HTPC Setup from scratch - questions!

Sparx

Hi All,

I'm planning to setup a complete HTPC system more or less from scratch. The plan is to have:
- 2x NTL digital STBs
- PC running Vista/MCE with a PVR500 or 2x PVR150 card to capture TV signals - maybe there are better cards available?
- MCE remote to control HTPC and also the two NTL boxes via IR blasters
- LCD TV driven directly from PC (can get a HDMI motherboard I think)
- Some sound system driven by the PC

I'm happy enough building the PC, but have a few critical questions that will make my final decisions for me:

1) Can I get an EPG for NTL digital on Vista/MCE? Is it reliable? I'm hoping to never have to input any details of what I want to record, just select from a list
2) Having read the forum here, some people seem to have problems with the IR blaster scheme for changing channels. How reliable are these? Is there much of a delay between hitting buttons on the remote and the channel changing?
3) I'd ideally like to have a setup where I don't need the HTPC on all the time. If I have recordings scheduled, will the PC turn itself on to do the record?

Thanks for the help!

Sparx

MAJJ

Hi Sparx,

3) I'd ideally like to have a setup where I don't need the HTPC on all the time. If I have recordings scheduled, will the PC turn itself on to do the record?

Just my two cents but when I am recording tv I leave the HTPC in stand by mode and when the time comes it,Vista/MCE, resumes, records and then goes back to standby.

I too have mine connected to my TV with HDMI but from the g/card.

Best of luck with your build plans.
majj

subway

1) Can I get an EPG for NTL digital on Vista/MCE? Is it reliable? I'm hoping to never have to input any details of what I want to record, just select from a list

the epg is available for ntl digital, but some channels have no listings.
the epg is far superior functionally than the sky one or the ntl one

2) Having read the forum here, some people seem to have problems with the IR blaster scheme for changing channels. How reliable are these? Is there much of a delay between hitting buttons on the remote and the channel changing?

channel changes are done instantly when using ir blasters.
the delay experienced is because of the live tv buffer, this is usually 3 to 4 seconds.
the new ntl box, not the dvr, works flawlessly with the blasters.
the small box would occasionally miss a number and dont get me started on the dvr!

be careful using 2 stbs with ir blasters, you need to position them so that they each ir blaster can only send a signal to one box

pug_

Sparx wrote: »

2) Having read the forum here, some people seem to have problems with the IR blaster scheme for changing channels. How reliable are these? Is there much of a delay between hitting buttons on the remote and the channel changing?

I didn't even bother with the IR blaster option, got myself one of these instead. setup a custom activity whereby channel changing, and volume control are done directly on the stb instead of via the mce remote and ir blaster. Works a treat, though if you have 2 set top boxes you might have some problems.

Sparx

Thanks for the replies...

@MAJJ - exactly the info I was looking for. I think standby was the best I could have hoped for anyway

@subway - Hmmm...I undersatnd where the delay comes from now, but that must be a bit annoying when browsing channels. Maybe one STB to PC and the other one direct to the TV is the trick (although i know I can only record one channel at a time then)?

As for missing listings on the EPG - do you know which channels are missing? Let's just say someone would be pretty annoyed if I did this setup and certain channels weren't available on the EPG.

@pug_ - Looks like a nice solution, but wouldn't be much good when the PC needs to switch channels by itself (when recording). Or did I misunderstand?

Thanks again.

pug_

Sparx wrote: »

@pug_ - Looks like a nice solution, but wouldn't be much good when the PC needs to switch channels by itself (when recording). Or did I misunderstand?

Nope, you're probably right, I'm only setting it up myself at the moment and I haven't managed to get the epg working yet so haven't even thought about recording until that's going. No reason why you can't have an ir blaster on the recording box, and use a universal remote for everything else though (unless of course you want the PC to auto change two channels at once). Might even do that myself if I ever get it working properly

I duno it mightn't suit your setup at all, just throwing it out there as an option is all

subway

Sparx wrote: »

Thanks for the replies...

@MAJJ - exactly the info I was looking for. I think standby was the best I could have hoped for anyway

@subway - Hmmm...I undersatnd where the delay comes from now, but that must be a bit annoying when browsing channels. Maybe one STB to PC and the other one direct to the TV is the trick (although i know I can only record one channel at a time then)?

As for missing listings on the EPG - do you know which channels are missing? Let's just say someone would be pretty annoyed if I did this setup and certain channels weren't available on the EPG.

@pug_ - Looks like a nice solution, but wouldn't be much good when the PC needs to switch channels by itself (when recording). Or did I misunderstand?

Thanks again.

since setting up mce my tv watchingn habit has changed completely.
i dont browse channels anymore, instead just accessing the guide to see whats on and switching when i feel like it.
unlike sky the channel keeps playing in a window when in the guide and unlike ntl there is no pause while the guide opens.
if you have vista you will have access to a miniguide for browsing without opening the full guide


in tems of the missing listings it was only some of the less used channels, dont have my htpc setup atm so cant be sure.
city channel was one, and cnn was another.

if you are not going to use the ir balsters, and therefore the epg and pvr functions of mce you will be missing out on the whole point of it.
if you use one remote instead of 2 well positioned ir blasters you will not be able to have 2 boxes in the same room as they will both change channels at the same time, meaning you cant watch one thing while recording another.

Sparx

subway, I figured I'd still use the MCE remote to change channels on both STBs, just that one of them would be connected to the TV directly (so no delay), and the other would be connected to the PVR card. From the sound of things though, I'd be losing out if I didn't connect both boxes through MCE.

Also from what you say, the delay doesn't make any difference...it's a whole new channel surfing paradigm

As for the missing listings, as long as it's only minor channels I don't care.

pug_ - no worries, it's always nice to see what other people are doing!

Thanks again...

Edit: While I'm at it, can either of you recommend a PVR card for the PC? I presume the MCE remote I need is just the standard one...

subway

get the standard mce remote and the hauppage cards and youll be fine.

you can have one (or both) of the boxes outputting to the tv on the second scart port then watch the undelayed output of one of the boxes.

ive been thinking tho, and there is still going to be a delay, and its caused by mce changing channels by entering numbers.
ie, channel up send the signal for the next channel number to the box, its not going to be overly suited to the "flicking channels" style of viewing.

one hidden box and one exposed box may suit your needs, have both going into the mce but leave one out so it can still be controlled by the normal remote.

id honestly suggest going all out for the mce only setup with all boxes hidden,
a well implemented mce setup will offer benefits that far outweigh and "pain" experienced in the changeover

think of all the people that use sky plus with its many flaws and unintuitive layout

pug_

subway wrote: »

if you are not going to use the ir balsters, and therefore the epg and pvr functions of mce you will be missing out on the whole point of it.
if you use one remote instead of 2 well positioned ir blasters you will not be able to have 2 boxes in the same room as they will both change channels at the same time, meaning you cant watch one thing while recording another.

Bit of a hijack here, hope the OP doesn't mind.

So are you saying the ir blasters are required for the epg to work? if so that could be where I'm going wrong. I'm using mythTV in my setup so maybe it's a bit different but I thought it could be configured to pick up on the channel you're watching through the signal instead of just program number?

At the moment I'm mainly using my setup to watch avi's and listen to music. I had problems with TV from the start and I rarely get a chance to mess with it as I've a toddler who has other ideas, and when he's in bed I have a wife who likes Coronation St.

subway

this applies to mce (windows) only as thats where my experiecne is,
it can be setup, just tell it you dont have a stb.
but you wont be able to change channel so in that sense it wont work.

you can only tune ntl digital channels on their stb and then output that via scart/composite.

pug_

Well that was all part of my genius plan. The main thing required on my part for wife pleasing is to be able to pause the telly and have as few wires/remotes as possible; recording was never really a concern.

So my thinking was to use the universal remote for everything (tv, pc, stb, dvd. vcr, stereo) and for watching TV have a combination of channel switching directly on the stb, volume directly on the tv, pausing, recording, watching avi's etc all to be done via the PC. This all works apart from the recording, which oddly doesn't work at all.

Even the current channel I'm watching won't record it'll just stay in a buffer for maybe 5mins as I'm watching it, but if I'm say watching an avi it won't record TV for me. I thought it might have something to do with epg, but maybe I need to rethink my setup and try using the ir blasters next time I get a chance.

eddiem74

Sorry to but in here also, but are any of you using MCE with Sky ? If yes, what's your set-up, and what features have you got ?

subway

eddiem74 wrote: »

Sorry to but in here also, but are any of you using MCE with Sky ? If yes, what's your set-up, and what features have you got ?

you really should start a new thread for a question this general.
plenty of people have sky connected to mce.

subway

pug_ wrote: »

Well that was all part of my genius plan. The main thing required on my part for wife pleasing is to be able to pause the telly and have as few wires/remotes as possible; recording was never really a concern.

So my thinking was to use the universal remote for everything (tv, pc, stb, dvd. vcr, stereo) and for watching TV have a combination of channel switching directly on the stb, volume directly on the tv, pausing, recording, watching avi's etc all to be done via the PC. This all works apart from the recording, which oddly doesn't work at all.

Even the current channel I'm watching won't record it'll just stay in a buffer for maybe 5mins as I'm watching it, but if I'm say watching an avi it won't record TV for me. I thought it might have something to do with epg, but maybe I need to rethink my setup and try using the ir blasters next time I get a chance.

a more cunning setup might be to have the ir blasters set up and working via the epg for recording and also so that the other half can change channels in that manner.

you can then map the channel+/- buttons on the 555 to change channels directly on the stb.

if myth wants to record something it will change the channel via the numbers.im not familiar with mythtv and suggest a separate thread to go into the recording issues but it sounds like the record buffer may be set too low or using a hard drive that is already full

pug_

Cheers for that, I want to give a proper go at trying to sort it myself before starting a thread. I'm having other problems as well (like the picture quality is very poor) so if I don't get sorted myself I'll get them all out in one go, and hopefully it won't be something I could have sorted myself if I only spent some time to rtfm.

Time is my enemy here though, I think the next weekend I'm wife and toddler free is in May

subway

where theres a will theres a way
im sure youll find time to get it sorted.

whatever the outcome, you should open a thread to docuemtn the problem, troubleshooting steps and eventual solution to help others that may be in the same boat

bazwaldo

As much as I love using MCE for the guide, watching avis and recording TV (even the mrs loves it and we have 100's of kids stuff recorded or avi which can be played at an instant with no messing, a god send when a kid is moaning), I would rarely use it for watching LiveTV, unless I know I'm going to be interupted a lot during a match or something.

The loss of picture quality is too much to ignore compared to the benefits of pausing etc. I have NTL digital straight into the telly using RGB. Great picture!

However for MCE there are multiple points of losing picture quality.

1. Composite output from the PACE box goes into my PC. (Loss-using composite compared to RGB)
2. TV Card encodes the already mpeg decoded signal. (loss reencoding a decoded mpg)
3. output to TV is svideo which is great but not as good as RGB. (loss number 3)

I'll get past 3 hopefully as I just bought an LCD so can use DVI to HDMI instead of s-video, but this won't make up for the loss of 1 and 2 I expect.

Sparx

The PC I'm planning to build has a HDMI port on the motherboard, so (3) shouldn't be a problem for me - I hear what you're saying about (1) and (2) though.

One thing I can't figure out. What form do the IR blasters take? Are they separate emitters or part of the MCE remote receiver? If the latter, am I going to have trouble controlling 2 STBs (as hinted by subway earlier)? Do I need to order two remotes to get two emitters? *confused*

Thanks,

Sparx

subway

i find the picture better after going through mce than direct from the ntl box,
its definitely a matter of opinion and down to how you have it set up.
bazwaldo i expect youll see all the imperfections of ntl digital if you plug it straight into a HD lcd rather than an SD crt.

for the ir blasters, they are 2 little buds that plug into the back of the usb ir receiver so, as i mnetioned earlier, can be postioned separately to use 2 stbs.

pictures here
http://www.touchedbytheartist.com/Remote.jpg
the rolled up wire is the ir blaster which looks like this
http://iguanaworks.net/media/IR_Blaster-Full.jpg

Sparx

Great stuff, thanks subway - it's really difficult to find whether these are included with the MCE remote (or at least on the websites I found!).

bazwaldo

subway wrote: »

i find the picture better after going through mce than direct from the ntl box

Subway, how can this be? Whats your inputs/outputs? Whats your secret?

What TV tuner do you use?

subway

Sparx wrote: »

Great stuff, thanks subway - it's really difficult to find whether these are included with the MCE remote (or at least on the websites I found!).

there are 2 included with the remote (buy it new, if you get one second han, chances are theyll have been lost)

subway

bazwaldo wrote: »

Subway, how can this be? Whats your inputs/outputs? Whats your secret?

What TV tuner do you use?

ntl > composite > pvr150 > nvidia purevideo > nvidia 6200 > rgb (HD15) > 1080p lcd
thats the chain, no real secret, ntl use very low bitrate mpeg encoding already so if you set the 150 to receive at higher than that rate you shouldnt lose much over composite (maybe some color)
then tweak the settings within purevideo, the nvidia drivers and the tv to get your display looking as good as possible

it looks better, imo, because it smooths out a lot of the artifacting thats already within the ntl stream, much like upscaling/post processing.

bazwaldo

Cheers. I'm using Vista so am using the MS decoder. Not sure how good it is. I could make some changes to my graphics card settings to see if it makes any difference.

I don't know too much about video cables. Is rgb(HD15) a fancy RGB cable? Better than DVI or HDMI?

You have your MCE screen res at 1080p so SD would be upscaled by the PC rather than the TV, correct? Is this recommended?

subway

rgb/hd15 is just a name for standard vga cable.

like you said, mce is set to 1920x1080 so the tv doesnt upscale the signal at all.
i prefer it, you might get different results.

im using xp mce rather than vista as i need to upgrade to a pci-e system before i make the change

stevejazzx

bazwaldo wrote: »

As much as I love using MCE for the guide, watching avis and recording TV (even the mrs loves it and we have 100's of kids stuff recorded or avi which can be played at an instant with no messing, a god send when a kid is moaning), I would rarely use it for watching LiveTV, unless I know I'm going to be interupted a lot during a match or something.

The loss of picture quality is too much to ignore compared to the benefits of pausing etc. I have NTL digital straight into the telly using RGB. Great picture!

However for MCE there are multiple points of losing picture quality.

1. Composite output from the PACE box goes into my PC. (Loss-using composite compared to RGB)
2. TV Card encodes the already mpeg decoded signal. (loss reencoding a decoded mpg)
3. output to TV is svideo which is great but not as good as RGB. (loss number 3)

I'll get past 3 hopefully as I just bought an LCD so can use DVI to HDMI instead of s-video, but this won't make up for the loss of 1 and 2 I expect.

There would be no (hardly any discernable)loss of picture if you had

a) a good quality scart out to composite lead, an all one cable (no scart adapter used)

b) a ati 2600 pro or nvidia 8500gt or higher gpu

As subway says it is actually possible to improve the picture quality as with my setup, the way to tell that the basic picture quality is good is to compare the ntl digital purple graphic, in media center it should crystal and not fuzzy, use a hauppauge 1300 to decode and go into colour settings in the nvidia control with your live tv running in a minimised screen, reduce the gamma slightly, increase the contrast and brightness slightly and just add a touch of digital vibrance (your actual tv menu colour settings should be set as standard... )
this set up gives me a phenomenal picture!

bazwaldo

Great stuff stevejazzx. a) I need to work on. I use the scart output from my SCART switcher, using a scart to composite adapter rather than a prebuilt cable. For b) I have a nvidia 8500gt so I should be able to alter the nvida settings like you suggest. I don't think I've ever changed those settings.

Speaking of TV settings as standard. I got one of those 50% back on clubcard TVs from Tesco. A 32" Philips LCD 720p. With the standard settings, the picture is not bad but far from great and the sound was god awful. I got a lend of one of those calabration DVDs and have only had half an hour to use it so far. Unfortunately it doesn't help with fixing the graphic equaliser settings. The picture I just got started when my time ran out (baby woke). Off thread quite a bit, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone has a similar experience with a fix;)

stevejazzx

720p setting doesn't seem to work well with many tv through windows
try running the resolution as 1368x768 (i.e the max for a normal Hd TV) enlarge dpi and desktop icons...
I also forgot to mention that i have a dvi to hdmi cable from the graphics card to the tv (a cheap acer 32' tv that is one of the best bargains i ever got 400euro from PIXMANIA) the most importatnt thing here is
this
its available in the maplin in town

steve