A newbie is confused...what's new!

artvandulet

Having only recently heard of HTPC via this forum and having read through the stickies and other posts I was hoping someone could help me with a few questions I still have as I'm not quite getting it!

I have a LCD TV with VGA and HDMI. I have a 2GHz Athlon PC with 2Gb RAM and a 250Gb SATA drive. I am getting NTL digital next week and was planning on buying THIS.

From what I understand I need to then purchase a Video card with RF in. I connect the NTL box to this and then the PC to the LCD via VGA. I then have a PVR. (Man thats a lot of TLA's (Two/three letter abbreviations:D)).
Is this correct? Is this purely for recording TV? Otherwise would I just use TV as normal and connect PC to TV over VGA? Is that not HTPC?

What else do I need?
Any suggestions on where to make purchases?
Is there any shops I can walk into to buy these?

Any help greatly appreciated? I apologise if this is all completely silly!:D

mathias

For the keyboard to work ( its a good keyboard by the way , have one myself) you need the pc to be running either Win XP MCE edition , or Vista home premium or ultimate , basically the OS has to have Media center , thats not the same as media player now , it must be media center.

The keyboard does not come with a remote receiver ,( at least mine didnt , but mine wasnt that expensive , maybe dabs are including the receiver? ) so you need to get this as well ,
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=309575
This comes with IR extenders to control your NTL box.

From what I understand I need to then purchase a Video card with RF in.

No thats not quite correct ,
In addition to your video card you need a TV tuner card , preferably with dual tuners so you can record one channel and watch another , its a separate card entirely than the video card. These capture in and record video , but the captured video plays back through your video card.
Something like this ,

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=323374

The tuner card is just for recording TV ( a PVR or personal video recorder ) , without one you still have a HTPC but just for playing back music , downloaded content , DVD's , photo slide shows , etc.

Your TV has a VGA port , connect using that if you must , but if you can , use the HDMI , its much better , HDMI and DVI use exactly the same digital signals and simple DVI to HDMI cable is all thats needed.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=316699

VGA is analog and depending on the resolution of your TV can give problems.

artvandulet

Mathias, thank you for your very detailed explaination. It was just what I needed.
I was debating using MediaProtal instead of Media Centre.
Any changes in setup in that case?

Thanks.

mathias

I was debating using MediaProtal instead of Media Centre.
Any changes in setup in that case?

No , no changes , the keyboard and remote plus TV tuner will all work with it , I gave mediaportal a shot for a while and ended up going back to MCE but that was about 9 months ago , Im sure its improved a lot since then,

Media portal is open source and free , so no harm in trying it , Im presuming your using Windows , a HTPC can be set up in Linux as well but trust me , its not for beginners , and the learning curve is so steep you'd need a jet to climb it.

artvandulet

Thanks for all your help.:D

RuggieBear

I've heard bad things about that keyboard but not having one myself I can't tell you alot

BaZmO*

RuggieBear wrote: »

I've heard bad things about that keyboard but not having one myself I can't tell you alot

What bad things? I've had one for the last year and it seems to be fine.

RuggieBear

Just general unreliability. I was going to buy one but was pm'ed that it had issues. Like i said i haven't got one so i can't tell you if this was bs.

BaZmO*

RuggieBear wrote: »

Just general unreliability. I was going to buy one but was pm'ed that it had issues. Like i said i haven't got one so i can't tell you if this was bs.

Strange that. I looked into them before buying and heard nothing bad and so far so good. It's a great piece of kit. You're missing out!

mathias

Have mine two years , not one problem ...never heard anyone else complain either.

leahcim

I have the Microsoft Remote Keyboard and I am running XP Pro.
I can't remember if I had to do any hacks to get it working.
As far as I remember is just worked out of the box.
Microsoft probably say its only works on MCE to push their own PVR solution.
The MCE Keyboard and remote worked quiet well with MediaPortal.

I am now moving to Myth tv as I wanted to see if it was better than media portal.

It will be fun trying to get the microsoft remote keyboard working on linux.

SouperComputer

leahcim wrote: »

I am now moving to Myth tv as I wanted to see if it was better than media portal.

It will be fun trying to get the microsoft remote keyboard working on linux.

By all means start a new thread on your MythTV project, theres a couple of us at least who can help you. Have a search of the board too and you'll see more threads on it.

The MCE remote/keyboard will be fun alright. Personally a compile from source is what did the trick, YMMV. Its a real PITA though as you have to config the remote functions for every application that you use it with. Its not like windows where you install it and it has full UI integration like a mouse.

As a scaleable, networkable, powerful DVR, MythTV is unmatched. But as a media centre, it leaves a lot to be desired IME. The real PITA is that it is a kernel-mode driver, so if there is a kernel update (and there will be plenty) generally it breaks the LIRC driver along with the Nvidia drivers if you have them. The real fun starts when there isnt a release of either of these that support your newly installed kernel. Then you need to backtrack to your old kernel.

Long story short, maybe stick to every third kernel update and be prepared for fun getting LIRC and Nvidia back up again if you arent stong on the *nix side of things.

Microsoft probably say its only works on MCE to push their own PVR solution

Well, the remote does not work with versions of windows other than MCE without adding drivers manually. The keyboard as its a keyboard might be a little different, and possibly uses different drivers that are included in all recent M$ OS's

HTH!

unklerosco

Problem the the microsoft keyb is that its IR... U have to point it at the reciever. And the pointer controll is a pain. I had one n got rid of it, have a wireless keyb with a trackball and another with a joystick. Much much better....

BaZmO*

unklerosco wrote: »

Problem the the microsoft keyb is that its IR... U have to point it at the reciever. And the pointer controll is a pain. I had one n got rid of it, have a wireless keyb with a trackball and another with a joystick. Much much better....

You don't have to point it directly at the receiver. I've found that it's actually quite forgiving that way.

I agree about the pointer control though as it's a bit of a pain trying to get used to it. (took me ages but I can use it easily enough now when needs be)
I'm used to using a mouse in work all day so I ended up getting a mouse to use with it but the mouse that I got was a pain as it was IR and you had to have it pointed directly at the receiver which was nigh on impossible.
I returned the IR mouse and got a really decent Logitech RF one instead which works great.

mathias

I dont have any problems with the IR direction , the small joystick that substitutes for a mouse takes a little bit of getting used to ,it works just like the red button on an IBM thinkpad , you press down and move in the direction you want and the speed of the cursor movement is pressure sensitive , but I use it all the time now and so does my wife.
If youve ever used a thinkpad you'll be used to it in no time at all.

unklerosco

Still... I much prefer my RF keyboards. They both have nearly all the multimedia buttons that come with the microsoft one and are much easier for surfing the net etc. Much cheaper too...

artvandulet

Well I tried out the keyboard and didn't really like it. The fact that its IR put me off too. Tried the Logitech DiNovo edge but the weird touch disc control was annoying and the unit was waay too expensive. Not into having trackerballs or joysticks either!
That left me with this: http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=47XB&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=keysonic&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0
and quite frankly, it rocks!:D
Just got to get the TV card now and I'm sorted.
Thanks again for the advice.

artvandulet

Mathias,
I now have everything bar the TV card. The one you showed me, AVerMedia M1A2, has RF in, Svid and composite.
So do I go out of my Sky Box and into this TV card via RF?
If not, then would you recommend any card that can take in component?
Cheers.

mathias

So do I go out of my Sky Box and into this TV card via RF?

Yes , you use the RF2 port on the back of the sky box to connect to the card , There are digital tuner cards but these will only work with terrestrial , not sky , a s sky is encrypted.

I dont know of any TV cards with component tuners. Just analog and digital and the analog ones use mostly RF.

leahcim

If you have an older grundig sky box or a sky+ box they both have svideo output.

Many people building sky digital based HTPCs buy a cheap refurbished grundig box on ebay just to get the svideo out.

Also a good alternative to using an IR Blaster for controlling your sky box (which can be unreliable) is to use this http://www.dusky-control.com/

artvandulet

Cheers for the advice guys. I'll get that card so.:D

sixtysix

Does that avermedia card support NTL Digital?


http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=323374