I've got the screen and the sound up and running. Lots still to do, but here's some sneak previews:

Movie night at OB's!!

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la la la, bored now..

Look I've a song!

You're fired!!!
Teh flower of the forum

Heh, that's not maybe. Most of the bits for my HTPC frontend arrived in the post and by courier today, so it's gonna be a late night... brace for more pics tomorrow.

Very nice. Defo some movie nights at yores

MORE PICS PWEEESE!!!

Whats the film in the last pic OB? She reminds me of someone!

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That's the delightfully deliciously lovely girl-next-doory Jewel Staite, aka Kaylee in Firefly.

Have I ever mentioned I love Firefly?



Have I ever mentioned I have the hots for Jewel Staite?

You have now.

Oh yes..

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Any more pics oscar?

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It hasn't advanced much since, I've been crazy busy. I'm waiting for a PVR150 I won on eBay to arrive so I can build a second backend and get live TV working - hopefully in time for the rugby next weekend!

I'll take some pics of the HTPC frontend box I built to replace the laptop you can see in the pictures, and hopefully post them later.

OK, some closeups of the frontend. First, this is what it roughly looks like:




It's sitting on top of my lovely Pioneer amp for now, until I'm finished tinkering with it, at which time they'll swap places. To the left is my big-ass 12" subwoofer - gotta love those big explosions!

Inside:



It's a bit messy at the moment. The front panel USB ports have actual type A USB plugs instead of motherboard headers, as does the remote control receiver, so I stuck the only USB hub I had handy inside. I'll find a smaller one and it should fit more neatly. As it is, there's a USB lead trailing out the back to plug into one of the onboard USB sockets.

You can see the Epia fanless mobo and the nice quiet power supply. I could have gone silent, but with a projector setup there's not much point. For that matter, I could have gotten a fan-cooled CPU with more horsepower. Might ramp up at a future time and use this for a silent frontend with a normal TV later.

Some case features - first, the cover for the DVD drive:



It's a vanilla DVD drive with the bezel removed from the front of the tray - this seems to be easy to do with any DVD drive. The hinged case cover is springloaded and pops open and closed as needed. The eject button is nicely worked into the chrome strip just below the drive cover. You can also see the power button on the left.

Behind the flaps:



On the left is a 6-in-one card reader, on the right are two USB and two FireWire ports. The 1394 ports connect to mobo headers.

There's room for a 4-line VFD and an IR receiver behind the window. I've just got the IR receiver there now - I'll have to dismantle it if I get the VFD, 'cos it won't fit as it is.

Oh ho baby. That is nice. Extremely nice.

I'd say there is some mass bass out of that subby.

Hey, I'm not sure if you are aware, but you may be interested in this:

Boards trip to the T3 Smart Home Show, The NEC Birmingham, 24th March 2007 - boards.ie

t'will be a laugh.

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