O-3 Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 Thanks for all the info on Usenet Chaps. I'll try it out later but can't do any real Dl'ing untill monday when my new plan starts. Pietro, yes I'm with Internode. Cheers
O-3 Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 I thought there was software out there that tricked MCE into seeing it as a DVB-T card (though not sure if the same exists for Vista). Yeah there is, thats what I meant about "software running in the background". Basically you need 1 program to emulate your DVB-S card as a DBV-T card and another program to control your CI cam. It was alot of stuffing around and I couldn't get it to work properly with Vista. No dramas with Media Portal, it supports DVB-S use with Cam so it just worked.
O-3 Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 As a PC it generally works fine, but for HT, system stability is a big problem So you are saying it crashes when you use it for HT? What software/codec you using for HT?
merovingian Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 I am also interested in the possibility of having the HTPC set up in an office but with the ability to play SD and HD video files on the SXRD in another room. Possibly with a network video player. In that case, it's really a Media Server rather than a HTPC. If you go down that route, you can save some money: cheap/ugly case, cheap/noisier power supply, cheap video card, no wireless keyboard etc. Anyway, that was my plan as well. I was going to serve both the theatre and the family room from the one machine. And I was going to embrace the whole MS solution. The trouble is that this relies on there being a good Media Center Extender. This is where the plan falls down badly, because Xbox 360 just doesn't make the grade as far as I'm concerned. It can't do HDTV at 50Hz. Pathetic. I don't know a great deal about non-MCX players. I was all fired up waiting for the Linksys 1600 since it was supposed to be an MCX as well, but that functionality has now been omitted. Still looks a nice streamer though. The Netgear EVA8000 might also a candidate I guess. Bottom line is that I'm back to the idea of putting a HTPC in the theatre. And the family room will just have to wait until there's a decent MCX. Ultimately, this will be a better solution for the SXRD, because an HTPC will allow greater control over the video signals you feed to the SXRD than probably any other device you can imagine. Hence, the greatest opportunity for the highest picture quality.
merovingian Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 You also don’t need 2Gig of RAM, 1Gig is plenty and even that will never be utilized for video. Just a small clarification here: if anyone is thinking Vista, then you probably do need 2Gig.
merovingian Posted April 6, 2007 Posted April 6, 2007 Must admit, I am starting from scratch with my home theatre and want my HTPC to be the only source to the SXRD, my needs may be different from others. We're coming at this from exactly the same angle. Got my SXRD, just got my 5.1 reciver and speakers, but I've got nothing else. No DVD player, no CD player, no game console, no nothing. Except the STB that came with the SXRD. 6)Case. VFD displays are a waste of time, I cant see mine from where I sit! I can't see any advantage besides looks in the touch screen cases either. Only advantage is being able to drive your music without having to turn on your SXRD and burn up your lamp hours. Every case I've seen with an LCD is hugely expensive. I'd say a better value-for-money proposition is get a case without an LCD, but get one of those Sideshow LCD remotes when they come out. Then you can have that little screen with you on the couch instead. 10) Soundcard.This one I have no experience with, ATM I'm just using the Spidf out on my Mobo. I need more research with this. I don't have any experience either. However, the purist in me likes the idea of the HTPC playing the same philosophical role for both audio and video: either the HTPC pre-processes both, or it just acts as a simple pass-through and lets the amp and screen handle the processing. So I looked into the idea of using a good soundcard, and hooking the HTPC directly to a 5.1/7.1 power amplifier instead of a 5.1/7.1 receiver. The bottom line was this: it'll work, but folks with experience of it reckon that the quality is not that great. Plus you'll have no H/W volume control. The general verdict is that it's better to just go SPDIF from the motherboard straight into your receiver. I had MAJOR dramas with reception using my old wireless KB+Mouse. I think maybe the SXRD interfere's with the signal ?Anyway, forget anything that runs @ 2400mhz......get something that is bluetooth to save all the hassles that I went through. I don't know what was causing your problem, but Bluetooth is in the 2.4 Ghz band.
sold Posted April 7, 2007 Posted April 7, 2007 Only advantage is being able to drive your music without having to turn on your SXRD and burn up your lamp hours. Every case I've seen with an LCD is hugely expensive. I'd say a better value-for-money proposition is get a case without an LCD, but get one of those Sideshow LCD remotes when they come out. Then you can have that little screen with you on the couch instead. I've got a VFD on my case and all it is really good for is showing date/time, temperatures, weather, visualisations, etc. Browsing music on it would be extremely painful at best. It's only a 2*16 character one but even on a 4*20 it wouldn't be much better IMO. Best thing to do in my view would be spend ~$220 on a 17" LCD and hook that up as a second monitor for music etc.
AndrewWilliams Posted April 7, 2007 Posted April 7, 2007 The Silverstone VFDs work nicely with XP MCE. It scolls the name of the song/movie/channel/TV show and also shows time viewed/remaining. Not exactly essential but a nice touch.
merovingian Posted April 7, 2007 Posted April 7, 2007 I've got a VFD on my case and all it is really good for is showing date/time, temperatures, weather, visualisations, etc. Browsing music on it would be extremely painful at best. It's only a 2*16 character one but even on a 4*20 it wouldn't be much better IMO. Best thing to do in my view would be spend ~$220 on a 17" LCD and hook that up as a second monitor for music etc. 17" LCD still looks small from 3 metres or more. I'd still favour the Sidehow remotes.
drsmith Posted April 7, 2007 Author Posted April 7, 2007 17" LCD still looks small from 3 metres or more. I'd still favour the Sidehow remotes. If I go down the dedicated HTPC route, I'll try the Dell LCD (via VGA) at low resolution for control at 3m to 4m viewing distance.
sold Posted April 7, 2007 Posted April 7, 2007 17" LCD still looks small from 3 metres or more. I'd still favour the Sidehow remotes. True, but I didn't envisage using it from a distance. Rather running a cable and have the monitor set up on a coffee table, etc. (could even put in underneath a glass top one). This could give you full control over the computer, which the Sideshow remote couldn't do. But as always it comes down to exactly what you want to do with it
Mcrackn Posted April 8, 2007 Posted April 8, 2007 have the monitor set up on a coffee table, etc. (could even put in underneath a glass top one). I like this idea, I might steal it one day
hired goon Posted April 8, 2007 Posted April 8, 2007 G'day, I'm also about to build a HTPC, but with a Sony 50" 3LCD instead of a SXRD. This is what I have found so far: Video quality may be better under Windows than under Linux. The drivers for various video cards have better Windows support than Linux support, so if video quality is one of yer criteria, then this may require a front-end such as MCE or Media Portal. nVidea 8800 will kill my budget, so I'm waiting for the nVidea 8600GT. Hopefully this card will be just as good for video processing as the 8800, but significantly cheaper. Video quality has to be at least as good as my Toppy PVR. Otherwise, I'll just keep the PVR and use my modded Xbox for DivX, photos and music. Dunno if it is still possible to get MCE anymore? Most new systems are Vista these days, but it is still possible to get XP. However MCE may be more difficult to obtain? MCE is limited to two x DTV tuners. Apparently there is a hack to allow more DTV tuners, but I have not tried this. From my experiences with the Toppy I have found that two tuners just ain't enough. There was a limitation with MCE regarding multi-channel sound and DVB-T. Dunno if this has been resolved. I have been trying out Media Portal, but there are still some issues. I've had a few lockups. MythTV is may favourite Linux front-end, but music is just as important to me as video and MythTV is too playlist-centric. I have not found a simple way to navigate to an album folder and get it to play with one-click. The previous playlist has to be cleared and then the new album added to the playlist. Pffft. Audio -- pass-through to an external device that handles decoding and volume is my requirement. Any front-end should allow for separate sound devices for video and music. This means SPDIF out to a AV pre-processor for video and either SPDIF out to an external DAC or analog out to an external pre-amp for music. Ease of use -- I want wifey to control the HTPC so integration with the Harmony 880 remote is a must. I had discounted MCE based on its previous limitations, but if it is still available and has had some of the limitations removed then I may give it another go. Otherwise, MythTV or Media Portal would be my choice. --Geoff
Mcrackn Posted April 8, 2007 Posted April 8, 2007 [*]Dunno if it is still possible to get MCE anymore? Most new systems are Vista these days, but it is still possible to get XP. However MCE may be more difficult to obtain? I saw it the other day at centrecom. Only OEM though.
AndrewWilliams Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 @Hired Goon: I don't think any of the limitations you've listed apply to MCE since Rollup 2 was released. There's still the 2 tuner limit but it's strictly an artificial limit that is easily overridden with a registry setting. I'm quite amazed that someone would need to record 3 FTA channels at once but plenty of people do over at the xpmce forum so it definitely works. I think the initial release of MCE defaulted to the MPEG audio track but the current version defaults to the Dolby Digital track. I'm not sure if there's some way to override that but I'd be willing to bet that there's a registry setting to do it. I still haven't watched a DD5.1 TV show since I set up my media centre but if there's any on this week I'll check them out. To split your audio between movies and music is a bit tricky, but if your motherboard has both optical and coaxial spdif you could just switch between them on your pre-amp/processorsor for your preferred listening mode.
pietro1503559499 Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 Thanks for all the info on Usenet Chaps. I'll try it out later but can't do any real Dl'ing untill monday when my new plan starts.Pietro, yes I'm with Internode. Cheers This is what got me going on usenet and I haven't looked back: http://users.on.net/~cooperj/usenet/ Newsfilegrabber is a cinch to use (costs US$20 to register but worth it) and the only other app. you need is Quickpar. I have decided to get rid of Austar and save $60 a month. I really only use it for 1 programme and I have already found usenet files for that.
pietro1503559499 Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 After all these cans of worms have been opened I think I'm just as confused as I was at the beginning of the thread. Someone made a very good point though....I have to decide exactly what I want the HTPC to do. Common sense, but easily forgotten. I can't see the point of starting a new HTPC with XP then having to go through the palaver of updating to Vista later on. Maybe these 8600 cards will have successful Vista drivers. Has everyone here built their own? I know it was stated that a monkey could do it......maybe I don't have as many skills as one of those critters.
drsmith Posted April 9, 2007 Author Posted April 9, 2007 As a short term measure to try and improve performance on my current PC, I'm going to replace the Casecom 350W power supply that came with the case with something that has a bit more grunt. The power supply I am considering is this one from Antec, but I am open to suggestion. I am limited in choice to some extent as my PC case does not have an opening in the top and is therefore not suited to power supply units that have the 120mm fan mounted in the top.
gusangora Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 I am limited in choice to some extent as my PC case does not have an opening in the top and is therefore not suited to power supply units that have the 120mm fan mounted in the top. Flip it over, so the fan is inside the PC case. I have been very happy with the Enermax Liberty PSUs. I have 2, in different PCs.
sold Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 The power supply I am considering is this one from Antec, but I am open to suggestion. For quiet power supplies I'd recommend: Seasonic 430W Antec NeoHE 430W Zalman ZM460-APS in that order. If you need more power look at the Corsair HX520 or HX620.
pietro1503559499 Posted April 9, 2007 Posted April 9, 2007 I have seen some HD-DVD and BD downloads on usenet. Can these be played on the SXRD without burning? Maybe via PowerDVD Ultra?
AndrewWilliams Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 Yes, although some people are reporting a few problems with certain versions of PowerDVD 7 - possibly due to non-HDCP graphics cards.
darkman Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 My HTPC setup is on my sig, and its connected to my Bravia. Very quiet and very powerful. Good luck with the build.
pietro1503559499 Posted April 16, 2007 Posted April 16, 2007 Some people have been having problems with H264 files. I have been able to play them successfully at full screen on the SXRD (even an H264 1080p HDTV of Kubrick's 2001) using Media Player Classic v 6.4.9 and Haali media splitter with Core AVC. And disabling H264 in FFDShow. And that's with the Nvidia 7300. So very pleased. Maybe I can use the lappie as my HTPC after all.
merovingian Posted April 16, 2007 Posted April 16, 2007 Some people have been having problems with H264 files. I have been able to play them successfully at full screen on the SXRD (even an H264 1080p HDTV of Kubrick's 2001) using Media Player Classic v 6.4.9 and Haali media splitter with Core AVC. And disabling H264 in FFDShow. And that's with the Nvidia 7300. So very pleased. Maybe I can use the lappie as my HTPC after all. What CPU do you have in your laptop? What CPU utilization was your system registering? Anyway, here's a good article on the whole H.264 playback subject: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886 Especially this page: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=4 And their conclusion: As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC.
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