Media PC

Graham · 20-12-2004 3:38am

I reckon I spent about €1500 altogether, but thats with fairly whizzy hard disks n memory.

40coats · 20-12-2004 4:43am

Mine was €1200 ish. Extenders are pretty cool, hopefully the xbox one will be released here, much cheaper alternative assuming you already have an xbox of course.

Graham · 28-12-2004 1:33am

We've just upgraded our NTL to NTL digital and so ends the Showguide hack to get the EPG working.

I've tried everything I can think of but I just cant get the Showguide -> MCE export to work at all. So close......

If anyone's had any success getting this working any hints would be appreciated.

ro2 · 28-12-2004 6:28pm

I built a MCE PC about a month ago and it cost just over €1k. You can get all the bits from overclockers.co.uk. They sell the MCE remote too, it comes with a USB receiver and works as soon as you install MCE 2005.

I used an Antec Aria Micro case and like it says on the site the case is quiet, however as soon as you stick in a 3Ghz processor it gets noisy. The case needs more vents in it so you'll need to stick a few holes in it or else it sounds like a hoover after about 30 minutes.

At the moment I have it plugged into a TV using s-video. I tried it first with an ATI 9600 and the TV had wavy lines going through the picture. I swapped it for an Nvidia Geforce 4 and used the mce drivers and it's working perfectly.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxpmce_66.93.html

One other thing to note if you buy a wireless mouse or keyboard then go for a bluetooth version, the range on the standard wireless keyboards is only a couple of feet.

Here's the motherboard I used - fits perfectly inside that case:

Asus P4P800-VM "i865G" Micro ATX (Socket 478) Motherboard (MB-034-AS)

secret_squirrel · 08-01-2005 7:20pm

Just finished putting my MCE 2005 pc together thanks mainly to the posts in this thread. Cheers guys. Even have the Guide working with chorus analogue.

Now all I gotta do is find somewhere with the MCE remote in stock. Any suggestions??? My ATI remote wonder doesnt work to badly tho.

Also if anyone has any htpc cases to recommend for a full ATX mobo feel free.

Graham · 08-01-2005 7:24pm

I got mine from a UK company advertising on eBay. If you have any problems finding one there, PM me and I'll send you their email address.

Red Alert · 08-01-2005 7:51pm

There's a system called MythTV which runs on linux and supports ALL the Hauppage cards. Might be a tad cheaper, and the screens are fully configurable.

secret_squirrel · 09-01-2005 1:18am

Its grand ta the remotes are back on ebay now - they must have been on Xmas break.

I checked out most of the other PVR/Media Center proggies out there before settling on MCE 2005 - it has the best combination of features and a damn fine UI. Great to see microsoft getting things right for a change. Only ways to improve it for me would be to be a little less restrictive on the hardware and to expand the Guide to cover ireland.

Graham · 09-01-2005 1:47am

Yeah, the software itself is fantastic, just wish I could get the EPG working again.

secret_squirrel · 09-01-2005 5:29pm

thats strange I followed the instructions in this thread and it worked perfectly first time. My region code was 353 if it helps.

Incidentally if anyone is reading this is going to build a MCE pc I would recommend using an Nvidia GFX card, since you can tweak them to support Widescreen TV resolutions. (1024x576)

statto · 10-01-2005 2:54pm

I have been experimenting with a Wintv-PVR-500 card and SageTv. However, the quality of the picture on my TV (28 inch widescreen) is very poor. I am using an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card and P4 3 GHz cpu. I had planned on building a media PC using MCE 2005 however the poor quality, even on DVD play back has made me think twice. I am now thinking about a DVD recorder with a hard disk. Have you guys any tips (hardware or software) to improve the quality before I abandon my Media pc project.

Ciaran500 · 10-01-2005 5:41pm

Where you will really benfit from a Media PC is with a TV with either a DVI or VGA input. Using them into a normal TV via S-video will give you dissapointing result (from what I've seen).

secret_squirrel · 10-01-2005 7:53pm

I tend to disagree...the picture quality with DVD playback from my elcheapo GeForce 5200 through the S-Video socket to the SVHS Scart socket on my TV is almost as good as the RGB over Scart from my pricey DVD player. The only badness I noticed was a slight judder on fast moving scenes. But thats 99% likely to be due to the fact that Im using a software DVD player - and its not likely to ever match a £450 DVD player with RGB output.

Granted my tv picture is crappen****e but thats my crappy analog cable.

A couple of suggestions - get a good metal ended svideo-scart cable. Mines a chunky IXOS one.
What DVD player software are you using?? NVidia or WinDVD 6 are considered the best for quality - Im using Nvidia. If you are using the ATI dvd software - its generally considered to offer crap picture quality.
Both NV_DVD and WinDVD 6 are available as Trialware.

Graham · 10-01-2005 10:45pm

I have MCE 2005 connected to a 30" LCD via VGA connector and the quality is excellent. When I use the s-video output of my TV card however, it's like watching TV through a goldfish bowl.

DVI is an order of magnitude better again, just can't seem to get it to play with the TV/MCE combo

40coats · 11-01-2005 12:32pm

I use VGA to a projector with powerstrip giving me 1:1 pixel matching and the picture is excellent. Personally I wouldn't have gone down the PC root if my display was a crt tv.

statto · 11-01-2005 3:59pm

Thanks for the advice secret_squirrel - I am using PowerDVD 5 as it came with the ATI card. I'll get a decent S-Video to scart cable and try again. Would a different GFX card be better? I want the quality of the stand-alone DVD player with the functionality the Hauppauge twin tuner card and SageTV. I want my cake and eat it to.... LOL. Is it possible to get an evaluation copy of MCE 2005 to test it out?

secret_squirrel · 11-01-2005 8:00pm

statto wrote:

I want my cake and eat it to.... LOL. Is it possible to get an evaluation copy of MCE 2005 to test it out?

Evaluation copies of microsoft software - you must be joking.

If you are thinking of getting or have the Hauppauge PVR500 twin tuner card its been reported to have serious driver issues with Win MCE.

Definately try the trial versions of WinDVD6 and NV_DVD.

You have a pretty decent video card there - Im not sure I would get rid of it for the sake of the tv screen display. Unless you can swap it for a similarly specced Nvidia card. (Geforce 5900???)

A lot of people seem to have sucess improving their displays using powerstrip - but I havent tried it.

TBH you can get €40 DVD players with progressive scan now - you've never gonna get a pc display that comes close to that. (Assumes you have a tv with prog scan of course)

Do like me - start saving for that LCD/Plasma screen with VGA, DVI and HD inputs

Cavman · 12-01-2005 12:53am

i'm a newbie about mce pc's i just know the basic,
what parts do you need to build one for ntl digital?
is it hard to set up for ntl digital when built?

all help would be great
cheers guys

Graham · 12-01-2005 1:34am

Hi Cavman,

building the mce pc itself wasn't difficult at all. You need a PC with a compatible video card, TV Tuner, MCE remote control and of course Windows Media Centre 2005.

Getting an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for NTL Digital is prooving a little trickier. Microsoft don't yet provide an EPG for Ireland, so you're left to try and cobble your own together. I managed to get this working for NTL analog but am struggling a little with NTL Digital.

I haven't worked on the EPG for a couple of weeks now but I do plan to have another go later this week, I'll let you know if I manage to get it working.

statto · 12-01-2005 9:26am

secret_squirrel wrote:

Do like me - start saving for that LCD/Plasma screen with VGA, DVI and HD inputs

Thanks for the advice - I think I will put my media PC on hold till I get an LCD screen (if and when the ever come down in price!). The last few days I have been reading the AVS forum and boy is it complicated most of the the stuff when over my head. Time to go back to college and do a course in AV engerrning!!. All I have to do now is find a DVD recorder with a hard disk that plays Divx and has a working EPG !!!!!

Cheers

By the whay, Grahmam, what display are you using?

Graham · 12-01-2005 8:43pm

It's a 30" Thomson Selenium, it's a fantastic LCD and comes with almost every type of input you can think of. Off the type of my head:

Aerial
S-Video
Composite Video
2 x Scart
DVI
VGA

I saw the 27" version in Dixons last week for €999

secret_squirrel · 12-01-2005 11:58pm

Graham wrote:

Hi Cavman,

building the mce pc itself wasn't difficult at all. You need a PC with a compatible video card, TV Tuner, MCE remote control and of course Windows Media Centre 2005.

Also a software DVD player is essential - MCE wont work without one -it will tell you there is a tuner error - that cost me plenty of head scratching.

Ebay is a good source of all things MCE - it has the Haupauge 150MCE tv/fm tuner, WinMCE2005 and the MCE remote all for reasonable prices. Delivery to Ireland can sometime be a pain. Helps if you have a friend up north.

Graham wrote:

Getting an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for NTL Digital is prooving a little trickier. Microsoft don't yet provide an EPG for Ireland, so you're left to try and cobble your own together. I managed to get this working for NTL analog but am struggling a little with NTL Digital.

I haven't worked on the EPG for a couple of weeks now but I do plan to have another go later this week, I'll let you know if I manage to get it working.

Graham I assume that is in place of NTL analog?? According to some research I did today WinMCE wont support both the analog input and the svideo/composite inputs in the same set up. Which means you cant get some channels from NTL analog and some from NTL digital its either one or the other. Which is a bit of a bummer for me since I was thinking of getting a skybox with a uk smartcard and sourcing the irish channels from my chorus analog.

Graham · 13-01-2005 12:08am

I don't think it's the DVD player that's essential, it's the software that comes with it, the MPEG decoding software if memory serves.

I started with NTL's analog service and had MCE and the EPG working nicely together (with TV schedules sourced from XMLTV).

I've since switched to NTL Digital and there seems to be some problems with some of the characters in the XML for the additional TV stations which are preventing a successful import into the MCE EPG.

I think all it's going to take is a process of ellimination to work out which station's data stream is at fault, find the dodgy characters and use a find & replace script to remove them.

You're correct about MCE, all the stations need to come from a single source. Or if you have 2 tuners they both need connecting to similar sources, e.g. 2 NTL Digital set top boxes. I'm sure you could have 2 MCE machines running side by side to run disparate TV sources but that would just be greedy

secret_squirrel · 13-01-2005 12:12am

You are using the latest version of smartguide right?? There have been a couple of version with fixes to remove dodgy characters from some of the xml fields.

Graham · 13-01-2005 12:32am

Yup, very latest versions of everything, including the latest version of smartguide which removes some of the dodgy characters and overlength fields which have caused problems in the past.

I have a hunch that it might be the channels with +1 in the channel name that are causing the problems so they'll be the first to go. If that doesn't work it's down to starting with 1 channel and adding the rest in 1 at a time.

If I get a working EPG for NTL digital I'll let you know.

statto · 21-01-2005 1:01pm

Having problems with setting up MCE 2005. Keep getting either Decoder error or Video Error messages when trying to view Live TV or DVD's. I have PowerDVD 5 and PVR-500 MCE twin tuner card with a 9800 PRO gfx card. I did a goggle and came across forums where this error was resolved by using WinDVD 6. So I downloaded the trail version but no joy. I have run the MCE 2005 diagnostic tool and pass on everything. I have uninstalled all the drivers and reinstalled them. I installed MCE 2005 on a spare disk in my PC and have it dual boot with XP pro, as I want to test everything out before building my new Media PC box. As this isn’t the final resting place of MCE 2005 I haven’t activated it yet. My next step is to format the drive and start again. Any help before I do this would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

40coats · 21-01-2005 3:08pm

Try sticking the nvidia trial codec on.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder_1.00.67-trial.html

statto · 21-01-2005 11:54pm

Thanks 40coats. Used the nvdia decoder. Got a step further - decoder error gone - just getting a blank screen now but can hear audio. looks like a format and rebuid.

cheers

secret_squirrel · 22-01-2005 2:49am

well the mce500 pvr is known to have mce 2005 driver issues can you beg borrow or steal a 150, 250,350? If that is the case your probs might go away. I noticed on a coupla forum how disabling one of the tuners on the pvr500mce sorted things out but dont know the details.

statto · 25-01-2005 9:38am

Have tried various combinations of enabling/disabling the tuners. Then did a reformat and fresh install. Loaded various avi codecs and Nvidia dvd decoder before installing the tuners I tried to get the video or DVD to work on MCE but no joy. I think its time to put the media pc to rest and buy a dvd hdd recorder.

Thanks guys for all your help and advice.

Media PC

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