The Requirements

If I am going to start looking for a media solution, then I have to define my requirements.

Must Haves:

1. Media Streaming: The ability to play DVDs, CDs, recorded television, home movies, and display pictures stored on a media server.

2. Available and Inexpensive: Set top boxes in order to interface with the media server. I really do not want to use a computer and keyboard at each television in order to play back media.

3. Personal Video Recorder (PVR) Capability. Most people will think of this as timeshifting or Tivo-like functionality that will allow us to record pause and commercial skip through live TV.

4. Internet Video Streaming: These days, there is a fairly comprehensive library of videos available for streaming from Netfix, Hulu, YouTube, and others.

5. High Definition capability to avoid planned obsolescence.

6. Affordability: At the moment, this is defined as an initial implementation cost of less than $1,000 for three different TVs in my house (or should I call them media centers?)


"Nice To Have" Features:

1. Placeshifting: Wouldn't it be nice if I could access my media from a remote computer? At the very least, I would love to schedule recordings from the internet.

2. Audio Streaming of traditional radio broadcasts, HD radio broadcasts, or internet radio broadcasts.

Must NOT Haves:

Digital Rights Management: In laymen's terms, it is the idea that I would purchase hardware, software, and media that would conspire against me to prohibit playback from "unapproved" copies. This flies in the face of the concept of fair use, an established legal principal allowing me to timeshift, placeshift, and backup broadcasts and physical media.

In other words, it perfectly legal to use my computer's hard drive as I do my VCR. I have decided that I won't pay companies money for software or hardware that prohibits me from viewing media that I rent or own however, wherever, and whenever I chose.

Tomorrow, I will unveil my decision.