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What value do they have? They were just custom prebuilt PCs running a special version of Linux that weren’t that much cheaper than a non-Steam Machine PC. Nothing is stopping you from building a PC and installing the same OS running on the Deck (or the old SteamOS) and then calling it a Steam Machine.
Except knowledge.
It’s foolish of you to assume that most people want to build a computer.
And before people respond with ‘its just Legos’
There is so much more to it for someone with little to no knowledge.
Bios and firmware updates that require certain CPUs coupled with certain motherboards.
CPU sockets and inter compatibility.
The different specs of any given component and the value they provide to someone looking for specific workflows
Sizing of components and cases
Knowing where to find parts and what prices are acceptable.
Etc, etc ,etc.
Pick something that you know nothing about, let’s say cars just as an example.
Now imagine, let’s, say want to buy a car but it doesn’t come with wheels, you don’t get a list of 4 wheels to choose from, You get, lug patterns, sizing, and type, offset, wheel diameter, wheel width, bead lockers or no bead lockers, 1 piece, 2 piece or 3 piece, etc.
Now you have to spend all this time researching just about wheels, and then how they fit with the car you chose specifically earlier in the process, it would be frustrating and incredibly difficult for people who just want a car.
Go on any thread or forum and ask ‘what GPU should I get’ which is already making assumptions about someones understanding and knowledge (that they even know what a GPU is), and you will get 20 conflicting answers and need to write a paragraph in responses to narrow it down enough.
Present someone with no knowledge this: ‘DDR3-2666 CL9’ vs ‘DDR3-2000 CL7’. How do you really expect someone who just wants to play a video game to just implicitly know what those numbers mean, how they relate to each other etc.
Building a computer is an immensely difficult task for someone who doesn’t know much or anything about it, and believe it or not, the reality is not everyone wants to learn, places like lemmy and other tech focused echo chambers seem to forget that.
Also the scale. With steam scale its likely that they could just buy a massive numbers of gpus and cpus from amd for much cheaper.
All of your comment is true, although it’s ignoring the fairly sizable pre-built market. You don’t have to do it yourself, although I would say people should so they can diagnose issues themselves.
Pre-built sellers just need to offer SteamOS, or other Linux distributions, as an option at checkout instead of Windows.
i’m perfectly happy with my pre-built machines. I like tech and love learning about it but- I don’t really find value in putting a huge amount of time into building my PC from scratch when someone else can do it, and that person knows way more than me already!
The value isn’t for existing PC gamers. It would be for people who are not tech literate, do not know how to build a PC, install an OS, or even tell if a given computer is powerful enough to run a particular game.
I think that’s the real strength (and more importantly, intent) of the Steam deck: to get people who aren’t PC gamers to become PC gamers by making it as simple as a traditional console. Steam machines could provide a similar thing if there were a Steam Machine 1 Verified flag next to games.
I think where valve went wrong was not requiring specific minimum specs. It led to a very inconsistent and hard to support platform.
Steam deck leading to a standard “steam device” hardware platform with consistent OS and hardware is my dream, but I know their goal thus far has been to refine steamos and release it for OEMs to use on their devices.
It would be really great for oems to be able to use steamos. It really is a superior system for handhelds ( and pcs treated like consoles but thats even more niche market )
Or indeed just buying a gaming PC already running Windows that runs 100% of Steam games with no effort at all.
What’s holding them back and killing the idea of a Steam Machine PC, is that GPUs are ludicrously expensive.
Shoehorn Steam into an Xbox Series S/X… Well that might work, but it needs MS to eat some humble pie.
They have. It’s called the Steam Deck.
what people want is the internals of a steam deck but beefed up and easier to open up
So a Linux computer that looks like a console? I can see how it’d sell, but it’s already available to anyone who isn’t oblivious. You can even install the SteamOS if you want that particular flavor of Arch.
the point is that you don’t have to fiddle with anything, you can trust the product sold by valve to be good, you have everything preinstalled and configured, and because thousands and thousands of people have the same device it’s easy for developers to target it.
And with the way Xbox has been going, a solid Steam Machine could theoretically replace it in the market. Sure, your old discs wouldn’t work, but it would have all the Microsoft exclusives anyway. Even Sony exclusives are making it to Steam now.
have old xbox discs really not been cracked? would feel very odd if people hadn’t figured out how to run them from regular old CD readers and emulators…
Original Xbox, probably. 360 emulation is still pretty rough. I doubt anyone has a functioning One emulator and definitely not a Series X emulator. Not much interest since almost all of it is on Windows anyway. The only reason I’ve been watching 360 emulation is for Fable 2.
Also, it’s fairly unlikely that Valve would include an optical drive unless they want to license blu ray stuff from Sony.
They released the new steam os?
Previously it was only the Debian one available
I have no idea. I assumed they did, but I’m not actually sure.
I don’t think they have yet, which is a bit of a sore point. Third party alternatives like Bazzite may do the job, though.
that looks like a console
Not just looks, but provides the UX of a console. So you buy it, plug it up, log in, and immediately start playing. Even consoles don’t provide that streamlined UX anymore, but ppl want all the benefits console used to provide with all the benefits PC gaming provides now. But the key part is the PC benefits don’t get in the way of the ease of it. You don’t have to install or administer a linux distro, you don’t have to twiddle settings for every game (unless you want to), etc
That’s the big thing. After my postive experience with the Steam Deck, I switched my gaming PC to Linux. There were settings I had to tinker with to get my games running as optimally as they would on the deck, that I assume are set by default on the SteamOS.
A steamdeck, no screen, an evo212 cooler, and possibly just loaded with USB ports. Mmmmmm
an evo212 cooler
So I only bring this up because I had my world shattered like 3 months ago when I built a new PC - the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler is really expensive these days, like, $80-$90 (there are some models that use the same name but have different heat pipe configurations that drop down into the $50-$60 range, but aren’t the ol tried and true 212 that we all bought in the 2010s), and a complete ripoff, and it’s really sad.
You can get some Noctua coolers for a few more bucks, or pay a third of that price for a Peerless Assassin, or pay about half again that price for something from ID-cooling, all for similar or better performance to the 212. It’s no longer the automatic choice it once was. The king has been dethroned.
Dude what!? I bought my 212 for like 35 bucks back in 2014. As far as I know my nephew is still rocking that setup every day since 2019. That’s wild they’re selling them for 80ish…smh my head.
An Xbox Series S (or even X) but not locked down and able to run Steam games would be great. But that’s the kind of price you’d be looking for. Price of a PS5 would be the absolute maximum. Any higher, and mainstream people won’t be interested because they can just buy a PS5 for that.
I think it’s achievable at scale (millions of units like the PS5), but it’d be a huge gamble.
So a PC in a cool case?
The problem with going proprietary is that then, well, it’s proprietary. So either they use off the shelf components in which case it’s basically a PC, or they use custom stuff which might improve performance depending on what they do, but will make it difficult to repair and upgrade. Then you rely on Valve producing hardware components, and they’re not really a hardware company, although in fairness they’re also not doing badly at it.
Internally, yes, basically a PC in a smallish form factor case.
If you’re aiming at the console crowd, upgrades and end-user repairs aren’t a primary concern. But you’re thinking of it like a desktop aimed at the desktop market where those things are more important, and you could hypothetically just do the same thing on the PC you already have, so what’s the point?
For a console the high priority items are being quiet, able to fit in most TV stands and the like without standing out too much, and having the smoothest possible UX - if it’s more involved than unpacking it, plugging it into power, plugging it into the TV, connecting a controller, turning it on and logging into an account to go from sitting in a box on the floor to ready to play (or at least install) a game then you’ve already lost. If installing a game is more complicated than clicking the install button once and waiting for the process to finish, you’ve already lost. If you are required to fiddle with drivers, settings, tweaks or config files to be able to play, you’ve already lost. If you are required to think about package managers, libraries, or any kind of usual PC management stuff, you’ve already lost.
It’s more about the hardware/firmware/software uniformity and reliability for some people. My friend is in this camp, he doesn’t want to need to manage a PC, he just wants a box he can reliably turn on and use.
And to expand a little on your point, uniformity means devs can target specific optimizations/performance. I.e. this will run like this on a Steam medium system.
I just really want a Steam controller tbh. :(
I’d absolutely love a steam controller 2, one that takes after the steam deck controls.
I thought I did, but I just couldn’t get on with it. Fucking around with the touchpad was a very poor substitute for a right analogue stick.
Agreed. If they’d just put a right analog stick in there somewhere it would have been awesome. The vibrators just don’t provide the right tactile feedback
honestly at this point bundle the dock w rechargeable wireless controllers and let me convert the deck I already love into a pseudoconsole.
No it’s not
They basically already have one. The steam deck with the dock (though you have to provide your own controller.)
They’d certainly gain some performance improvements by building a dedicated steam machine, but it would also split the market for the steam deck, which the article already talked about as being a negative of the first iteration.
Dunno, I probably wouldn’t get a stationary steam machine over a mobile steam deck. Though being able to use Thunderbolt 4 for an eGPU on a steam deck would be a welcome enhancement, but that’s a whole different discussion.
I like the deck and am thinking about the dock for it, but the controller thing is something I’m wondering about. Any idea if it can handle 3-4 of them wirelessly? I mainly want to put it on the tv for local co op or party games, but I usually use ps4 controllers and have found their bluetooth is awful on PC.
I’ve managed to do 6 player Ps2 emulation on it just fine.
3-4 controllers would be ez.
It somewhat depends on the game, and the order that you pair things in.
I’ve run my steam deck, docked on the TV, with 2 Nintendo Pro controllers, 1 XBox controller, 1 Stadia controller, all running over bluetooth, and a fifth PS3 controller plugged in via USB. From what I understand the limit is 8 controllers, but I think the built in controller counts as one.
You can go into the settings and tell it which controller is which, but in the end, the game can override things and make it not work as expected. The only way to really know is to check on a game-by-game basis.
I regularly use 4 wireless Xbox controllers for this exact purpose, and it works great. There’s always the occasional Bluetooth quirks, but overall it’s seamless
Steam deck without the screen. And with a controller.
They must be waiting for the Steam Deck 2 so it’ll at least be 1080p natively.
Hell yeah brother. Started playing Hades 2 on my custom chimeraOS PC yesterday in the living room. I absolutely love the experience. I’ve been considering getting that Hx100 PC from minisforum and running bazzite on there to replace my custom PC for a smaller console like footprint. The time is nigh!
Two popups before I can read an article means you don’t get read. Bye.
They don’t care, you already saw the ads
Using an ad blocker is basically requirement of browsing the internet at the moment.
Built in browsers in apps don’t have them.
I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick), but on Android you can set the browser engine the in-app browsers use. So you can set it to Firefox and then have plugins.
I’m using that now.
Or you can just turn in-app browsers off.
I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick)
In this instance it’s an oddly good thing that in app browser engines are restricted to Safari: because it gets the ad blocking you set up for Safari. I didn’t even know that site had ads!
That aside, while the in app engine is still locked, Apple has been allowing different browsers (not browser engines, mind you) for many years now and with the eu regulators curiously doing their job lately, they are going to allow different engines too. Although I’ve read that it’s a bit of a trick, because then developers would have to develop and support two different versions of their browsers, one with whatever engine, and one for the rest of the world…
This comes from a Vivaldi user btw.
Yes, safari on iOS has a zillion ad blocker apps too
Jerboa uses my Firefox app
Gross
No u
I still have a Steam Link, does that count? Lol
Me too. And a Steam Deck. But I’d still buy one in a heartbeat.
I love the idea of a Steam Deck or the other portable pcs like it, but man I think it would just sit lol. The techie in me just wants it to have. Same with a VR headset. I’d play beatsaber for a bit and it would be dusty.
I don’t use my Deck much outside my home, and I do tend to just sit on the couch most of the time.
I find I’m way more inclined to pick it up and start gaming that way and I end up using it more than my PC.
Bring it back as an HTPC like the peeps are saying, low-ball it on the price like 500 bucks or less, maybe even take a hit on it or just a hit on the profit margins, pre-install all the stuff people might need, and then blam, you’ve guaranteed that most people will be casual users who want a lower-end computer and a smart TV/console replacement, and not higher tier hobbyists who want a more powerful machine. Confining your audience to that specific market share basically guarantees they won’t take advantage of the lower or negative margins on the hardware itself, and will probably buy some amount of steam games. They’re also using a device in your ecosystem now but idk what you do as far as that goes to make a good profit while not being a scumbag
Steam is already the biggest fish by far in the digital games market for PC. Only reason for them to do this is if they’re worried about losing that dominance. Basically, is Epic keeping them up at night enough to warrant a major push into a new hardware loss leader?
or just make the steam deck your primary hardware platform and ensure it can connect to everything and use all peripherals. refine it. make it unbeatable.
i think going in on more hardware is not wise.
I could see the new Steam Machine essentially just being a Steam Deck in a box. That’d allow it to have beefier hardware but it could use the same software and interface. Add a new tab for HTPC services and a quicker way to get to desktop mode and you’re done. It would be another hardware platform but there’d be a lot less design if they were similar in architecture.
Or, you know, just connect the Steam Deck to the television…
What you, @[email protected] and @[email protected] are missing is a TV isn’t necessarily a single user item.
Deck hooked to the TV to play a game? Great…now what happens when you leave and someone else wants to play?
The problem gets even more obvious if you use the Deck as an HTPC to stream content. How does anyone watch a show once the deck has gone walkabout?
The inverse is also true though, someone else is watching, I dunno, “The Crown”, pick up the Steam Deck and walk away. ;)
I know you are making a funny comment but my Wife would be exceptionally displeased if I did that while she was watching “Outlander”. People who live alone don’t have this concern but for the rest of us a TV and it’s attached streaming box are not single user devices. :)
My TV is 4k. The Steam UI alone is still a laggy mess at 4K. Setting the Deck at 1080p makes the whole thing really blurry. While upscaling games from 720p or 1080p to 4k looks better. Until they changed something about the FSR settings and it now cripples the performance at 4k as soon as you turn it on.
A Steam Machine aiming for Xbox Series S type of performance would be sweet.
A steam machine with a Radeon 7600 class GPU sold for under $500 would be a surefire hit and it would blow the deck out of the water in terms of performance.
Problem is, any occasional performance issue with Proton on the Deck can be justified with “it’s an underpowered portable”, if it happens on a powerful PC, people aren’t going to be as forgiving.
It would perform as well or better than any equivalent Windows PC. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.
What’s with the hostility?
They already exist. They’re called mini PCs or NUCs. Just buy one of those and you’re already there. Literally. This whole article and thread is garbage. They already exist. They just aren’t branded Steam.
For the average person, that is impossible. Also, you lose a lot of features compared to SteamOS. Also, the controls are (at least to me) a main selling point and there is no controller on the market that comes close to the capabilities of the Deck.
Yeah duh. A real gaming PC you’d want to book up to your 4k TV would need to have a GPU, not just an APU. Also, having to install everything yourself kind of defeats the purpose. Do you think the Steam Deck would have been successful if it had shipped with Windows?
A lot ship with Linux. And having a full PC you can use is a downside? So you’d rather have a limited box? That’s not even valves philosophy, so I don’t know where you’re getting that BS from.
I think the biggest thing would be getting a PC with decent specs for $500. Why would anybody buy a Dell desktop or the like ever again? Like even if you don’t game and need to do office work it’d probably be the best option.
You can almost build something like that for this price. Or you can do it if you buy some second hand stuff. But for an OEM building a few million units it would definitely be doable.
Yeah, but I was thinking more parents buying a console for their kids. Like oh little Jimmy can do his homework on this thing too, great I didn’t have to buy him another computer. Or imagine if Microsoft put windows on Xboxes, every office building would be full of them lol.
MiniPCs are surprisingly good at this price point; good enough that I would say for most people’s average use case they would be satisfied.
I’d like to see them get more popular.
I’ve tried this, and I think it’s worth providing a more powerful console if playing on the tv is your primary use case.
It works fine but it doesn’t really hold up to the 4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers.
I dont even have a 4k TV.
The community appreciates your input to the discussion.
4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers
What games are you playing on console where you are actually getting 4k native resolution at 60fps?
Racing and Sports games for sure.
What game on what console?
Rocket league on ps5 is 4k120 or 4k60 with HDR
A PS4 game? Nice.
It’s been rereleased and enhanced for modern consoles, if you wanted an answer why are you arguing? Lmfao.
Forza Motorsport will do 4k60 on Series X for example. Most Racing and Sports games will do 4k60 on modern consoles since they’re easy to render.
Why are they so easy to render compared to other genres? What makes realism so easy to render like it’s a newer generation than the console it’s on? Like Forza Motorsport 2 on Xbox 360 looks far more detailed than the average Xbox 360 game. What gives?
No, Forza Motorsport uses dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k in Performance mode, and in Quality mode it also uses dynamic resolution but targets 30fps.
On the ps5: FF14, borderlands 3, Monster Hunter: World, Destiny 2, Metro Exodus, Far Cry 6, Resident Evil: Village, etc…
Most of them run dynamic 4k so there is periodic upscaling which is seamless in my experience.
I was asking specifically about native 4K games, not dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k.
Well… you were responding to a post by me… which had no mention of “native” anything.
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What ever happened to SteamOS? I want to be rid of Microsoft now more than ever.
It became what it is currently the Steam Deck OS or at least the lessons learned were applied to create it. That being said you have distros like Bazzite and Pop OS focused on gaming, you could try those.
I recently deleted my Windows partition and went full Linux for my personal devices. I use Windows for work and it reminds me that I made the right decision.
I use Arch btw
Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public, I’m just trying to finish up my modded games, then I’m going to switch over to Linux and run Windows in a VM as needed.
Even with my pro license, I’m still at the whims of capitalist decision-making; tired of not really being in control of my own computer.
Now that TunnelVision has been disclosed to the general public
That vulnerability affected every OS except Android.
Yes, but you can relegate your network interface to a namespace in Linux, which is a remedy the researchers recommend. You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect, and that’s a lot of overhead just to protect yourself.
Edit: typo
You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect
Eh, there’s 20 different ways to detect DHCP Option 121 fuckery and once you know it’s happening its fairly trivial to stop. Any VPN client worth its salt will be updated in 60 days or less to fix this and existing VPN clients can be hardened against TunnelVision with some fairly simple scripting.
It’s a serious vulnerability but it’s hardly the unfixable world ender that the media has made it out to be.
Good to know. Got any specific sources for the scripting, or should I just search for something like “option 121 mitigation?”
I don’t know if there’s any pre-built scripting out there (yet) for this but it’s relatively straight forward in Windows to use powershell and either look in the registry for the assigned dhcp options ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp\Parameters\Options) or check the routing table for illogical routes.
Assuming that you aren’t using split tunneling you could also have powershell check your external IP address for the expected result.
Another possibility is to grab the dhcp test tool from Github, run it in non-interactive mode and then parse it’s output. Something I find VERY interesting is that Andrey Baranov specifically added Option 121 to that tool in March of 2023!
With any of those it’s a matter of what you want to have happen when you detect the problem such as warning the user and disconnecting the vpn or attempting to mitigate the problem by reconfiguring the routing table.
I should point out that Option 121 is a legit thing and it does have valid uses so you can’t assume something nefarious just because it’s being used.
I’ll probably be scripting up a remediation over the next few days, I’ll try and remember to come back and share what I did.
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It went to the Deck. I did read an article from someone who forked SteamOS and customized it for their own hardware, but it isn’t a simple process.
Bazzite is probably the closest you can get to a Deck-like experience (and it’s supposed to work for HTPCs), but there’s several other distros that are gaming focused as well, such as Nobara, Garuda, and Chimera.
What ever happened to SteamOS?
It’s still going strong! https://store.steampowered.com/steamos
Personally, I just like to install Debian or Ubuntu as the OS, and then install the Steam launcher:
https://www.linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-steam-on-debian-linux/
I think the outcomes are pretty similar, for an average user. But I find it a bit easier to search for help about other things I want to do with Debian/Ubuntu.
I say Debian/Ubuntu a bunch of times here because, while I like Debian a bit better, there’s tons of help articles out there for Ubuntu, and 99% of them work perfectly on Debian.
I don’t think it’s still going strong. SteamOS 2.0, the Debian based one that was on the old steam machines has been discontinued and is no longer supported. SteamOS 3.0, on the deck, is Arch based and is not yet officially supported on anything other than a Steam Deck.
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You can set up the boot directly into Big Picture, there are a couple of ways depending on your needs/expectations.
Gamescope did not work for me, I have been gaming exclusively in Linux since proton was published but any time I try to get gamescope working it behaves strangely. I blame my Nvidia card but it’s hard to say.
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@helenslunch @MajorHavoc whats gamescope and how does big picture help on a desktop, at least if i have more than one screen and wanna do desktop stuff on the ones that dont have the game on them?
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@helenslunch didnt they work on a desktop version for steam os? Wouldnt it help with getting people to switch from windows to linux?
Good points!
I use my current one as a PC as much as for gaming.
I’ll keep that in mind when I build my next dedicated game rig, though!
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I’d like the Steam Machine to come back with the addition of being an HTPC because Valve is big enough to arm wrestle streaming services into releasing an official app.
I basically want a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.
I’m not sure what else they would need to do. You can just install Plex or Jellyfin on your Steamdeck right now, and you’ve got yourself an HTPC. It works great!
What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?
Probably dolby vision support
What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?
The addition of JF or Plex, even with a Steam Dock, doesn’t turn a Steam Deck into a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.
For starters it needs integrated streaming apps. I don’t WANT to have to use a web browser to access streaming content. Next up those streaming apps need Audio and Video support for 4K resolutions, Dolby Vision / HDR, and Dolby Atmos. My Wife doesn’t want to watch Outlander in 1080p with stereo sound on a 65" 4k television and I don’t want to do it when I’m watching shows on Disney Plus.
How about an HDMI 3.x port? (Steam Dock is only 2.x).
It needs support for a normal tv style remote control. Game controllers are great but I’ve yet to find a half decent one that has volume and mute buttons.
The last time I checked a Steam Deck wouldn’t automatically start in a 10’ interface.
Please understand that I’m not bagging on the Steam Deck with these comments. It’s a damn capable device for mobile gaming but it wasn’t mean to be an HTPC and because of that its never going to function quite right if you try and make it be one.
An Xbox Series X absolutely murders a Steam Deck as an HTPC when used with commercial services but its not user customizable nor privacy respecting. That’s why I want Valve to bring back Steam Machines.
I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.
They are like 1-2 little steps away from a very good HTPC Steam Deck.
Like if they could just take a little time to make Firefox work 100% in game mode (right now it’s not quite there, like you can’t go full screen with videos) and make controllers just a little more comfortable for browsing and it’d already be there for me.
Why would Valve spend time and money doing Mozilla’s job for them?
Same reason they spend time and money making games work on Linux.
They don’t spend their own time. They pay CodeWeavers to do that work.
Point still stands.
That would be cool.
If they added Coreboot support, I would buy it just because of that. (Not 100% FOSS, but it’s still nice to have more control over your hardware)
Or better yet, Libreboot.
Libreboot nowadays would most likely still contain blobs in the BIOS, but not as much as regular Coreboot. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted lol. If Coreboot is supported, they can port it to Libreboot.
Yes! I already have a full gaming desktop attached to my main 4k HDR OLED tv for watching streaming services that don’t have apps on the actual TV (and adblocking). If I could replace that with an HTPC that has gaming capability that’d be great!
Htpc?
Home theatre PC
Had to look it up. They mean Home Theater PC.
Way back when netflix was new, windows had a Home Theatre edition of windows.
Beautiful 10ft UI, worked with tuners, could record from them, had no issues dealing with auto-ripped DVDs and had a native netflix integration.
Then netflix pulled out, but windows HTPC was still pretty decent.
Nowadays, it’s basically “you have to pay for everything” with a smart TV or a set top android box, maybe lucky enough to have a tuner in it.
Or it’s high seas.
I don’t think there is really a middle ground.HTPC wasn’t a Windows thing though Microsoft did have Windows Media Center, which was a pretty slick interface for HTPCs
I used to use XBMC, which is now Kodi, for an interface. Before that I just used a PC running Mandrake Linux with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Haha.
Had a TV tuner, acted as a DVR, and also could play my library of SNES and NES games through it.
Windows MCE, that was it! Not HTPC.
I knew a guy that built a career using xbmc in a professional environment, scripted out the wazoo to make it not look like xbmc.
I think I even tried running it on an actual Xbox, and being impressed with it. But MCE on a spare laptop was better. I eventually built an HTPC to run MCE.
XBMC became Kodi, you can still get that 10ft UI and it integrates with local media files like ripped DVDs and Blu-ray, or it’ll interop with any streaming service, or it’ll interop with high seas URLs.
That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.
In-between the two are the *arr suites of software which automate file sharing.
It’s a rabbit hole if you’re interested. Feel free to google any of these names and you’ll find a glut of how to articles online.
Yeh, I’ve looked at a bunch over the years. None have that DVR ability that windows Media Center Edition had.
I feel like I should build up an arr stack, go down that rabbit hole, spend my streaming subscription money on a VPN and a private tracker (or whatever is required).
I just haven’t yet.
I run the Plex DVR with my HD Homerun OTA tuners. It works pretty well. Certainly much better than MythTV DVR did
That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.
I think you overestimate the prevalence of Jellyfin. Plex is still more widely used, for good reason
I’ll sit here and wait for the jellyfin fans to find this comment.
@aodhsishaj @anivia I started with Plex 10 years ago, used Kodi, Emby, Jellyfin and arrived back at Plex 2 years ago. I think you’re overestimating the prevalence of Jellyfin.
Home theater PC
Home Theater PC.
