DIY Media Center v.2

Having increasing amount of HD resolution flicks, I have challenged my old media box more and more, until now, when I decided to upgrade it to the next step further. I got the notebook from my old computers pool, Toshiba Satellite 6100, that was not very useful due to the spoiled LCD (stripes of dead pixels) and broken CD-ROM drive. However, the processor and graphic chipset are good enough to handle even 720p resolution, so here we go !
I strip it off and remove LCD and upper cover with keyboard and touchscreen. Though, the motherboard contains everything we need. The room for improvement can accommodate a nice, sleek enclosure with good ventilation or cooling, however, it’s thin enough (about 3/4″) to be hidden behind the LCD TV, that will eliminate all the cables too. Here are the steps of utilization below.
Toshiba 6100 Notebook Bottom

1. The Bottom of Notebook – Disassembling Marks

  • RED – First thing is first – remove the battery
  • Green -screws should be removed to separate the main board from display and keyboard
  • Yellow – Other screws, can be left at place, they hold covers to access the components,e.g. memory.
  • Blue – take out the CD drive if you don’t have the intent to use it.

The Notebook Media Center Mainboard

2. The Notebook Mainboard

No battery, no CD-ROM drive, no PCMCIA-Card, no Keyboard and no LCD Display

DIY Media Center Test Prototype

3. Media center in prototype stage.

The connections include 15-pin SVGA cable to 32-inch LCD, COM1 port for infrared receiver from Creative Labs, ordinary keyboard for debugging and tuning, Ethernet cable for connection to my home network and DC power. The 2.5″ HDD is only 1.5 Gb, it’s more than enough to host and operation system, GeexBox v. 1.2.4 with customized setting.

DIY Media Center boot screenshot

4. Media Center boot screenshot on 32″ LCD TV.

The OS, used in project, is the GeexBox last release, version 1.2.4 with HD support. It’s hosted on small 1.5 Gb HDD and takes actualy about 20Mb, so, plenty of space can be used for other stuff or just buffer for the movies. The best way to make installation, IMHO, to use another computer and GeexBox installer under Windows, with target HDD connected through USB adapter. The distribution was little customized to setup network parameters, code page for subtitles and remote control receiver/transmitter types.  This is the very best part, the system use LIRC-compatible devices and they may or may not to be matched, (I use receiver from Creative Labs and remote control from Leadtek),  they just should be specified in setup.  The actual boot (cold start) time is 25 seconds to be operational,  the basic resolution is native 1024×768 with 6:9 proportion.

1 Comment so far »

  1. by Do-It-Yourself Illustrated » DIY Media Center 2.0, on 12.19.09 @ 10:05 pm

     

    [...] DIY Media Center v.2 [...]

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