Topic: "Tutorial" on how to set up a Media/entertainment Center at home (Read 6339 times)

Marty3d · « **on:** March 18, 2005, 10:36:36 am »

Hi! My girlfriend and I am about to move to a new apartment and I would like to finally set up and use MC as my one source for livingroom entertainment, such as film (from HD and DVD), music (to the stereo), images and of course, TV.

Now, is this possible? And in that case, how on earth do you start? I've been thinking about MediaCenters as D-Links wireless and similar, but I'm not sure they can provide a good stream.

Anyway, I'd like to have as much info, explanations, tips, system requirements etc as possible to be able to figure this out. What I'm aiming for in the end is easiness and usability!

So, bring it on!
Thanks a lot,
/Martin

modelmaker · « **Reply #1 on:** March 18, 2005, 02:59:42 pm »

That's a tall order. There are websites devoted to home theater systems (try a google search). or try one of the regular poster's (and a fellow scandinavian) website: http://home.powertech.no/mastiff/multizone.htm

Then you might try asking more specific questions here.

kaiynne · « **Reply #2 on:** March 19, 2005, 01:53:14 pm »

I would be more than happy to write something out for you, but I need to know some more specifics about what you want to do.

Are you going to build your own pc? Do you have an amp? multizone?

Let me know, I have been meaning to write something up, so this will hopefully give me some incentive.

gpvillamil · « **Reply #3 on:** March 19, 2005, 06:29:45 pm »

You know, it would be really nice if there were a small set of sample MC configurations documented. Either on the website or in the help file.

These could be a could starting point for anyone trying to build a complex system around MC.

risingdamp · « **Reply #4 on:** March 20, 2005, 05:04:32 am »

You should check out the NetRemote forums at promixis.com. NR is the best tool for remotely controlling MC. The fellow scandinavian modelmaker was referring to is mastiff who will echo what I say.

Marty3d · « **Reply #5 on:** April 21, 2005, 09:29:24 am »

Ok, after a long thinking period I've some new issues to discuss.

I'm finished about the hardware, and is looking for a frontend to the HTPC. In theory, I think that MC is very much competing with MCE, leaving Meedio, Snapstream etc in the wake.

I'm a long time user of MC, but have never really looked into Theater view and now I'm wondering if it's capable to deliver what I want?

All 3rd party frontends can deliver basic or more functionality when it comes to music, video and pictures, so this is not an issue.

The issues to be solved:
1. TV functionality. I want to view TV, time-shift TV and record TV. With my future WinTV-PVR-500 or two single tuner cards, I'd also like to record one show while viewing another.

2. Programming TV recordings. How does MC do it? Is it possible to use Showview? Can you get a TV guide to be displayed/used for programming in MC? How about localized TV guides for Sweden, is there a way to aquire these? i'm thinking about any implementation of XMLTV or something...

3. Playing recorded items. How does MC's Theaterview deliver the content? Is it easily aquired? How is it stored?

EDIT/
4. Being able to view weather reports and news through the internet. Even better, custom news sources would be excellent!
/EDIT

Is there anything else I might forgot?

Thanks alot for your input!

hit_ny · « **Reply #6 on:** April 21, 2005, 02:08:50 pm »

MC can help you keep track of your audio /video stuff, you might want to delegate tivo like functions to a program like SageTV. Think of MC for playback.

Cmagic · « **Reply #7 on:** April 21, 2005, 03:27:17 pm »

Hi folks,

I've been playing around with MC and HTPC.
I set up a special computer I call "MediaPuter" around a nice Asus Pundit black box, a PVR 250 TV tuner and of course MC11.

My conclusion was : nothing in the world beats MC when it comes to organizing/playing Music but with TV and especially PVR function, MC is still not perfect. I ended up using Snapstream BeyondTV PVR for that.

However the nice thing is that, thanks to MC11, I was able to add a TV button that lauches the 3rd party TV/PVR program. So when I boot-up my Mediaputer, MC11 shows first in Theater view mode.

In fact, I don't watch TV a lot, I mostly listen to music so the situation is fine with me.

C.

Simple · « **Reply #8 on:** April 21, 2005, 04:59:53 pm »

Quote from: Cmagic on April 21, 2005, 03:27:17 pm

...I set up a special computer I call "MediaPuter" around a nice Asus Pundit black box, a PVR 250 TV tuner and of course MC11...

What about the noise from your MediaPuter? Is it disturbing or acceptable?

Marty3d · « **Reply #9 on:** April 21, 2005, 06:25:21 pm »

Thanks Cmagic and hit_ny!

I can't tell you how sad it makes me reading that MC's TV capabilities doesn't cut it. I'd really really wanted MC as frontend for my HTPC... I've always used MC for music only, but I wanted to try it out for TV as well now that I'm finally take the step. Two different systems is not my idea of smooth operation...especially when it's not just me who's going to use it.

I've checked out both snapstream and sagetv but only scratched on the surface. Can you please tell me about pros and cons on these two alternatives?

milknkukis · « **Reply #10 on:** April 21, 2005, 09:57:50 pm »

I use MC for exactly what you are after, but i do not use it for live TV or recording TV. I find the interface better with the hauppauge software and it also means i can record something while watching a previous recording on MC. I only have a 250pvr card and it isn't perfect by any means but i find this is the best way of working with it.
Both me and the missus found that once we raised the dpi of the display to 120dpi it was easy to deal with, plus it was still only two programs to learn, so no big deal. Personally, i would rather stick with XP/MC11 for a while before tackling MCE......
cheers
mark

icepick · « **Reply #11 on:** April 21, 2005, 11:47:17 pm »

I have a 52" LCD Projection TV in the basement, with a mighty machine. It has 5.1 sound system and I think of this TV as my computer monitor. I use it to play games with my wireless gamepad, and of course, tv viewing with with both MC and AIW software

. I bought MC11 becuase it supported the HDTV wonder. The time shiffting with the HDTV wonder works better then ATI software!

They need to add a intergration with xmltv, to get the guide on-screen and get pvr scheduled recordings working. And some small stuff like being able to type in a channel number rather then going though a list. But I have faith!

As a work around for the xmltv/on screen programing guide, I used a plugin in girder to display channel information, they are still tweaking the media center server, so I'm sure when that's done they can move to pvr scheduled recordings. For now, I just use AIW for that function.

IcePick

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** April 22, 2005, 06:58:43 am »

Quote from: Marty3d on April 21, 2005, 06:25:21 pm

I've checked out both snapstream and sagetv but only scratched on the surface. Can you please tell me about pros and cons on these two alternatives?

Please focus discussion on how to use MC's TV or how it can be improved. If you'd like a general board on HDTV, AVSForum.com has a good one.

Thanks,

Jim

Marty3d · « **Reply #13 on:** April 22, 2005, 07:19:55 am »

Sorry Jim! Didn't mean to step on any toes here, just being curious on how other MC users solved the tv thingy. I hope you understand that I love MC and wouldn't anything more than being able to use it for all media experience!

Ok, let's rephrase:
Since I have no experience on how to use tv through MC, please share yours! What can you do with it and what could be improved?

Thanks!

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** April 22, 2005, 07:21:45 am »

Thanks, Marty. We'll keep working on TV and try to satisfy your needs and those of others here.

Marty3d · « **Reply #15 on:** April 22, 2005, 07:25:08 am »

Great news Jim! I hope you as well as me and other users realize that MC eally is in the front for handling every other aspects...after my researches, I could say that MC could really really be a major player since every other similar product for htpcs have more weaknesses than MC today.

hit_ny · « **Reply #16 on:** April 22, 2005, 08:36:18 am »

That would be nice but that's a lot of work to do ie a year away if not more. we're talking bout taking on programs that specialise in this sort of thing. Not that it can't be done.. of course.

If you are looking for something *NOW*, you have the answers already.

Thing that gets me is the space required per hour of recorded broadcasts. I hear figures of a bout a gig per hour, this seems a bit large, was hoping it could be half as much. I'm talking about strictly time-shifting the usual boradcasts not HDTV or anything.

What formats are used for recording ?

paulr · « **Reply #17 on:** April 22, 2005, 10:50:41 am »

Here are some things that I think MC would need:

1. The ability to run the TV recording section as a service. The service would be only for TV recording - no interface or anything else would need to be loaded into memory. This service should run whether or not MC is running, and will automatically start when the computer is rebooted.
2. It would need to retrieve program listings from a service (like Zap2It). XMLTV would also work, but is my second preference for this function.
3. The ability to choose various recording qualities and set a default. You should also be able to override the default on a per show (or per favorite) basis.
4. The ability to select favorite shows. You would then be able to instruct MC to record 'New Episodes', 'Re-runs', or 'New Episodes & Re-runs'.
5. The ability to, on deleting a show, tell MC if there was some kind of recording error - in effect telling MC to record the next airing of the same show (this is good for shows that air after sporting events that run long, or if your cable service goes out, etc.).
6. MC should be able to find your favorites no matter what channel they are being shown on.
7. The ability to use plugins for various functions. For example, SageTV has a plugin for commercial detection that works pretty well. In addition, this plugin will instruct a program like VideoReDo on where the commercials are so you can quickly edit them out.
8. The ability to use the TV-Out on the TV-Card while still using the MC overlays for program information, etc.
9. The ability to search for various things in the program listing - Show name, actor, show type (movie, sports, comedy, etc.).
10. Support for multiple tuners.
11. The ability to serve recorded video to other clients on the local network (can MC already do this?).

Each of these are features that I use on a weekly basis with the exception of #10, and I have plans to add a tuner in the near future. I'm sure there's a lot more, such as configuring different codecs (MPEG vs AVI vs Xvid) for recording. And I'm sure I'll think of more to write down, but here's a start. It's a lot of work and will require big changes though.

hit_ny
The recording format depends on what the user wants. In my case, I use the built in MPEG encoder on my Win TV 350 PVR card, so I am limited on my choices (I usually use the lowest which is about 800MB per hour). However, some people are using other codecs, which is fine, but it would use a ton of CPU power to record and would preclude using that computer for much of anything else. I'd rather record using my hardware MPEG encoder and convert to a smaller format later or just burn the video to a DVD - the native MPEG from my 350 card is a standard DVD format so no conversion is necessary.

Yaobing · « **Reply #18 on:** April 22, 2005, 11:20:02 am »

Quote from: paulr on April 22, 2005, 10:50:41 am

And I'm sure I'll think of more to write down, but here's a start.

Wow, what a start!

Thanks for your great suggestions Paul. As you mentioned, it will require a lot of work. For now, I will just mention that you can schedule recordings using Media Scheduler. I know it is not upto the level you would like to have, but it's a start

. Media Scheduler has been broken for a while, but it is working now.

Yaobing · « **Reply #19 on:** April 22, 2005, 11:26:07 am »

Quote from: hit_ny on April 22, 2005, 08:36:18 am

Thing that gets me is the space required per hour of recorded broadcasts. I hear figures of a bout a gig per hour, this seems a bit large, was hoping it could be half as much. I'm talking about strictly time-shifting the usual boradcasts not HDTV or anything.

What formats are used for recording ?

The recording formats depend on the TV device you have. For devices such as Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250/350/150, the native MPEG is used for recording. I have not had a chance to try configuring to different quality with those devices.

For many other devices, recording can be done in AVI with your own choice of video compressor, or WMV with a few choices of quality profile.

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** April 22, 2005, 11:36:36 am »

For anyone who isn't aware of it ...

Yaobing is JRiver's TV specialist. He wrote most of it. So you're talking with the horse's mouth.

hit_ny · « **Reply #21 on:** April 22, 2005, 01:53:03 pm »

Quote from: paulr on April 22, 2005, 10:50:41 am

hit_ny
The recording format depends on what the user wants. In my case, I use the built in MPEG encoder on my Win TV 350 PVR card, so I am limited on my choices (I usually use the lowest which is about 800MB per hour). However, some people are using other codecs, which is fine, but it would use a ton of CPU power to record and would preclude using that computer for much of anything else. I'd rather record using my hardware MPEG encoder and convert to a smaller format later or just burn the video to a DVD - the native MPEG from my 350 card is a standard DVD format so no conversion is necessary.

This is the thing that excites me about the Hauppague series of cards, the so called hardware encoder. I was hoping to use it on a 700Mhz machine and this should take care of a lot of the added power reqd for video. It's also the reason a Tivo manages to do its work with a smaller CPU.

I guess it will have to be MPeg unless they offer a way to flash the card with a tighter enoder.

Now that you have the 350 , do you think you should have gone with the 500 which has a dual tuner. Of course no hardware decoder but maybe the solution is 2 x 350 PVR's.

A Big hello to Yaobing for looking after the TV side of things

Yaobing · « **Reply #22 on:** April 22, 2005, 02:19:18 pm »

Quote from: hit_ny on April 22, 2005, 01:53:03 pm

I guess it will have to be MPeg unless they offer a way to flash the card with a tighter enoder.

Actually, it is MPEG-2 for WinTV PVR devices.

Cmagic · « **Reply #23 on:** April 24, 2005, 04:46:22 am »

Hi simple,

Quote from: Simple on April 21, 2005, 04:59:53 pm

What about the noise from your MediaPuter? Is it disturbing or acceptable?

Well, The Pundit barebone from ASUS (http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=1&l2=3&l3=0&model=85&modelmenu=1) is relatively quiet out of the box. I was able to lower the noise a bit by replacing the default BIOS. This barebone has an active fan control which is quite efficient. Now, the noisiest element in my Mediaputer is the DVD drive. Also it gets noisier when recording TV show in compressed format when CPU load is near 100%.
On playback mode, I don't notice any noise. Or is it because I usually play music loud ?

Christian

paulr · « **Reply #24 on:** April 24, 2005, 09:38:04 pm »

Quote from: hit_ny on April 22, 2005, 01:53:03 pm

Now that you have the 350 , do you think you should have gone with the 500 which has a dual tuner. Of course no hardware decoder but maybe the solution is 2 x 350 PVR's.

I bought the 350 a year or two ago, before the 500 was announced. I had two reasons for choosing the 350:
1. It came in a package deal with the software I am using
2. It had a FM tuner

Since I got everything setup, I found that I have only used the FM tuner once - just to try it out. It has not been used aside from the first time and I don't see myself using it at all in the future.

However, I *have* had recording conflicts which is why I am considering a new tuner. If you need two tuner capability *and* you want an FM tuner, I would recommend a single 350 and either a 150 or 250 to go along with it. There is no reason to have two 350s unless you need to record two different FM stations at the same time.

If, on the other hand, you don't need the FM tuner, I would definitely recommend the 500. I just got done looking at Hauppauge's website and am considering buying it and replacing the 350 I have... Two tuners in *one* PCI slot is a much better solution for me. The only issue with it is it doesn't come with a remote control.

I also just noticed that the 250 and 350 have "Video CD encoder (hardware)". I have never used this feature so I can't comment on it, other than to say it sounds like it may support hardware encoding of tighter formats than MPEG.

Yaobing · « **Reply #25 on:** April 25, 2005, 08:48:24 am »

Quote from: paulr on April 24, 2005, 09:38:04 pm

I bought the 350 a year or two ago, before the 500 was announced. I had two reasons for choosing the 350:
I also just noticed that the 250 and 350 have "Video CD encoder (hardware)".

If I am not mistaken, "Video CD" is MPEG-1, DVD is MPEG-2.

hit_ny · « **Reply #26 on:** April 27, 2005, 01:36:13 pm »

Quote from: paulr on April 24, 2005, 09:38:04 pm

If, on the other hand, you don't need the FM tuner, I would definitely recommend the 500. I just got done looking at Hauppauge's website and am considering buying it and replacing the 350 I have... Two tuners in *one* PCI slot is a much better solution for me. The only issue with it is it doesn't come with a remote control.

I also just noticed that the 250 and 350 have "Video CD encoder (hardware)". I have never used this feature so I can't comment on it, other than to say it sounds like it may support hardware encoding of tighter formats than MPEG.

I think the 350 might be just right for me. Since it does encoding as well as decoding in the hardware (i got a slow computer). I'm hoping it can handle PAL B type broadcasts.

I read that the 500 is really two 150s on the same card. I was only looking to time-shift and maybe get a splitter so its possible to watch while recording another. I lose too much time in ads so i was figuring to watch stuff later and just FF past the ads. Don't see myself recording 2 shows at the same time just yet. Have no need for an FM Tuner.

I wondered whether the remote provided by the PVR-350 could be used with MC as well along with net remote+girder or is that an extra remote to be had.

Just read that you can't play DVD's through the 350's tv-out. What a pain !!

How could you output to the TV in this case ?

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: "Tutorial" on how to set up a Media/entertainment Center at home (Read 6339 times)

Simple