New Media centre PC

Beach Head

I hope that this is the correct forum for this post, please delete or move if not. I also hope someone out there can help me.

I am in the process of ordering a Dell media centre PC. The price is hovering between €1300 and €1700 depending on hard drive size etc. My questions are these,

1) If I spend that much money on the PC will I be able to banish my Sky Box to the attic? I want to run an analogue cable from my sky box to the PC and use media centre for all tv viewing.

2) I have been quoted for a Win tv card that comes with a remote control but I cannot confirm whether or not this is the Media Centre Remote. i dont think it is and if not, do I have to buy the media centre remote after I purchase the PC or will it come with the OS?

3) Will I be able to series link and automatically record tv programs? I do not want to watch something else etc, just record when I am not at home.

I am really bamboozled at the moment by CAMs, IR Blasters etc. I am fairly new to this technology, any help would be appreciated. Maybe someone could offer sample specs etc and help me get this thing off ground over the next few weeks.

kenmc

Beach Head wrote:

1) If I spend that much money on the PC will I be able to banish my Sky Box to the attic? I want to run an analogue cable from my sky box to the PC and use media centre for all tv viewing.

How do you intend to change the channel on the sky box if it's in the attic? Do you have some sort of IR transmitter that you will use for doing so? The PC will need to be told how to change the sky box for you.

8T8

Beach Head wrote:

I hope that this is the correct forum for this post, please delete or move if not. I also hope someone out there can help me.

I am in the process of ordering a Dell media centre PC. The price is hovering between €1300 and €1700 depending on hard drive size etc. My questions are these,

1) If I spend that much money on the PC will I be able to banish my Sky Box to the attic? I want to run an analogue cable from my sky box to the PC and use media centre for all tv viewing.

Possible but messy & not advised keep the Sky box easily accessible. In order for this to work you would need USB hubs acting as a daisy chain which can work up to 30m for the USB IR blaster in front of the Sky box. Plus you would need to route the output form the Sky box all the way back to the PC.

There is a grey area topic where by you can do away with the Sky box and get the Sky direct feed into MCE read more here.

2) I have been quoted for a Win tv card that comes with a remote control but I cannot confirm whether or not this is the Media Centre Remote. i dont think it is and if not, do I have to buy the media centre remote after I purchase the PC or will it come with the OS?

Note sure if it is a MCE certified tuner it should come with the remote however you are better off getting the official MCE remote anyway as it comes with the IR blaster for controlling set top boxes plus it is better build quality & it is quite cheap.

3) Will I be able to series link and automatically record tv programs? I do not want to watch something else etc, just record when I am not at home.

Yes you will be able to do that if buying a media PC from Dell make sure you get Windows Vista Home Premium as it has the latest version of MCE.

I am really bamboozled at the moment by CAMs, IR Blasters etc. I am fairly new to this technology, any help would be appreciated. Maybe someone could offer sample specs etc and help me get this thing off ground over the next few weeks.

CAM's are part of a security system commonly used for set top boxes the link above I gave talks more about this.

IR blasters can send IR commands to other devices which is basically what allows MCE to control your set top box and change the channel etc.

Any PC that costs over 1K from Dell will easily handle MCE in fact you could go cheaper.
Get a dual Core CPU slowest will do
1GB of RAM
HD size doesn't matter it will be big enough anyway.
GPU should be something from ATI or NVIDIA basic cheap job will do.

That's it oh yeah a wireless keyboard & mouse is a good idea.

Beach Head

Thanks very much for the help guys.

Have knocked the idea of moving the sky box, just going to leave it in the living room.

8T8 wrote:

There is a grey area topic where by you can do away with the Sky box and get the Sky direct feed into MCE [\QUOTE]

This is sort of what I wanted to do but I am just not confident enough to try. The main reason I wanted to do this is to use the media centre EPG only and not Skys. I have been totally frustrated by different message boards with conflicting answers to this question. Is the Media Centre EPG updated as per Skys?

Anyway, I have gone off the Dell idea after 8 hours of surfing and frustration. (Too noisy I fear)

So I am now thinking of the Shuttle.
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-171/310_read-13775/

I believe that this will do the business.

Thanks again for all your help. I will let you know how I get on.

8T8

The direct feed does work I've seen numerous confirmations it just can be a little scary doing it if your never tried anything like that before and obviously being a grey area they don't spell everything out.

The EPG in MCE is kept up to date with Sky's.

Those Shuttle systems work well you could also consider a Mac Mini as they can run Windows now via a utility Apple provide.

grodge

i have a shuttle xpc and its the business. im after moving now and i need to set the whole thing up again, ill put one simple qusetion out there.

can i connect the shuttle to my normal sky box and use the interface of the media centre to control the sky box. ie use media centre guide and record etc?

if no, all well and good. if yes can someone point me in the right direction

kaisersose77

Have a dell myself, not noisy at all with a fanless card. Dont hear it all sitting on couch with pc beside tv. Theres a brilliant value one mentioned in bargain alerts section. For 508 delivered, you get a core2duo e4300,2gb ram,19" inch lcd and vista home premium. Then buy 8500gt fanless graphics card to play HD without a problem. Might look as fancy as some htpc's but you'll find it hard to get one at a price like that. Theres rumours sky are gonna change cards later this year so I wouldnt invest any money on cams atm for that. They usually change cards every few years and its being a few years since they last changed.