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Re: [LUG] Mythtv and internet connected TVs

 

On 02/05/13 00:17, Rob Beard wrote:
> Netflix won't work on Linux very well (it can work through a modified
> version of Wine but it's fairly slow).  However a lot of 'smart'
> Bluray players now seem to have these sort of services either
> integrated or available.  My dad for instance has a not very smart
> Samsung 3D LCD TV and a smart Bluray player (I think doing it this way
> was a considerable saving on the next model of TV up).  It also has
> the advantage that if he replaces his TV he gets to keep the smart
> features.

Might be worth mentioning here that if you have a decent machine (I'd
guess Intel i3+ or any vaguely modern AMD, most older quads or even
duals should probably suffice with 4Gb+ RAM) you can just use a Windows
or Mac (Hackintosh really, I guess) VM in fullscreen mode rather than
mucking around with Wine*. For example, on the very rare occasion I want
to watch something on C4 On Demand - which absolutely does *not* work on
Linux - instead of arsing about with torrents or dodgy downloads I just
boot, or rather unfreeze, a standard win7 VM in VirtualBox, fullscreen
it, and watch away in Firefox. I can actually watch full 1080P HD movies
like this with no lag as well - it works so nicely that I keep the win7
media player VM on the LAN so that any machine can connect, install
VirtualBox, load the VM from the network and off it goes. It eats
bandwidth though, so doesn't work over wifi.

Regarding "smart" appliances like the latest TVs and whatnot, my policy
has always been as big and powerful a computer as possible for the smart
bit, keep everything else as dumb as possible. I *hate* smart TVs
because they're anything but, and increasingly the bane of my life.
Crappy DNLA implementations are the biggest problem.

Regards

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