Home Theater

For geeks like me, having a server rack in your basement is just about one of the coolest things you can have. In our last server build, we went the rackmount way, leaving the full towers far behind. This route just gave us more from the platform. With that though, having a rackmount server sitting on a table in the middle of the living room or basement isn't the best, nor the brightest idea. However, most server racks are just too big to be useful in a home and building one takes a lot of effort. Enter the Norco C-24U cabinet.

It comes as no surprise to my friends and family that the time has come for me to set aside some of my storage devices and server builds of the past for something bigger and better in 2017. Over the years, we have embarked on a couple of projects related to building a NAS and piecing together a 40TB server using parts left over. This year, I have decided that I would go a few steps further...I decided that this build would last more than just a year. With that said, I started to scour the web for components and started planning the next CODServer, but why?

If you tuned into our last article about streaming your HDHomerun Prime through your Plex Server using a channel application called HDHR Viewer, then you will definitely find this article to be bonus material. Having the HDHR Viewer surely makes Plex more robust and far more traveler friendly, but the interface is lacking. What is it lacking exactly? Well, first, it is lacking channel logos. Secondly, it is lacking upcoming episodes; or, an EPG of sorts. With a little patience and a bit of elbow grease, we can make both of those happen.

If you read the title, you may be asking yourself how this is possible. First, we all know Plex is designed to stream video and audio that has already been downloaded and stored. It is not, and was not, designed to stream anything live. Well, today that all changes.

For far long than I can remember, my home theater PC has been configured to boot automatically into my user account for Windows and start KODI (XBMC) automatically. This had been working forever without any hiccups. Last year I decided to completely upgrade all the hardware for my HTPC and discovered that the new hardware was too fast. In fact, it was so fast that KODI would start before networking had started. This lead to all kinds of issues and eventually led to the article How to Delay XBMC Start. Once again, after having upgraded to Windows 10, I am presented with additional issues. Even though KODI's start has been delayed, it loses focus for some reason. This means I have to break out my Bluetooth keyboard or mouse, or connect via teamviewer just to touch the KODI screen so my iMON remote will work as expected. FRUSTRATION! Well, I have found a solution that tackles it all... and... its easy.

With the recent migration to Windows 10, there have been a lot of little things that people either can't find or can't seem to figure out. With my recent transition to Windows 10 on all computers in the COD household, these little annoyances keep popping up. The first one that popped up was on my Home Theater PC. The system had previously been running Windows Media Center on Windows 7 and now runs Kodi exclusively on Windows 10. With that said, having Kodi startup automatically under Windows 7 was easy. All I had to do was copy a shortcut to the startup folder and force it to delay so Kodi wouldn't start before networking did.

Having been a long time fan of the home theater PC, I have many times experimented with different platforms. These range from XBMC (now KODI), MediaPortal, Windows Media Center, PLEX, and a few others. What always led me back to XMBC, now KODI, was the incredible list of available addons. These addons added a ton of functionality that I couldn't find anywhere else. Recently, I decided to give PLEX another go as some of my family moves towards portable devices and in the interest of preventing another mutiny, I figured I would proactively implement an additional, easy to use, portable streaming solution.

Last year, we covered some of the addons we felt were the best out there for XBMC. Well, this is a new year and with the new year comes a new list... and name (KODI). This list will NOT include the previously mentioned items in last year's list of top addons. Here is my list for the Best KODI (XBMC) Addons for 2015

I am a huge fan of XBMC and have been for quite some time. The application is the forefront of my media center and controls all things entertainment in my home. Many of you may know that XBMC is no longer XBMC. Instead, the application has gone through a name change (Kodi) and the new version 14.0 promises some very exciting new features.

I have been building and using home theater PC’s for as long as I can remember.  However, it seems that recently I have been paying more attention to the quality of things than the quantity of things I do with it.  I remember popping in my BD disc and being blown away by the quality of the image flickering about.  …