Current mood:	happy
Current music:	"Event Horizon" on DVD
Entry tags:	geek, house

PVR / Media Solution
Last weekend with greyeyedeve's laptop dead and wehmuth visiting, I finally set up my desktop computer on my computer desk, and we ended up using its 19" screen to display some video files and DVDs on; it's got a pretty good speaker setup, and the screen is viewable from across the room.

This got me thinking that what I'd like is to have my desktop be some kind of remote-control PVR-type thing - basically, when it boots up, if nobody logs in within (say) 2 minutes, it'll automatically log in as a separate user account which presents the PVR interface. This interface could be controlled with a mouse, but preferably also remotely via my laptop (I've used xine-remote's telnet-type interface but it's not in any way good).

Any suggestions for software which would help me do this? I'm running Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 ("Etch") at the moment, and intend to upgrade to the new Lenny release soon.

Next up, wiring up rear speakers for surround sound, and acquiring a PCI graphics card which can do some kind of video output to my TV.