Preface

The Linksys – KiSS harddisk recorder is a very nice toy. But there are loads of things that I needed to know how to do, to get it to work as I intended it to.

When I bought my KiSS VR-558 it was with the dream of having the perfect device for watching, recording and storing movies. I wasn't under the illusion that this would be perfect, but it is possibly the closest I could get, if I didn't want to wait for the development of things to come and didn't want to spend at least 3 times as much on on a mediacenter, that ain't perfect either.

The goal is a standalone device with the following features:

   Time shift
   Picture In Picture
   Easy recording with a superb Electronic Program Guide and unlimited simultaneous channel recordings
   A place to store all my movies and music in one handy library
   Perfect image and sound quality
   Easy sharing of my library with others, over the internet.
   The possibility to edit my recordings, cut out commercials etc.
   Ripping DVD's and CD's with out restrictions
   The possibility to watch, convert and adjust to any format I want
   Easy copying to other media and over the internet.
   A rock solid hardware, and software I don't have to give another thought - just working as i expect it to.
   Not pay more for it, then I would for any other nice plaything. 

Well a time will come when that will happen. But despite all the known issues with the Linksys - KiSS recorders, it is on its way. All the technology is there already. Its just a question of time before someone dose it right. For the time being, Linksys - KiSS are forerunners for in that field.

The reality is that if you want to get any way near the above picture, you need one or two more computers and a load of software, that can easily cost more then the device. There isn't enough CPU power in the device to do it right and only one tuner. Otherwise it's actually a pretty good platform. The quality of picture and sound are good and its very flexible. Once someone are able to crack and rewrite the software, it might be a decent step on the way to perfect.

In the meantime we can help each other with the enormous load of thing that has to be set up and tweaked to get the best possible system up and running. There are lots of different software packedge's you need to make it work, and if you don't want to spend more money on software then you did on the platform, there is a lot of research you have to go through to make it work.

The purpose of this manual is to collect all the knowledge that is gained out in the community and present it to the new owners, so they can set up a working system, whitout having to fall into every pitfall there is on the way, and without having to know everything about software, codec's and a lot of other stuff, just to make it work.

So join in, use the guides, use the forum and share your experience by adding to this document. That way you help the next person, who goes through the same process, you just did.

--Simon Rigét 01:04, 26 March 2007 (CEST)