Building a new Htpc

deceit

Building a new htpc and looking for advice on the parts.
AMD Athlon II X2 250 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=488305
ASUS M4A785D-M PRO http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=490258
ssd 30gb http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=488565
Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Black EU http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=462342&view=detailed#ProductTabs
4Gb ram http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=338074
Have psu, ati 4550, blueray drive, mce remote, sound card and wireless adapter
Not sure on what tv card and keyboard to get, want to get a keyboard with built in trackpad and a tv card that can be connected to both sky and ntl as have ntl at the moment but might switch to sky. Any recommendations would be welcome.

ffocused

I use a dinovo mini keyboard, its very small and ideal for a media centre setup.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-920-00586-diNovo-Mini/dp/B0012NIYSO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264359548&sr=8-1

Any tv card with an analogue input will work with sky & ntl. If you intend using both, you will need one with 2 analogue inputs.
However a sky+ or ntl pvr would work far better then a media centre pc for recording purposes. (you should be able to get a sky+ or skyHD box for little or nothing if you join sky as a new customer)
I have tried all the options with analogue and DTT tuners for the 4 Irish channels, DVB-S card for free satellite channels, and a sky box connected to a media centre pc using timer recordings. A standalone box wins hands down every time.

I now only have a DTT tuner onboard receiving the RTE DTT test transmissions at the moment as a backup when my sky box is recording 2 channels already.

deceit

Seems like a nice handy sized keyboard. One reason thats handy about using the media centre is I can record anything and it gets saved directly to one of my servers in the attic and can view from any bit of equipment attached throughout the house and I can access it if i'm away and have access the an internet connection. Thats the reason for such a small drive in the htpc nothing will be saved directly onto the machine as dont always have the tv to myself.

PyeContinental

For keyboard with built in trackpad, I bought this Keysonic KB-ACK-540RF on Amazon for about £30 and I think it works very well.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000L10Y5E

There seems to be a new model for a couple of quid cheaper now too:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keysonic-ACK-540RF-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad/dp/B002WB1JYQ

subway

ffocused wrote: »

I have tried all the options with analogue and DTT tuners for the 4 Irish channels, DVB-S card for free satellite channels, and a sky box connected to a media centre pc using timer recordings. A standalone box wins hands down every time.

id have to disagree and say that media centre far outperforms sky+ in terms of functionality. there is nothing the sky box can do that media centre cant, but plenty that media cenre does but the sky box will never do.

if your referring to channel selection then i agree, but that would be a separate issue.

deceit

PyeContinental wrote: »

For keyboard with built in trackpad, I bought this Keysonic KB-ACK-540RF on Amazon for about £30 and I think it works very well.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000L10Y5E

There seems to be a new model for a couple of quid cheaper now too:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keysonic-ACK-540RF-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad/dp/B002WB1JYQ

I dont really like the laptop look keyboards, dont even like typing on my laptop if can get away with it I will, always prefer my desktop.

FrankGrimes

deceit wrote: »

Seems like a nice handy sized keyboard. One reason thats handy about using the media centre is I can record anything and it gets saved directly to one of my servers in the attic and can view from any bit of equipment attached throughout the house and I can access it if i'm away and have access the an internet connection. Thats the reason for such a small drive in the htpc nothing will be saved directly onto the machine as dont always have the tv to myself.

What way do you have the recording setup: do you set your recorded TV folder on the HTPC as a folder on your server in the attic or do you record locally and transfer across to the server instantly? Just interested to know how well it works if you do record straight to the server, might do similar myself if it's a good option. What media centre software are you using?

deceit

FrankGrimes wrote: »

What way do you have the recording setup: do you set your recorded TV folder on the HTPC as a folder on your server in the attic or do you record locally and transfer across to the server instantly? Just interested to know how well it works if you do record straight to the server, might do similar myself if it's a good option. What media centre software are you using?

I dont have the tv cards yet for the setup, thats what I was asking advice on. I tested it with a friends htpc and was saved directly to my servers and worked perfectly. When backing up my movies from dvd to avi there also saved directly to the server and work flawlessly. Has anyone used this keyboard: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TRUST-WIRELESS-MEDIA-CENTER-KEYBOARD-15035_W0QQitemZ270344127933QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_ComputerComponents_KeyboardsMice?hash=item3ef1c405bd if so is it any good?

I also picked up 4gb of ddr3 so will be using one of these boards instead, not sure which one yet though:
ASUS M4N68T-M, Socket-AM3 €46.80 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=579253
ASUS M4A785T-M, Socket-AM3 €72.20 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=494708
I have a spare E6400 that i'm debating using with this but not sure if the e6400 would be a little under powered.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=485684
If choose the last option would allow me to get a card like this
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hvr4000.html

sfag31

The tv card you choose will depend on your source.

The most expensive analogue card will never match the picture quality of the analgoue tuner on the cheapest TV - dont know why but its always been that way.

If you get irish dtt then get a dvb-t card with mpeg4.
If you can get a sat dish on your roof then go freesat route with an pci-e card or a usb one.
if you have to go analogue get the hauppauge dual one. - record two channels at once.

I have a cheap hauppauge dvb-s usb card and it seems to work well with win 7.
win 7 can be picky with the cards it likes.

Komplett have a couple of interesting pcs for your purpose.

As for dvb-s2 (ie HD) - personally I think its no big deal. The leap in quality is not that much to get excited about. The top end quality standard is changing as we speak.

PyeContinental

deceit wrote: »

I tested it with a friends htpc and was saved directly to my servers and worked perfectly. When backing up my movies from dvd to avi there also saved directly to the server and work flawlessly.

Backing up the movies from dvd to avi isn't realtime recording though. If the server's discs can't match the data rate, the conversion process just slows down. What did you test with your friends PC? I would say you'd have to have a gigabit network at least to be sure of being able to record from the tuner in realtime. What about recording two things at once? What would happen if you were recording two things and watching something you had previously recorded?

deceit

PyeContinental wrote: »

Backing up the movies from dvd to avi isn't realtime recording though. If the server's discs can't match the data rate, the conversion process just slows down. What did you test with your friends PC? I would say you'd have to have a gigabit network at least to be sure of being able to record from the tuner in realtime. What about recording two things at once? What would happen if you were recording two things and watching something you had previously recorded?

I only recorded recorded one in realtime when testing never tried both. Yea have got a gigabit network set up throughout the house. He was just recording rte though, not sure if that will make a difference over sky etc. It held 80mbs transfer rate but think could get it faster with better drives. Uploading got 95mb/s from my gaming pc with raptors in installed so think the ssds might help but not sure what there like for constant data transfer.

PyeContinental

That's megabytes a second sustained transfer? Sounds promising.
I've just never got around to experimenting with realtime recording to remote drives myself. Let us know how you get on.

deceit

Should have said MB/s to be correct :P