Re: DIY MCE options
From: JD (jd_at_thejd.co.ukSPAM)
Date: 10/24/04
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Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:19:22 +0100
Thank you Nigel a very informative response.
I live in a 200yr old thatched cottage and as such I dont go for the dated
"studio flat" look ;)
Before reading your thread I found a old wooden chest in the cow barn, which
is perfectly sized to sit in the living room under the LCD. I shall put the
PC-components in this quaint old box (its wood and therefore insulated). As
you correctly point out noise will be a concern given that one can hear the
rabbits shagging in the woods! I will have a look at the ultra-quiet power
supplies and main-fans etc for my wooden box :)
OS. Ive always felt more comfortable with keeping things simple ie MS where
possible. And would be looking to use the PC for other functions besides TV,
so had presumed that 3rd party apps and remotes were not geared to explorer
and IE etc. However I have noted ATI's claims of their remotes "desktop"
functionality and will investigate the apps you suggest to see how "nice"
they are compared to the MCE GUI. Its with little suprise that mpeg2 is
dropped in favour of an MS-hybrid codec, but a good point to make none the
less and one which given my desire to make DVDs could be pivitol.
So in conclusion, it looks like a better DIY Media PC can be built using an
ATI card and remote with say an app (GBpvr looks nice) and a ATA100 HD as
the SERIAL drives are still expensive in larger capacities. Which leaves
only a simple cheapo motherboard with onboard LAN and 5.1 Sound etc and
carefull choice of cooling/powersupply.
Other point to note is the ATI remote is less than £20 and is RF! Which
suites my wooden box better than line of site IR. But will it work with
GBpvr or will the ATI software bundles with the graphics card do all thats
needed??
"Nigel Barker" <nigel@hp.com> wrote in message
news:idnnn05caiim6m6ts6s1uuiqpuo2rd0b2m@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 17:25:23 +0100, "JD" <jd@thejd.co.ukSPAM> wrote:
>
>>Having looked at the pathetic out of date OEM junk in my local
>>PC-warehouse
>>I thought it best to consider building my own MCE-PC.
>>
>>1) The OEMs in the main dont support FreeView and those that do charge an
>>extra $300 even though you can buy a digital free view PCI-card for $60!!
>>
>>2) The OEMs seem to think that more is better. And supply nasty desktop
>>speakers and other rubbish with their systems, like tiny 17" TFT screens!
>>
>>3) The OEM pc case is GIGANTIC! And wont fit neatly in my sitting room
>>hidden away that is.
>>
>>4) The OEMs charge a bomb for what is only a small OS upgrade and a USB-IR
>>dongle and TV card!!
>>
>>So, I thought lets find a shuttle type mini-PC which can hide in my
>>sitting
>>room and then add the MCE-OS, Ir-dongle and TV-card myself. I have a
>>28inch
>>LCD with PC many square pins thingy VGA input... DVI init?
>>
>>Does anyone know if all this talk of compatability is in reality one of
>>the
>>simply the TV-card and that a mini-motherboard as found in a shutlle would
>>if given a certified PCI-tv card work just fine with MCE?
>>
>>I appreciate that nothing in life is certain, but be brave and state
>>whether
>>you think the compatability issues "really lie."
>
> I have an aluminium cube Shuttle-style case in my living room (along with
> four
> other computer systems) but don't think that it is particularly more
> attractive
> than a large aluminium tower case sitting next to it. The Shuttles cannot
> be
> rendered as quiet as a large case & there is limited expansion e.g. for
> dual
> tuners (OK you could use USB). One of these HiFi style cases would fit in
> with
> the living room decor much better. http://www.quietpc.com/uk/htpc.php
>
> You of course require the Microsoft IR sensor & remote they are very
> reasonably
> priced at 23.43 GBP
> http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=2577345746&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=77109
> You need a decent graphics card that does DX9 in hardware (Nvidia FX5200
> or ATI
> Radeon 9600 or better). A Black Gold or Hauppauge Nova-T as the Freeview
> capture
> card (or two so that you can record two channels at once or watch one
> while
> recording another). A large hard disk >160GB. 3GHz P4 or AMD equivalent.
> 512MB
> memory. Soundblaster 5.1 sound card. A nice quiet & fast DVD burner such
> as NEC
> 3500. That should do you for hardware. Look at the Quiet PC site for stuff
> like
> ultra-quiet power supplies, CPU coolers & case fans if you want to make a
> big
> thing of keeping the whole ensemble as quiet as possible.
>
> You can buy the OEM version of MCE 2005 from Ebuyer too for 81.22 GBP
> http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=2577345746&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=74686
>
> Don't forget that there are alternatives to Media Center which may support
> some
> functions better than MCE e.g. No Freeview radio stations in MCE but
> supported
> in Showshifter. Also these alternatives will record in MPEG2 rather than
> Microsoft's proprietary DVR-MS so making it much easier to use standard
> tools to
> edit recordings & author DVDs.
>
> Take a look at the applications in the following list which is by no means
> exhaustive:-
>
> Commercial:
> BeyondTV www.snapstream.com
> SageTV & SageRecorder www.sage.tv
> Showshifter www.showshifter.com
>
> Freeware:
> GB-PVR http://www.gbpvr.com/
> Media Portal http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
> MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/
>
> --
> Nigel Barker
> Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
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