There's something deeply liberating about being able to get one over on those huge, faceless and cold-hearted corporations, and nothing does that better than building your own recordable TV powerhouse in your living room - especially as companies like Virgin Media have announced package price hikes for those customers stuck in a contract. You can achieve this snub by installing a media centre PC next to your big screen.
Unfortunately, no matter how good you make your media PC - and modern systems are good, allowing you to watch, record and play back TV in perfect silence - there's often one weak point in DIY home media networking that will bring the rest of the house toppling down.
The weak link in question is the remote control.
Many of us use the standard keyboard and mouse, or some kind of cobbled-together version of the two to control a media PC from a distance. Neither option is particularly good. You can purchase a third, more expensive option in the form of a media centre remote, but we don't think this is the best method available.
So what are you left with? Well, there's a solution, and you probably already own it: a smartphone. Not just any smartphone though - the mobile of choice for this kind of work comes from the hands of the smiling green bug of Android, allied to a little application called Gmote that gives you complete control of your media PC.
If you've never used it before then you're in for a rare treat - Gmote is an eye-opener to the world of Android. When such a simple app can work so harmoniously with the devices it's connected to, you start to wonder what else your smartphone is capable of.
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As well as being a great way of controlling the media on your PC for playback on a big screen TV, you can also use Gmote to stream media from your PC to your phone or tablet. Here's how to install the app on your device as well as the software needed on your computer to communicate with it.
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