim lighting, the lights will change when you walk into a room (all of this is assuming that no-one else is in the room). Your mobile phone also allows complete control of the 'media directors' and other devices using an interface on the screen, or on the TV nearest you. For instance, skipping chapters in a DVD, browsing albums/movies/photos, closing the curtains, dimming the lights, dialling numbers (from your phone? No way! - I actually mean from your house/VOIP phone connection), making announcements to other members of the household among many other things.
Amazing. Fucking amazing.
I just wish I lived in a house big enough to benefit from such a system... and had a spare $5k to set up a basic system (or ideally a spare $20k to set up a crazy good system).
Wow. Nerd ramble.
But anyhow. I want to set this motherfucker up. If only as a media centre at the moment. I wanted to set up a NAS along side a HTPC, but the core system works as a NAS anyway, so I might as well just buy a good PC (now that Blue-Steel has died), set that up as a core, and then set up a media director as my HTPC for everday use - and because of the network-boot feature, I can still have windows installed on it, and just boot it LinuxMCE mode when I want to use it as a HTPC... and because the core does most of the work for it, I can use a cheap, quiet, small low-spec PC - which is altogether more suitable as a HTPC anyway. I just wonder if I can use the core to encode my music...
Now, the downside of this plan, is that the core should be a high spec machine. Preferably a full server, with a fast 500+GB of RAID5 storage and one (maybe two) dual-core processors... which is fucking expensive (I'd probably go to an auction to pick up an old corporate server though - they'd only be about a grand)... and then of course I have to tack on the media director PCs - at least these can be cheap. And then there's the cabling... it would be preferential to use gigabit ethernet for all of this - as wireless is too slow, so I'd have to lay all of that (or tuck it away)... expensive.
I at least want to give it a go. If it doesn't work as well as I wanted it, I can just find another use for the HTPC and use the core as my main machine.
Fun.