About a Linux Media Center ...

Use Cases

1. TOM has installed a command line system. He does have a tv connected to his computer. He presses a define key that launches a LMC gui on his TV. He browses his media library. using a joystick connected to his command line system and then launch a webtv.
   
2. Nadia takes her remote controller, press a define key that launches a LMC gui on her computer’ screen. She navigates through her media database and launch a film.
   
3. Math is blind. He just came home from work. He says a defined keyword and gets a vocal answer.
   
    Math : LMC
    computer : LMC activated
    Math : Play Beethoven ... all
    Computer : Any order ?
    Math : Random
    Computer : Starting
   
   The music starts playing with the default sound volume. 30 seconds after, after no recognized vocal input, computer listener is deactivated. Math has set an option so that the computer tells him.
   
    Computer : deactivating listener

Summary

• What’s the differences between those use case ?
  
  

  Comparison Points	TOM	NADIA	MATH
  UI	Graphical Output on TV	GUI over Xorg	Vocal UI
  Controller	Joystick connected to the computer	Remote controller on the computer	Vocal controller
  Player	WebTV player	Video Player	Music Player
  Core functionalities	Media library, research capacity, player selection, plugins inter communication

• Should Media Center programmers be competent in all those domains ?
  

• • State of Art
    
     Elisa Media Center
     MythTV
     Blag Media Center
     Linux MCE & Pluto
    

• • Zooming In on Linux MCE & Pluto
    
    LinuxMCE (based on Pluto Open Source code) is seemingly the actual best solution that fits the previous Use Cases without the developers having to do all the functionalities. Basically, actually the developper are connectors developpers (which means they develop wrappers for external stuff like Xine, Asterisk, MythTV) and integrators (they zrite stuff to have a PnP system). So their approach is a plugin approach, and the core of LinucMCE is a bus to help plugins to communicate via a DCE system. The only thing that I think is lacking is , the core system seems to be only doing a communication job and I wished it was also doing the Media Library management. I didn’t also see in that project the UI as a plugin, which should really be cool to offer a larger panel of fuctionality and satisfy more people.

• What is the core job of a media center ?
• The plugin Aproach ?
• Defining plugins categories
• Defining the specs of the LMC’s core.
• Defining the plugins specs
  • -> GUIs
  • -> Players
  • -> Controlers