Complete Noob

pajunior

Hi,

My family is doing up the sitting room and since I work in IT they have placed the burden of sorting out the tv/speakers/dvd etc basically anything electronic.

Anyway I was thinking of building a htpc partly because I think it would be nice to have everything in one box plus the ability to store everything on hard discs as well as having internet videos and browsing on the tv. Also I've wanted to build a pc for a while and building a htpc sounds fun.

But I'm left wondering what are the advantages (apart form the two above) and disadvantages to having a htpc? Is it easy to put digital tv through a htpc (I think we're with chorus/ntl digital).

Any advice would be great.

Pat

bazwaldo

To be able to view/record NTL you need to take the composite output (the red, white and yellow connections that you see on TVs) from the scart. There are many ways of doing this. I assume you'd want to keep the scart connection to the TV, so you'll need to split it and have one connection to TV and one to PC.

The PC will need a TV card which takes a analogue composite input. For windows media center the card will need to do the encoding onboard which is a better option rather than your CPU anyway. For other media center software such as mediaportal I haven't a clue.

Advantages
- Once setup and running, it doesnt cost anything
- Codecs are available for all types of video so its fairly futureproof rather than a dedicated video player
- You can view internet/youtube on TV
- Hardware easy to upgrade if you need to get bigger disks etc or expand
- Looks great and visitors will be amazed
- Generally easy to use and responsive

Disadvantages
- Being s/w, things can crash on the odd occasion
- Depending on what you have, it can be noisy if fans are cheap
- Its quite easy to setup these days but theres usually something every few months that can go wrong and consume your time

pajunior

bazwaldo wrote: »

To be able to view/record NTL you need to take the composite output (the red, white and yellow connections that you see on TVs) from the scart. There are many ways of doing this. I assume you'd want to keep the scart connection to the TV, so you'll need to split it and have one connection to TV and one to PC.

Wait what am I splitting from where? I tought I would be running the cable to the computer and then a scart to the tv or am I missing something?

bazwaldo

pajunior wrote: »

Wait what am I splitting from where? I tought I would be running the cable to the computer and then a scart to the tv or am I missing something?

If you want to use digital from NTL then you need to take the SCART output from your set top box. Running a coax cable to your PC won't work other than for getting the analogue stations.

coax->set top box->scart->TV is the normal setup when there is no HTPC.
coax->set top box->scart->TV+HTPC is what you will need to do. This is done by using your sscart output from your set top box and instead of connecting it directly to your scart socket in your TV, you'll need to split/duplicate the STB output. One for TV and one for the TV card in your HTPC.

pajunior

bazwaldo wrote: »

If you want to use digital from NTL then you need to take the SCART output from your set top box. Running a coax cable to your PC won't work other than for getting the analogue stations.

coax->set top box->scart->TV is the normal setup when there is no HTPC.
coax->set top box->scart->TV+HTPC is what you will need to do. This is done by using your sscart output from your set top box and instead of connecting it directly to your scart socket in your TV, you'll need to split/duplicate the STB output. One for TV and one for the TV card in your HTPC.

I'm a little confused as to why you split it after the set top box could you not go

coax->set top box->scart->htpc->tv

I know I'm probably missing something obvious but I've never done anything with cable/digital tv before.

bazwaldo

I get you now. Yes you could.

I wouldn't do it that way though. If you want to catch something quickly for a minute and your PC is either off or in standby you'll have to wait to view. If you had a direct connection from your STB than theres no wait. Up to you.