JUNE 2004 MAXIMUMPC 71
STEP 1 continued
Business Server 2003. Small Business
Server is more robust than Windows XP,
and it includes a web, e-mail, and FTP
server. Make sure your video capture
card is compatible with Small Business
Server 2003; many integrated AGP/Video-
capture boards are not. We recommend
against using Windows XP Home
because it doesn’t support advanced
file-sharing.
To stream video and music from your
server to the living room, you’ll need
some kind of streaming device. One
option is to purchase a networkable DVD
player, which will play normal DVDs, aswell as stream music, MPEG-2 movies,
and unencrypted whole DVDs across a
network. There are also a variety of stand-
alone boxes that stream standard media
formats across a network. We’re
impressed with Hauppauge’s MediaMVP
( http://www.hauppauge.com ) and Slim Devices’
Squeezebox ( http://www.slimdevices.com ).
Important note: The Squeezebox supports
only audio files, not video.
Next, you need to get your soft-
ware. For near-TiVo PVR functionality
on the PC, we recommend Beyond TV
( http://www.snapstream.com ), which lets you
record TV shows to a single computer,then stream them to any number of
wireless PCs or other devices. Combine
a Beyond TV -equipped server with a
video streaming box, and you’ll attain
multi-room, networked PVR nirvana.
Finally, make sure you have a com-
plete suite of DVD software; you’ll need
both a ripper and a DVD-authoring app.
DVD Shrink (find it on Google) lets you
archive your DVDs to folders on your
hard drive, and recompresses them
while it rips to conserve space. We rec-
ommend Sonic’s MyDVD for authoring
because it’s easy to use yet still powerful
in the hands of an expert.STEP 2
Assemble your server
Building a media server is essentially
like building any other machine.
Remember, though, this system
is going to run 24 hours a day, so
adequate cooling is paramount. You
should dedicate a couple of fans solely
to the task of pulling in cool air over
the hard drives as well as the other
components. This will greatly increase
your drives’ lifespan, and help protect
your precious data.
Once you’ve configured the hardware,
you need to install the operating system.
Installing Windows Server 2003 is almost
exactly like installing Windows XP. Keep
a few things in mind: First, for any server
environment, it’s a good idea to keep
your applications and data on separate
hard drive partitions. We recommend
you create a small, 30GB partition for theoperating system and
application files. Leave
the rest of your drive
space unformatted for
the time being—we’ll
take care of that later.
Second, there’s no reason
to create a domain or
enable Active Directory
for your home network,
so you can safely choose
the Workgroup options for
those two items during
the networking portion
of the install process.
Third, we recommend
against using your media
server to share your
Internet connection. Use a
dedicated router instead;you can still give Internet users access
to specific services on your server, but
connecting an always-on server directly
to the Internet makes it a big, fat target for
worms, Trojans, and other Internet nasties.
When your machine is up and running,
install your software applications—
Beyond TV , your DVD ripping app, and
your DVD authoring app. Don’t start the
Beyond TV configuration wizard yet; we’ll
set up the PVR software once we get all
Once your hardware is assembled, you need to install and configure your operating the drives configured.
system. We used Windows XP Pro for our media server.Because your media server will be on
24/7, it’s important to make sure your
rig’s cooling scheme is fully baked.
Without proper cooling, your machine
will melt down, and your media server
will serve you no more.