Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
The good news about Cinelerra is that it's free, incredibly powerful, and (rela-
tively) easy to learn to use. The bad news is that its interface is, uh, unusual.
But you'll get used to that quickly enough. The other bad news is that you'll
have to get your hands dirty to install it. It's not included in Ubuntu, and it's not
available in the Ubuntu repositories. Cinelerra does, however, maintain its own
repository, and it provides packages for current and recent Ubuntu releases.
For complete instructions on installing Cinelerra, point your web browser to
Final Words
Now that we've finally done it, we can't believe we waited this long to build a
real media center system and connect it to an HDTV. For relatively little money,
we now have all of our audio and video content centralized and easily acces-
sible, not just in the den, but from anywhere in the house, and we no longer
have to swap discs in and out.
Barbara has instant access to the Web and her email. (Robert still has a separate
den system, so he can browse the Web or check email while Barbara watches
a video.) Robert can kick back on the sofa and edit videos on a big screen with
high-quality audio. In fact, all of the functionality of a general-purpose PC is
always available, just one click away.
Of course, we seldom leave well enough alone. Here are some possible future
upgrades we're considering:
Security video
Among our planned projects is implementing a complete home video
security system with TCP/IP webcams and Linux security video manage-
ment software. We'll set up webcams to monitor the exterior doors, home
interior, and yard, and run monitoring and video stream recording soft-
ware on the media center system. When someone rings the doorbell, one
click will display the front-door webcam video/audio on the HDTV. We can
even implement motion activation in software. When something changes
significantly in a camera's field of view, recording kicks in automatically.
We'll set up a
cron
job to transfer video still sequences via our broadband
connection to an off-site server in case we're burgled and the media cen-
ter system is stolen. To guard against a burglar smart enough to cut our
cable, we'll also set up cooperative arrangements with neighbors to trans-
fer video still sequences by WiFi to their systems, and vice versa.
Home control
We played around years ago with X10 home control but found it to be
unreliable. We may try again with a later technology, such as INSTEON or
Universal Powerline Bus. If we do, the media center system will be an ideal
central control system.
