Advice for neewcomer hoping to setup HTPC

alter200

Hi,

I've ordered a desktop replacement laptop (Acer 5920) to take the place of my ageing Compaq Presario S5600UK desktop.
I noted that the Vista Home Premium with the laptop includes media center and it started me thinking about setting up a HTPC (I recently purchased HD Ready LCD TVs for living and bedrooms and want to utilise them fully)

However, my new laptop will mainly be used in the bedroom (and my 40" TV is downstairs) and I'm not sure about leaving it on for extended periods as I would do with a desktop (to record programmes over a few days or at night etc).

So, I'd like to re-use my old desktop as HTPC in living room (might do the same with my laptop in bedroom as it also includes a HD DVD drive) - without spending a fortune on it

My desktop currently has

- Pentium 4 - 3GHz processor (I believe this is plenty)
- 512 MB DDR RAM (I believe this is just about enough)
- ATI Radeon 9200 processor (I believe this needs to be updated)
- Internal 160GB drive and external USB 250 GB (plenty for now)
- OS = Windows XP

Have been reading up on the forum as I'm a complete newb (have never even seen a Media Center in operatuion other than on youtube)

So, I think I need the following to get my media center running

1. Software
Want a free one - so media Portal or GB PVR, I guess. Have seen good reviews of Media Portal and thinking of going with that

2. TV Tuner
I have NTL digital and I've seen plenty of good recommendations for Hauppauge PVR 150. Komplette have it for €94 with a remote control. Not clear if that includes the IR blaster too. Also, if it is badged as MCE , does that mean it only works with Windows Media center or is it fine for Media Portal too? I see it has DVI output so I suppose I could run a DVI-HDMI cable to connect to my LCD TV? Also, will need a scart to s-video cable to connect NTL box to the TV Tuner or co-ax cable or ??

3. New Grafix Card
Don't plan to play games (other than old MAME games which run fine on my existing, ageing card) so want the cheapest model that is sufficient for my media center. I saw recommendations for FX 5200 and they seem to be available for 30-40 euro

I've connected my current pc to LCD TV (s-video to s-video) and the display was quite poor. The colours seemed "washed-out" - if that makes any sense. I guess the grafix card is not up to it?

4. Storage
I have approx 400GB which will do for now. After a period of use, I'll see what size I will ultimately need. Have people seen decent performance with external USB drives (is 7200 RPM required) or have they gone with internal drives instead? Not sure I want another power cable for my new hard drive - there's enough as it is (might need to invest in one of the power surge protectors with loads of sockets)

5. Add to my laptop
new laptop has better grafix card and Vista premium and HD DVD as well as 250GB HD. I can add a TV tuner to the mix and use it as HTPC in the bedroom. I guess I would need a USB one - any recommendations? (NTL cable in bedroom). What about PCI Express TV Tuners?

Need to find a way of sharing content between the two computers too :-)

Any thoughts? Have I misssed anything important or would people recommend any changes?

thanks,

Al

p.s. Great forum - very interesting stuff!!

Ghost Train

sounds fine

dont think you'd have any issues using drives slower than 7500, use internal drives myself, don't think there'd be much problem using external drives

the mce haupauge card doesnt come with remote control, the standard version does... otherwise they work the same

i'm happy with gb-pvr myself

for connecting the two machines up, the type of video youre talking about can be streamed over wifi, but putting in a wired connection gives much faster speed for transferring files

SouperComputer

Media portal is a good way to go. Lookup tvengine for destributing it throught your home.

512MB is scraping it. Expect an occasional slowdown, but overall it wil be useable. Ideally 768 is the min IME. Do the usual XP home tweaks, disable uneeded services, minimalist deskop/features etc etc.

TBH I think a lot of people get freaked aout about HD speeds without sitting down and doing the math. I had an expermiental MCE rig running from a 12mm (ie VERY old school) 2.5" laptop drive streaming to 2-3 other clients without any issues.

The 9200 is fine for graphics. The problem lies with the Svideo standard, not the card. SVideo is pants in short when compared to VGA. If your LCD does not have VGA, then you should try to get an NVidia card that supports and comes with the component out dongle. They can be gotten pretty cheaply.

Ive never seen a PVR150 with DVI! IIRC the MCE edition does not come an IR blaster. However the MCE remote (Which you will want) comes with two.

Check the sticky for all the info you need on connecting the NTL box to your card.

5. Add to my laptop
new laptop has better grafix card and Vista premium and HD DVD as well as 250GB HD. I can add a TV tuner to the mix and use it as HTPC in the bedroom. I guess I would need a USB one - any recommendations? (NTL cable in bedroom). What about PCI Express TV Tuners?

Need to find a way of sharing content between the two computers too :-)

USB tuners not a problem.

My 2c is either go the same version of MCE on both machines or use mediaportal with TV engine. TVEngine will offer what you need as far as integration goes.

mossym

pvr150 is a graphics capture card, it does not output video, so it doesn't have dvi connection.

alter200

mossym wrote:

pvr150 is a graphics capture card, it does not output video, so it doesn't have dvi connection.

D'oh - it is of course the grafix card and not the TV tuner :-) That's what happens when you post at midnight on a Sunday

thanks for your advice lads - appreciate it

gerryo

SouperComputer wrote:

Ive never seen a PVR150 with DVI! IIRC the MCE edition does not come an IR blaster. However the MCE remote (Which you will want) comes with two.

Do all PVR-150 basic versions (non MCE version) have IR Blaster?

Also, I read somewhere the non MCE version did not have composite input, but this seems wrong, although maybe it only has S-VHS & you need an adapter.

I think it has no FM radio either - correct?

Stoner

could there be an issue with some LCD TVs with HDMI inputs not connecting to graphics cards??? I had that problem with a Samsung TV. I forget the name of the copy protection now, something to do with not wanting to allow coping from Sky HD, it was printed in the samsung manual, maybe this has been done away with now as I heard that it was stopping sales on some models.
I could be wrong though, but its worth mentioning to you , someone will correct me if I'm wrong here, but I had to switch from a Samsung to a panasonic for this reason, messed my whole plan up.

BTW I agree with SouperComputer WRT the RAM

alter200

that's a bit worrying about the samsung

I have gotten the TV tuner and Media Portal installed. Seems to be working ok but a little slow sometimes - e.g. transitioning to full screen. Maybe I do need to look at some extra RAM

Has anyone been able to install the drivers for MCE remote on an XPm machine without Media Centre installed?

SouperComputer

RAM amount should be "OK", run task manager while playing with media portal and see how much RAM you are eating up. It really depends on what other software you have installed and how many services you have running.

MP can be sluggish at times, but it has come a long way and for the price, its great

you can get the MS MCE remote drivers from mediaportal's website. Click meh

alter200

thanks for the link man - gonna try it now!