Media Directors
Media directors are PC devices, connected to the Linux MCE Core through your home LAN, which playback the audio and video managed by the LinuxMCE system. A single PC on the network can be a combined ("hybrid") Core and Media Director, or you can have one dedicated Core and multiple Media Directors. (Of course, you can have one hybrid Core/Media Director with additional peripheral Media Directors, as well.)
While a dedicated core can be hidden in a closet or somewhere, each Media Director is generally attached to a TV or entertainment center. As such, it has requirements similar to a Home Theater PC (good graphics and sound cards, low noise, low heat production).
In general, however, the Core (or a hybrid Core/Media Director) does a lot of the functions of a home theater PC for the entire home system. A Media Director, therefore, no longer has to do all these functions, and so does not need all the hardware and capabilites of a typical high-end home theater PC.
While most high-end home theater PCs are suitable for use as Media Directors (and are in fact ideal as a hybrid Core/Media Director), there are several customised systems, with fewer components, that can be found (or built) far less expensively for use as individual Media Directors.
A Media Director, for example, does not need a large hard drive. The Core does the PVR functions and all network media storage functions for the entire system, no matter how many media directors there are. Only the Core needs a large hard drive storage capacity. The Core also generally has the TV video card for the entire system. Because Media Directors can netboot (and therefore act essentially as thin clients to the Core), they do not even need an OS.
A Media Director does provide input and output functions, however. Remote controls (USB-UIRTs, bluetooth devices, etc.) are connected to the Media Director. Outputs to TV and stereo are from the Media Director. The often "headless" core requires none of these (unless it is a hybrid). Therefore, choosing a PC to be used as a Media Director must be done carefully when considering the input and output capabilities of that PC.
Although the AV devices are connected to the Media Director(s), they are nevertheless administered by the Core. In the LinuxMCE admin panel, A/V devices settings are specified separately from the settings of the media directors to which they are connected. This is done because the Core keeps track of the controls and settings of every device on the system. Since it is possible to netboot Media Directors from the Core, all settings for all Media Directors and all devices must be stored centrally in the Core.
| Generic PC | Other Media Directors |
