Create a digital picture frame to hang on the wall in our bedroom, as a present for Sam. (If you know Sam, don't tell her I'm doing this.)
Take one laptop. Take it apart so that it contains the essential processor stuff, a screen without the frame on it, the IR port, the power port, the power switch, the CD player.
Additional hardware
- Speakers
- TV tuner card (USB or PCMCIA)
- TV aerial
- Remote control
Tuner card
Dabs have no PCMCIA ones. USB ones seem to be a minimum of fifty quid, ouch.
Maybe I should put a PCI tuner card in a different machine somewhere and then just stream video from it to the picture frame? Problem: how do you tell the tuner card to change channel if it's a long way away? Thought: do we care? It's only in there so we can get TV from downstairs from the beamer box; why would channel changing be needed?
Speakers
Not cheap either. Dabs have travel speakers etc for about forty pounds. It must be cheaper than this somehow! These are "personal" speakers for fifteen quid or so that might be OK.
Software
- Debian, or a Debian derivative
- Freevo, in framebuffer mode (how do you do this?)
- lirc, to allow control from a remote
- ssh to allow remote control from another PC
Functions
- Play video (across the network ideally, if wireless-B 11MBit/s is fast enough, or from the local machine if not). Not streamed video.
- Show photos (the default mode when it's not showing a picture)
- Accept IR commands from a remote control to stop, start, change channel, choose movie, etc
- Watch TV, beamed form the beamer box downstairs
Might not need to use the laptop IR port (especially as it seems that IrDA-compatible hardware isn't supported by lirc properly because it's a different type of IR) because TV tuner cards come with IR and a remote, which is cool if it works under Linux.
Be voice controlled!