Text 61630, 71 rader
Skriven 2010-08-01 15:55:30 av Paul Quinn (3:640/384)
  Kommentar till text 61623 av Miles Maxted (3:772/1.0)
Ärende: Any thoughts, please ?
==============================
Hi! Miles,

It is with great trepidation that I put 'pen to paper' here, my friend...

On 01 Aug 10 11:22, you wrote to All:

 MM> Anybody got something like this going ?

Nope.  Not even close.  But here's some ideas which you are free to ignore...

 MM> We have a kludged TV/DVD/VCR system fed by compound antennae, all
 MM> blessed with CRT's, multiple remotes, directory-less tape archives
 MM> galore, a much smaller collection of CDs and DVDs.  There's a separate
 MM> hifi system or two for the music accumulation  ... and a
 MM> non-interacting broadband wifi for the flat-screen toys.

Dump those tapes, if they're VHS.  Invest in one of those VHS-->DVD converter
boxes.  We have a large-ish library of VHS tapes that are unplayed as our DVD
library has far outstipped what we have in tapes.

WRT, the music collection... I like having a good time with my collection over
our LAN since each PC has far more flexible music library management and play
options, for favourite playlists and mix/random playing, than any stand-alone
hifi system.  (And, not just music either.  The same goes for videos as well. 
You know, the on-line versions: TV series, downloadable movies, YouTube stuff,
NASA animations, etc.)

If you have a working LAN, I'd suggest that you could dedicate a PC as the
household music player and the other PCs could access the same library/ies
(say) in other rooms.

 MM> Fido is accessed by an ancient laptop over dial-up to a real BBS!

Cool!  I remember doing that, and at 300 baud.  :)

 MM> It all regularly fails to tape the right programme, to retrieve the

[ ...trimmed... ]

 MM> It'd be nice to have a control system that the family idiot (me) can
 MM> handle, employing remotes and perhaps wireless keyboards.

Over here, all this is available from our pay TV provider (Austar).  (In fact
your questions have prompted me to revise our subscription plan.)  The
switchover to digital is progressing here, till 2013.  Austar already offer
digital access to local free-to-air stations along with their own channels, and
all capable of being captured/stored on their smart little decoder boxes, and,
in multiple rooms within the house.

Now browser/email-ing is a somewhat different kettle.  It's a piece of the
proverbial over a LAN.  In our case I have a server (PC) for normal email for
myself and my wife; the server scrounges across 4-5 email accounts and, in most
cases, duplicates incoming emails between our respective (internal-to-our-LAN)
accounts.  Other hotmail or gmail accounts available via your browser aren't
even a problem.

 MM> There's a box called TiVo on sale here which approximates some of all
 MM> these desired functions,  but which needs accessories to round it all
 MM> off.

Ah, after some research on Google: in Oz, it's a waste of money.  It's nothing
like the U.S. version and I guess it will go the same route in NZ.  Whatever
they may offer is already provided by pay TV companies, and more cheaply I
believe.

Cheers,
Paul.

... Hey, look!  A completely new undocumented fea&%$#*@ NO CARRIER
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7
 * Origin: Quinn's Post - Maryborough, Queensland, OZ (3:640/384)