Over the past week I've been preparing to turn Thor into more than just a fileserver. I've purchased a nVidia MX440-SE video card which has both composite and s-video outputs for about \$34; this card also has hardware mpeg-2 decoding, so it should prove very nice for video output. I also bought a PC Remote and IR receiver combo which I plan to use to control the setup. The IR Receiver is serial, so I should be able to extend it upstairs with plain-old Cat5. I remembered I had a couple Aureal Vortex2 based soundcards laying around, and they seem much better supported now in alsa.

So, the last problem is getting some RCA connections from the closet to the living room. This probably requires about a 50' run - not an easy cable to find. After googling a bit, it seemed apparent that I should build the cables myself out of my spool of RG6, and make something like this Ultimate Video Cable. The problem: I don't have a crimper that can do RCA compression fittings. Well,I resolved that by ordering it and 12 compression fittings. Should be a nice investment. Now I just need to replace all the RG6 F-Type compression fittings Brady and Chris used..

The next part of the project is actually to redo the closet to make it a bit nicer to look at and use. This will probably take [Brady] and I most of the day (maybe [Dennis], too..). Hopefully a spaghetti supper will help... woops! Might get more help than Tiff wants to feed that way!