My buddy MJP recently bought one of these Samsung Blu-Ray all-in-one home theater systems after being without surround sound for some time. He’d also been working on building a home multimedia PC; he wanted to be able to stream things like his wedding video or photo albums to the main TV, and, as he and his wife have been exclusively laptop users for years, he was starting from scratch.
I remember building exactly that sort of system years ago, when I still lived in Silver Spring. Even went so far as to run stereo wires under the carpet so I could pipe MP3s through the surround sound–this was before wireless everything became quite so affordable, and in my defense, I don’t think there were even many plug-and-play wireless stereo devices on the market. So I built my own.
But, MJP ran up against pretty much the same thing that kept me from realizing the full potential of my multimedia PC: sometimes you get tired of tinkering with the hardware build process and you just want to, you know, watch TV. If you are so inclined, you can spend weeks building a really cool multimedia box with downloading and DVD ripping and storage capabilities, or you can pay that cable company (that I hate and shall not be named) for the privilege of using their integrated DVR.
So he ended up trading in all the computer components and got the Samsung, which, as it turns out, has a number of integrated applications for interfacing with popular websites and Internet services, like Netflix streaming videos and Youtube. And it’ll connect to any storage device on your home network, so that covers accessing your photos on your TV.
I was disappointed that it doesn’t work with Hulu (yet). I’m all for buying purpose-specific appliances rather than trying to hack a PC into a combination DVD burner and toaster oven, but I’m going to give this one some more time. After all, I already have a home theater setup, and I’m not all that excited about Blu-Ray.
That doesn’t satisfy my occasional need for Hulu, though. What I’ve been doing is running Hulu shows (Kitchen Nightmares, mostly) through my old Dell 630m, which is hooked up to a 30-foot combination VGA/stereo cable (thanks, monoprice.com!) that hooks into the back of the HDTV. The only downside is having to pull the laptop from its perch on top of the subwoofer.
But, that speed bump has been eliminated with my latest purchase:
It’s surprisingly hard to find a really good wireless keyboard with an integrated pointing device. This one isn’t perfect–I didn’t quite realize until I used it for a bit that it could really use some volume controls–but it is very small and light, and stores easily in a drawer. I adjust the volume with my regular TV remote anyway, so it’s not a huge deal.
It’s also not cheap, but, again, wireless keyboard with integrated mice just can’t be found for the same $20 as an off-brand wireless keyboard/mouse combo. I think it’s worth the trouble to not have to keep track of a separate mouse.
And, of course, if you factor in the money you save by recycling an old laptop, it practically pays for itself. That’s what I’m telling Kara, anyway.