[Lab Bench Online]
EiED Online>> Building A Multimedia Home Control Center, Part 1
William Wong
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ED Online ID #13330 |
August 21, 2006
Reception was excellent. The HDTV board comes with its own antenna (see Figure 16) but you can connect either board to cable TV or another antenna system. I happen to have a large, multiple element antenna and rotor system that worked very well with these boards as well as directly with the Sharp HDTV for analog and HDTV reception. The latter is still limited in my area.
One of ATI’s really neat features is called ThruView. It essentially overlays a translucent view of the current TV program over the currently running application. This is handy for working with another application while listening to the TV program.
Most of the setup process involves selecting the current channels to include in the view list. ATI supports multiple lists which is handy if you have cable with lots of channels. It is now an easy option to select a list and just cycle through stations you prefer.
ATI’s GemStar Guide Plus+ (see Figure 17), from Gemstar-TV Guide International, is the Internet-based TV scheduler program. The application shows the current TV channel in the upper left and the list of current television programs in the lower right. You can easily navigate and select programs using with the Logitech mouse or the ATI remote control.
The only criticism I have with Windows in general on this system is the font size settings. The Sharp screen is large and the resolution is low compared to a hi-def LCD monitor but tuning the application and system font size for comfortable viewing on the HDTV takes a little experimentation.
Wiring the Home Actually I first built up the system in my lab where I had a wired Ethernet network but I eventually had to move the system to it final testing place where only power was available so the first thing I did was connect Belkin’s 802.11g Access Point, to my wired network and the Belkin 802.11g USB adapter (see Figure 18) to the multimedia system. The latter was plugged into the Belkin USB hub that was placed on top of the stereo rack that held the multimedia PC so the USB adapter had plenty of range. The USB adapter required drivers to be installed but the rest was essentially transparent.
The Belkin 802.11g parts were great to work with. Setup of WPA security was first on the list and I even do MAC filtering. The newer MIMO products will be of interest if distance and obstacles are an issue. Luckily for me the access point and the USB adapter were in the same large room.
The more interesting work came when installing the Lantronix Ubox USB/Ethernet Bridge (see Figure 19) that was connected to the wired network near the Belkin’s 802.11g Access Point. This little box looks like a four port Full Speed USB hub except the uplink is Ethernet. Nothing happens when the Ubox is plugged in but neat things happen when you install the device driver on the PC. It searches for the Ubox and now anything connected to the Ubox will be accessible by applications on the PC.
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