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Amazon Fire TV, Kodi and TVHeadend

I realised recently that, like most people, I am watching more and more content on demand and that it’s actually a pain to do with Windows 10 and a HTPC.  There are apps for Netflix and various UK providers but there isn’t one for Amazon Video or Sky Go.  Controlling them typically requires a keyboard […]

Kodi PVR, Initial Thoughts and Tweaks

I’ve been using Kodi as my PVR for a week now and I’ve discovered a few quirks, solutions and tweaks that have make a big difference to the whole user experience.  Overall I’m increasingly impressed with how Kodi has developed both at it’s core and the addons.  Since my last post Kodi 16 has also […]

Farewell Media Center, Hello Kodi

Out With The Old… I’ve been a long time supporter of Windows Media Center but it’s always had its quirks and Microsoft announced with Windows 8 that it wouldn’t be developing it further, this is old news.  A shame as I know how much effort went into its development and it was almost a brilliant […]

Lego PVR Case

The new PVR I built back in May didn’t have a case at the time and though I had lofty plans to make a beautiful wooden case with laser cut lid it turned out to be beyond my skills at the time.  Instead I did what any self respecting maker would do and bought a […]

New PVR

My Humax YouView box died recently and I’ve had a craving to build a new DVR, I’ve still the tuners left over from my previous HTPC the JukeboxHD. For frequent readers you’ll know I’ve been trying Linux more and more so to start with I tried building a Kodibuntu based HTPC using an old laptop.  […]

Reverse Tunnels and RaspBMC

I’m once more dabbling in Linux at work so figured I’d give RaspBMC another go with my new knowledge of Linux troubleshooting workarounds… First of all I thought I’d have a play with SSH so set up a reverse tunnel to access my Pi remotely.  I followed the same steps in this article to no […]

Jukebox, Illuminated

I’m not finished yet however the lights are in the Jukebox and I thought I’d post a pic of a test I performed by hardwiring the lights to be green; It’s the first time since I’ve owned the Jukebox that it has been lit up like this, not long after buying it I tried with […]

Media Center Video Stutter and Windows Home Server “DEMigrator.exe” Service

I’ve been having an issue for a long time now where video hosted on WHS is played back in Media Center and seemingly randomly the video stutters or stops completely and the UI becomes unresponsive for a while.  After a lot of digging and troubleshooting both in Media Center and Windows Home Server I discovered […]

Jukebox Lights: Serial Comms Prototype

I’ve just finished a working prototype for the Jukebox lighting control, doesn’t look like much at the minute but with the right RGB LED driver in place (I’m thinking three logic level MOSFETs may do the job) then this project is only a wiring job and a glue gun away from installation!  The C# code […]

Windows Home Server and Windows 7 Network Throughput

I’ve a gigabit network at home and my transfer rates sucked, considering I frequently watch HD content from my Home Server this was less than ideal.  Having a chat with a few of my colleagues at work and after performing a simple tweak on my Home Server, throughput went from 30Mbps peak (that’s mega bits […]