Synkro's post..... Starting out

Synkro

hi 8t8,

I too am putting together a htpc in the near future. I plan to have to inputs/sources of tv to the htpc, my analog ntl and digital sky set top box.

MCE does not support multiple guides (inputs) so you could only record from one or the other of your two sources.

I read somewhere that mce2005 can accept up to 3 internal tuner cards, does this mean the three sources can only be controlled from one EPG guide?

Also I am using digiguide at the moment with a pvr250 card, (no mce, just command line) I pay about 12euro a yr for epg subscription. I looked at using free xml epg grabbers before but it didnt work well. Ive read here that MCE supports terrestial (ntl) and sky epg but does this require a subscription?

While MCE looks like a 'plug&play' solution with good support, i am concerned about the DRM which might be forced on me. Are recorded progs easily transferrable to other pcs, also do you know of an add-on which could transcode recorded mpeg2 to divx in the background? This is something mythtv has going in its favour.

Does MCE record in mpeg2? When i record on my pvr250 i get 2gb per hour, is this compression the same in MCE?

Im considering mythtv as an alternative to MCE, but i know nothing about linux. Some of the features i am after are...

automatic background transcoding to divx/xvid
ability to stream live tv from tuner card to another pc/laptop on the network
good file management, ie program details saved with mpg file, vids organised by series, episode etc.

finally, wud u recommend mce2005 or vista premium?

cheers!

SouperComputer

I read somewhere that mce2005 can accept up to 3 internal tuner cards, does this mean the three sources can only be controlled from one EPG guide?

Yes, basically they must be the same type of source. So NTL digital, Sky digital or what not. With MythTV this is not an issue.

Also I am using digiguide at the moment with a pvr250 card, (no mce, just command line) I pay about 12euro a yr for epg subscription. I looked at using free xml epg grabbers before but it didnt work well. Ive read here that MCE supports terrestial (ntl) and sky epg but does this require a subscription?

No sub or XML grabbing needed with MCE anymore. Select your area (say Dublin) and your signal type (NTL digital) and it does the rest for you.

While MCE looks like a 'plug&play' solution with good support, i am concerned about the DRM which might be forced on me. Are recorded progs easily transferrable to other pcs, also do you know of an add-on which could transcode recorded mpeg2 to divx in the background? This is something mythtv has going in its favour.

DRM isnt really implemented with the recordings, however they are recorded in a format called DVRMS. Its basically an MPEG2 transport stream with metadata. To view it, you can use VLC, or media player 9 on XP machines that have SP2 installed.

To transcode, you can use software called crunchie, it can also remove commercials


The recording is almost always in MPEG2. This is because the computer does not carry out any compression. The compression is carried out on the PVR card.

ability to stream live tv from tuner card to another pc/laptop on the network

Forget MCE. MythTV, GB-PVR and (perhaps) media portal are your only options. MythTv is definately the most stable in this regard

good file management, ie program details saved with mpg file, vids organised by series, episode etc.

MCE does this, MythTV does not. I cant remember if Mediaportal and or GB-PVR do.

finally, wud u recommend mce2005 or vista premium?

MCE2005 purely as it was been tried and tested. Personally Ill let the other make the leap and suffer the teething problems. Then at a later date, the software should be more developed and possibly cheaper too.

8T8

Here is my post from the prior thread.

Synkro wrote:

I read somewhere that mce2005 can accept up to 3 internal tuner cards, does this mean the three sources can only be controlled from one EPG guide?

Correct the multiple tuners can only record from one guide, if you have two different STB's with different guides you can only use one or the other.

Synkro wrote:

Also I am using digiguide at the moment with a pvr250 card, (no mce, just command line) I pay about 12euro a yr for epg subscription. I looked at using free xml epg grabbers before but it didnt work well. Ive read here that MCE supports terrestial (ntl) and sky epg but does this require a subscription?

No subscription required when you buy MCE you get guide support for free.

Synkro wrote:

While MCE looks like a 'plug&play' solution with good support, i am concerned about the DRM which might be forced on me. Are recorded progs easily transferrable to other pcs, also do you know of an add-on which could transcode recorded mpeg2 to divx in the background? This is something mythtv has going in its favour.

There is no DRM in MCE recordings this side of the pond as far as I'm aware. Recordings are done into an DVR-MS file which is just MPEG-2 plus metadata, there are many tools for converting & splicing out commercials. There is no recording or on the fly transcoding into DivX/XviD plugin I'm afraid.

Synkro wrote:

Does MCE record in mpeg2? When i record on my pvr250 i get 2gb per hour, is this compression the same in MCE?

Yes into MPEG-2 as for the compression settings it's probably about 3GB per hour I'm not sure I recorded something last night that was at least over an hour long, I'll have to double check.

Synkro wrote:

Im considering mythtv as an alternative to MCE, but i know nothing about linux. Some of the features i am after are...

automatic background transcoding to divx/xvid
ability to stream live tv from tuner card to another pc/laptop on the network
good file management, ie program details saved with mpg file, vids organised by series, episode etc.

MCE only does part of what you want, it is really the easiest way to get a media centre up & running but that comes at the cost of advanced features. MythTV certainly will do what you want but has a complicated setup which can be daunting to those unfamiliar with linux.

I would at least recommend checking out GB-PVR this runs atop Windows, supports multiple guides, streaming and auto conversion into XviD.

Synkro wrote:

finally, wud u recommend mce2005 or vista premium?

If going MCE then Vista because it loads faster, will be updated with more features in the long run, more bug fixes in it than XP MCE, only mark against Vista MCE is the UI is a bit of a step back over the previous one just not as useful or quick to navigate but that's a minor gripe.

adrian.s

MCE only does part of what you want, it is really the easiest way to get a media centre up & running but that comes at the cost of advanced features. MythTV certainly will do what you want but has a complicated setup which can be daunting to those unfamiliar with linux.

There was a very interesting thread in the mythv-users mail list a few days ago on this very topic. In the end (and I know this comes from mythtv users ) the lack of usability comes pre-dominantly from setting up capture cards, the actual myth installation is really well documented.

Myth will do everything the original poster added, I gave a demo of Mythweb to a colleague yesterday and he was seriously impressed with how it organises TV recording schedules, recorded programs etc. And of course if you're willing to roll up your sleeves a bit, you can so some very slick stuff with it. There's a passionate community supporting it and this should go a long way to getting over setup problems.

As a zero cost solution (s/w wise), you can try:

* Ubunutu 6.10 (Desktop)
* Checkout the mythtv wiki to get the instructions for setting up your capture card
* After installation, install mythtv using synaptic and configure it as per the user guide.

And you can run this on any old hardware you have floating around to test it.

EPG data is provided by the Radio Times via xmltv. The only channels you can't get data for are Channel 6 and setanta. With a little work you can dabble in some perl to get this info from their web sites. There are no subscription costs.

Mythtv will also let you stream live tv (there will be some work here in case your client is not a myth frontend). But once you started dabbling with PVR's, live TV quickly loses its appeal!

A.

Synkro

Thanks for your advice. The single guide in MCE really restricts my setup. Its a pity the couple additional channels I watch on sky cant be mapped accross somehow. Another thing that bugs me about the new vista releases are the restricted remote desktop functions (only supports outgoing connections).

Myth tv looks great but windows wins on simplicity and compatibility (ipod,pc games etc).

Im looking at gbpvr and mediaportal. I googled some reviews and comparisons of each from other forums.GBpvr seems to be the favoured app.


http://forum.byopvr.com/dvr/index.php?PHPSESSID=5903e95a7533bc9fbac96df991f8523f&topic=5856.msg30437

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=2817

rodoherty1

Hi Guys,

I'm very sorry for being the millionth person to ask this but I have done alot of searching and I still can't piece together a full picture of just how "supported" the Sky Digital Satellite EPG is for Irish Sky Digital Satellite subscribers.

No sub or XML grabbing needed with MCE anymore. Select your area (say Dublin) and your signal type (NTL digital) and it does the rest for you.

Does SouperComputer mean that, as a Satellite Sky Digital Subscriber in Ireland, I only need to set my location as Dublin, state that I'm receiving a cable TV signal (even though I'm receiving a Digital Satellite signal) and then select NTL (even though Sky Digital Ireland is an option if I state that I receive a Satellite signal)?

I've never subscribed to NTL so I don't know if their Channel Numbering matches the Sky Digital EPG (e.g. Sky One = 106, Sky News = 501, Discovery = 520).

Also, my MCE Guide has "No Programme Info" (or something similar) for 50% or so of the channels. Would this be a thing of the past?

Once again, I'm sorry for bringing up this age-old question but I've read so much conflicting info on the web that I had to post the question and risk getting pounded into the ground with slagging.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Rob.