Chad Dyess’ Blog

A new Media Center Plugin called SecondRun.tv was released today that lets you browse and watch TV shows from Hulu.  The plugin was announced earlier this week on The Green Button forums, and has generated quite a lot of buzz. If you follow The Green Button, you already know that people have been clammoring for a Hulu application for well over a year.

I installed SecondRun.tv tonight and did a little playing around with it, and I have to say, it looks great so far.  It does have its problems, but it’s only been available for a few hours, so there will definitely be some tweaks needed before it’s ready for prime-time.  The interface is simple to use and looks great.  The slick look of the application relies on heavy use of network logos and TV show artwork, a lot of which is still missing, so for now you’ll see a lot of empty grey boxes for all but the more common shows.  I’m sure that will change as soon as Jason, the developer, has time to finish setting it all up.
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Since my blog is geared toward home theater and digital media, I decided it would be a good idea to spend a little time talking about my own home theater, how I set it up, and what kind of equipment I’m using.

One of the things I had always wanted was my own home theater, separate from the living room of course, since having blacked out windows and a giant TV screen in the living room has a decidedly low WAF (wife approval factor.)

I had come fairly close in my first house, which had a small loft with no windows.  Unfortunately, it was open to the living room below, so it wasn’t possible to get it completely dark.   Still, it worked fine while I was a bachelor, but once my wife-to-be moved in, it was impossible for me to watch a movie upstairs while she tried to watch something else downstairs. That was only a short term problem though, since we soon started looking for a new house to start our new life together.
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When we’re entertaining guests, gathering everyone in my theater for a demo is always a crowd-pleaser.  But before I built my home theater PC, I would have to dig out a DVD, load it into the player, then get it cued up to the right chapter.  Not only was this tedious, but it tended to bore everyone.

One of the primary reasons I built my HTPC was for watching movies.  I wanted to have my movie library available online, with a nice interface for exploring my collection, without the need to shuffle through shelves of DVD cases trying to find a movie to watch.  That’s how I found My Movies.   The interface is great, and it has all the features I wanted, and then some.

Once I ripped my DVD collection to disk, my next step was to set up a quick and easy way to show off my home theater by playing specific movie scenes using My Movies.  What I ended up with worked great, and has been a huge success, so I’m outlining the steps here for anyone who may be looking for a similar solution.
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