Over the years I've spent quite a bit of time and money experimenting with the best ways to implement networked music and video in my home.
Back in 2004 I showed you how to build a home video jukebox, albeit with a few compromises. Today you might think the best way to get this done is with a Windows Media Center Edition PC (or perhaps its recent competitor, Front Row.
In this article, I'd like to offer up an alternative solution that offers a feature set that competes--and in some case beats--the PC-based solution for a lot less money. This alternative is the GalaxyMetalGear TVisto media player.
The TVisto Concept
The TVisto media player is basically nothing but a souped-up hard drive enclosure. GMG was already in the enclosure business when it must have occurred to the company that adding a lightweight Linux distribution plus a little more CPU power, a media processor, and a remote-control driven UI would lead to a box that could:
- Play video files encoded in MPEG-2 or DivX formats.
- Display picture files.
- Act as a music jukebox.
- Fill in as a removable hard drive.
In other words, do everything that a Windows MCE PC can do with the exception of recording live TV.
GMG sells this box without a hard drive, and with a little shopping you can find it for under $130 I paid $125 for mine. Add the 5.25-inch hard drive of your choice and you are in business. My choice was a 300G Maxtor drive purchased at Fry's for $80, making my total investment just a little over a couple hundred dollars. Because this is a simple hard-drive enclosure, you also don't have to worry about a lot of the negatives associated with Media Center PC. No fan noise, small footprint, instant boot time--all big pluses in my book. Once I hooked it up and put it through its paces, I was sold on the value of this as a Media Center Edition replacement.
