Its time to update the living room and bring it into the digital age. This really is a big under taking because over the past 25 years I have amassed a large collection of VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray movies that I just am not ready to part with. One could argue that “owning” media is a concept of the past, but I still like the idea of having physical control of my content and not rely on a content subscription with my satellite/cable company or some other online streaming service.
The first step to upgrading my living room experience was to come up with a list of requirements
- Use inexpensive hardware (less than a few hundred bucks)
- Media accessable in all rooms that have a tv
- Compatible with Samsung devices (all of tvs, dvd player, home theatre system, blu-ray are made by Samsung)
- Backup/Play my content I already own (VHS tapes, DVD, blu-ray)
- low power consumption and/or only consumes power only when in use
- remote power on/reboot
- Intuitive and easy to use for family members
There are the requirements. In the next post I will discuss what hardware/software combination I chose to meet my requirements.