OK, so following up on my rant about how screwy MediaTomb is on Ubuntu Linux... it turns out that it was my fault, or at least not MediaTomb's fault, but a combination of me and Ubuntu...

After sorting out some file permission problems...

MediaTomb works like a dream!

I am so glad that I bought a PS3 and a HDTV for the family; now they can really make the most out of it!

Basically, the point of getting MediaTomb to work was for the following reason:

• Family upload their photos to the Linux media server using their USB cameras or USB memory sticks
• Family wait 5 minutes for the media to be picked up by MediaTomb
• Family walk through to living room, turn on PS3 and TV, and hey presto all the files are there!

This is great for the following reasons:

• The files are hosted on a Linux OS - for total security
• They don't need to log on to the system to pick up the files - just turn it on and leave it
• Photos look so much better in 1080p than they do on 1024x768

The Ubuntu PC is so easy to use; the photo's are imported using Picasa for Linux, which looks and feels exactly the same as the Windows version. It picks up USB devices no problem!

I'm very pleased that I spent pretty much all night Saturday and all morning Sunday sorting this out because it is definitely worth it now.

And yes I'm very glad that I got the PS3 instead of the Xbox 360 - I bought Planet Earth on Blu-ray for my Dad as his fathers day present and it looks astonishing and there were lots of comments about how it looked so much better than normal TV - even my Dad, who's not a technical person by any means, said that the quality looks so good that it's too good to believe sometimes.

That sounds like a fairly sweet setup. Is it possible to set it up as a PVR aswell? That would make it pretty much the ultimate home server/media server.

Unfortunately, it's just a service that'd detected by the PS3. The machine doesn't have any sort of recording software that could interface directly with the TV, it's just a 'playback' type thing for the PS3 - it's all read-only. Still, it's better than looking at photo's on this old TFT.

Yeah, but would it be possible to stick a TV card in it and record stuff on that, then play it back from the PS3?

No unfortunately, the PC is too small to accommodate any expansion cards!
Not many TV cards worth with Linux at the moment.

Heh, that would be pretty cool if it did, though. Ah well, can't have everything!