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HTPC, MCE, 360, etc
StephenB.2006
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've currently got a decent little machine, more than a bit outdated, that I use to watch TV and for general purposes. The 360 is connected to it for access to music. I'm considering building a HTPC for the living room.
Have you owned/used/constructed a HTPC? Was it worth it? What kind of features did it have? How did it look? How loud was it? Was it entirely remote control driven or did it use keyboard and mouse? More info?
Have you owned/used/constructed a HTPC? Was it worth it? What kind of features did it have? How did it look? How loud was it? Was it entirely remote control driven or did it use keyboard and mouse? More info?
An object at rest cannot be stopped!
StephenB.2006 on
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So, I haven't finished it yet, but I have some low-speed Thermaltake fans, a Hauppauge video capture card with hardware MPEG encoder, remote control and USB IR receiver (it came with the Hauppauge card). I also bought el cheapo AGP video card with DVI output and an $8 DVI-to-HDMI cable. From the few tests I was able to make before the MB died, it does everything I want, especially with MythTV on Ubuntu.
EDIT:
As for it being worth it, I used all pretty cheap parts: $20 case, $50 mobo, $30 CPU, $80 worth of RAM (for $20 from a friend), $15 for fans, $10 PSU, $50 HDD, $80 capture card, $30 video card. So, I have $365 worth of equipment (but it was actually much cheaper, because I cannibalized some old machines for this), whereas a commercial DVR from Sony would have cost $400, not to mention recurring monthly fees for service! MythTV is not only free, but the functionality extends into ludicrously awesome territory, like acting as a VoIP console and being remote-programmable through a web browser.
[Currently paying Tivo their extortion money for my Series3 Tivo "service."]
You can put the HTPC in any case you want, and how quiet it is depends on what parts you use. Mine is in a regular old PC case and it's got moderate but acceptable noise output.
If you want an HD HTPC you're going to need to buy one of the new HD-supported extortion machines that accept cable cards. I'm going to try sticking with my current DVR and SD cable until download services stop sucking.
I hate cable companies more and more, but I love Comedy Central and Cartoon Network!
This does nothing to stop pirates and everything to enrage actual consumers.
Not exactly. You don't need HDCP-certified stuff to watch digital cable. You need CableLabs certified stuff. They make the decryption unit (CableCard), but make it so that it will only function if paired with a certified device. CableLabs certification is supposedly to prevent copyright infringement, but it goes much further than that. It prevents us from hoarding cable content as well, because I can't even add more storage to my Tivo Series3. They fucking disabled the external SATA ports. The content providers obviously want me to pay for my HBO to watch it live, then pay for it again to have it on DVD when I have to erase the shows I have to make room for new ones. (Then pay for it AGAIN to have it on BluRay...again to have it on my iPod, etc. I don't even subscribe to HBO or own an iPod but you get the point.)
Nope, no receiver can decrypt digital cable, except a CableCard, or a set top box from the cable company. And yea, much/most/all digital cable content is encrypted. Even if you are a lucky individual who gets a set top box from your cable company with an activated firewire port able to digitally dump the content, a lot of it will output as 5C encrypted garbage anyway.
some pics:
TSR, could you post some of the psecs of your HTPC? That is exactly what I'd like to do with my PC.
It was made out of a throw away PC. Probably not more than $400 worth of stuff, including the box.
880 mhz AMD duron
512 mb ram
Happauge Win-TV PVR 150
NVidia TNT2 Rage w/TV out
Dell Multimedia Remote w/reciever
It's running a custom-made HTPC software that I wrote... although I don't think it'd be useful to anyone else since it's hardcoded to my PC. But I modeled it after a defunct htpc software called myHTPC. It later became Meedio which then became Yahoo Media software. But before it became all that, it was called myHTPC and it was free. With some elbow grease and luck, you can find copies of the software floating around the net.
I have a PC with Vista Premium on it so I plugged the cable into it and my 360 is the extender... works like a charm.
I'm in the same exact boat. I would love to have my own HTPC with DVR that also records HD, so I can ideally watch everything via my 360, and play games too. However, I'm stuck waiting for the blasted Vista CableCard support. And even once it comes out, I'll have to cross my fingers and pray that there's an OEM system that I'll actually like (and is quiet too), since we can't build our own (at least for now).
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Well, I could do that, but Vista isn't exactly cheap.
I do HD from over the air and I get 60 or so free Comcast channels because I buy internet from them.
In order for me to pay for TV again I'm going to need about 30 quality HD channels without having to pay any stupid premium for HD.
Wait what? Is this with Home Premium?
edit:Its all there, I just never think to look!
This looks pretty excellent, but how customizable is it? Can I make my own menus? Am I stuck to some crappy video formats or any other proprietary crap?
$111 on newegg for the OEM version
A hundred bucks isn't exactly expensive.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I only download 1 show... The Office and that's only until I can buy the DVDs. For that show I transcode to .wmv.
Unfortunately Media Center is low on customization. Like zilch. But the interface is decent and it does a great job at normal recording of shows etc as far as recording a series... selecting quality etc. No choice to encode into anything except a version of mpeg2 as anything else would require a fast machine.
You can however easily use those recorded shows in any sort of media you want... I recorded Planet Earth for my grandma and put it on DVDs for her without commercials.
That's kind of a deal breaker really. Are there any alternatives?
Whoo boy, where to start...
in the free sector, you can't get better than MythTV, which is, unfortunately, Linux only. However, setting it up is pretty easy, and there are guides everywhere. Also available for Linux is Freevo. In the windows sector, you can grab Media Portal which is very similar.
If you want to start paying money, you can get SageTV, and SnapStream Beyond TV.
Finally, if you want to build a dedicated HTPC, there are entire OSes available. LinuxMCE and the Linux-based KnoppMyth are superb options. KnoppMyth has been described as the free alternative to Windows Media Center Edition.
I've used pretty much all of them before I decided to write my own software, but, IMO, MythTV was the best, followed by Media Portal.
Thats how mine looks currently:
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4664/spassxv3.jpg
edit: beat, like a naughty puppy.
The best thing is, that all of the free HTPC programs offer more functionality compared to MS Media Center, or however it is called. (heck it doesn't even support multiple tuners properly)
double edit:
I just wish that frontrow would offer more functionality.
I'd be motivated to do that if I was big into torrents and such but for music, pictures and .wmv content included with a well rounded DVR (and no extra cost since I already had everything) the MCE on the 360 was the way to go.
I agree. myHTPC was fantastic. It was so powerful and easy to use.
I stoped using it after it went commercial. Then everybody and his dog jumped ship - to Mediaportal. So did I. Usually i rotate the HW after each upgrate and my Shuttle got a Radeon 9700 which fullfilled the "DirectX9 needs" of Mediaportal. IMO Mediaportal is slow and very resource hungry for a HTPC program - but it is still in development.
Wait a sec, wait a sec... there's a windowless version of VLC? Care to point me in it's direction?
However, it doesn't work over MCE Extender over the 360. For that to work, you'd have to use transcoding. I've done it and it works pretty well, surprisingly. Admittedly, most of the time I just fire up the MCE instead though.
I am hopeful that things will be different with the MCE in Vista Ultimate, although I have a feeling it won't.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
You can find the complete command line options of VLC here:
http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/VLC_command-line_help
I don't know if this was a feature of myHTPC (as far as Iremember you could specify external players). Maybe myHTPC automatically killed VLC after the end of the videofile was reached. Otherwise you had to specify the startup option and command line switches yourself. (myHTPC only passed the information of the file location to VLC)
But my memory is a bit hazy and I don't have an backup of the old settings or my myHTPC setup.
A million thanks!