HTPC for Satellite, DTT and Media Streaming

MediaMan

Hi,

I am planning to buy or build a HTPC to:
- Watch, record and play Freesat and Saorview
- Play downloaded films and programs
- Watch RTE Player and other online streaming sources
- Act as a file server and media repository
- Act as a Squeezebox server to 2-3 players

I've read most of the posts in this forum and am trying to decide how to proceed and would much appreciate some guidance. My target budget is €500. I'd prefer to buy as integrated a system if I can, and to add a tuner and disks as needed. I'm thinking of the BGT3595 tuner, which seems highly recommended, and 2x1TB RAID.

I started out with the idea of using a mini-PC like a Revo R3700, Shuttle XS35GT or Asus EeeBox EB1501P, but quickly figured out that the need to accommodate a tuner card, the need for horsepower for PVR and the lack of flexibility for expanding disk storage rules these out. I also read a recommendation that mini-itx form factor is too small for this level of functionality and that M-ATX or ATX would be better.

So my main question is - can I find an off the shelf system that will meet my needs, or am I destined for the custom-build route? If custom-build is the answer, I'd like to work from a system config that people recommend - I really don't want to get into breaking new ground here. I'm happy to go with Windows 7, or Linux if there's not too much tinkering.

Any thoughts or pointers gratefully appreciated, and once I get going on this project, I'll plan to post my progress as I go.

Cheers, MediaMan.

Mad Benny

I am interested in all of the above also. I found this system on overclockers pre-built but I'm concerned too that the case is a bit small for future expansion although it looks like the BGT3595 tuner card will fit in it.

Antigrav

I'm in the middle of configuring this solution, but involving three separate components. These consists of:

1. 1 Tb, RAID 1 NAS built on Icy-box IB4220-B chassis. This handles DHCP and bittorrent and is always on to supply storage for Videos, Music and Photos. Nice web interface for configuring users, etc, but the box is a bit out of date. I bought it four years ago

2. Media Streaming Server. This is an old Pentium 2Ghz, 1G RAM that I installed a DVB-S Satellite card and DTT USB receiver for Freesat and Freeview. It's running a MythTV Backend and can record TV shows to the NAS for later viewing. It has WOL set-up to start running when front-ends connect to it.

3. HTPC connected to Living room TV based upon fanless ASUS Mini-ITX Mobo with 40Gb SSD Drive making it totally silent This runs Ubuntu with Boxee and MythTV Frontend. I'm messing with Overplay VPN to get BBC iPlayer and Hulu working for Internet TV.

I recommend this type of setup because its easier to upgrade one or more of the components without a total rebuild. My next purchase will probably be a more capable NAS box and probably another front-end HTPC for the kitchen.

We put in CAT5E wiring a few years back so have a Gigabit LAN running throughout the house with patch panel st up in comms server cabinet next to NAS and Streaming Back-end.

I must admit there has been a fair amount of messing with Ubuntu, MythTV and Boxee to get things working. Nothing ever seems to work first time, but the online guides and wikis are pretty good at walking you through the necessary steps for troubleshooting.

Still having a problem with my DTT reception, but think the aerial is pointing at the wrong transmitter

Haven't played with Squeezebox at all but would like better streaming capabilities than Myth gives you. Let us know how you get on with that :cool:

pickledfish

@Antigrav what issue are you having with mythtv streaming? I have been using similar setup to you for years now and have not found a more configurable solution.

pug_

@Antigrav & pickledfish could you share the details of the Sat and DTT cards you're using please? This is something I want to setup in the next few months and I want to make sure whatever cards I get have fully functional linux drivers available for them.

I'm currently doing media streaming only with an xbmc frontend, but I have it built onto a mythbuntu OS with the intention of having a myth backend for streaming TV. There is an xbmc frontend for myth apparently but I haven't looked too deeply into it yet so cant comment, but I much prefer the eye candy of xbmc to myth which is why it's my preferred option.

MediaMan

People, many thanks for the responses. With that info and stuff I've dug up via more research, I'm now bamboozled. Anyway, here's my current thinking:

- Regarding number of boxes, I appreciate antigrav's point re separate NAS etc., but I am still leaning towards a single box to keep things simple in concept and in terms of wires, power cables etc.

- Putting everything in 1 box steers me towards an ATX case like Antec Fusion Remote Max for (limited) future expansion. Maybe I'd get away with a microATX Antec Fusion Remote, but right now I'm thinking of Max-ing out.

- For motherboard and graphics, I'm hoping I can get a mobo with good enough on-board graphics that I don't need a separate graphics card. I've no plans for gaming on this machine. I like the look of the Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3, but am no expert here, so would appreciate advice.

- A processor for this mobo - perhaps the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz...? Another option might be the AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz. I guess these processors might be overkill, but I've never had a PC that didn't run out of oomph at some stage, so would like to overbuild for the sake of a few €.

- 2 x 1TB disks in RAID configuration. No firm views on brand - have read that Samsung are quiet. I've a 500G Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm in another machine and it's pretty whiny.

- Memory - will probably go for 8G of whatever people are recommending.

- BGT3595 tuner as mentioned before.

- Operating system - am leaning towards Win 7 and Media Centre, unless I can convince myself that Linux and XBMC won't break my heart. I tried using MythTV a couple of years ago and burned up countless nights trying to get it to to what I wanted - and that was just with analog TV from a NTL/UPC box.

That's as far as I've got - haven't worked out what this will add up to in cost, or anything practical like power budget and power supply, cooling, cables, etc.

On the Squeezebox - I strongly recommend the Squeezebox Boom as a self-contained player and Internet radio. The only downside is that it will only talk to a Squeezebox server or to the hosted server on mysqueezebox.com, so you are locked to that.

Any thoughts on the game plan so far?

MediaMan.

Mad Benny

MediaMan wrote: »

- Memory - will probably go for 8G of whatever people are recommending.

All of the above sounds good apart from the RAM. 8GB is a huge amount of RAM. Do you think you will need the much? I would have thought that half of that would be more than sufficient.

The built in graphics processor on the motherboard sounds very interesting.

pickledfish

@pug I use 3 x DVB-S (Skystar 2, TT3200, WinTV-HVR400) & have USB HVR-900 for terrestrial (don't use this in MythTV yet but runs well on linux so should be ok)

@Mad Benny - I use a Gigabyte board with Nvidia 9400 onboard. Works very well for HDTV using vdpau on linux. I don't see any harm in 8G. Personally, I use 4G with Intel Quad core and find it more than capable of concurrent multiple recordings, transcoding, playback and MySQL & apache services.

@MediaMan - I'm not much use to you on spec because I'm dyed in the wool MythTV.

ninja 12

Unless you're going to game or transcode video on your htpc , both cpus you have listed are way overkill .

They are both 125w cpus , and will generate a fair bit of heat .

If you really want / need some poke in your htpc , you could use any of the Athlon II x4 , or Athlon II x3 .

They will run cooler . This means less fan noise- essential if it's in your living room , and use a little less power in the long run . They are also cheaper .

I'm using an older Athlon x2 5050e ( 2.6Ghz , and uses only 45w under load ) and it's handled everything I've thrown at it , including Blu-ray and HD tv using the integrated graphics ( 780G motherboard )

I've recently added a Sapphire 5770 Vapor-X to my htpc , so I can play games on it , and even with my cpu , it can still handle Crysis (on medium settings and Dirt 2 with everything maxxed out )

I will eventually upgrade my cpu to an Athlon II 3 or 4 core , but I'm in no rush .


Hope this helps .

Antigrav

pickledfish wrote: »

@Antigrav what issue are you having with mythtv streaming? I have been using similar setup to you for years now and have not found a more configurable solution.

I was just looking for more sophisticated audio streaming solutions. Mulitiple simultaneous streams. Also streaming to different devices. We have a mix of nodes/handsets Xbox 360, IPod (touch), Windows PCs.

Plus I'm wondering about controlling this from a tablet. Especially where browsing and selecting a TV show, or enqueing music to play from the main Boxee/MythTV front-end

@Pug Both my DVB-S and DTT cards are Hauppauge. The DTT is a Nova-T 500 USB and I'm having trouble with the MPEG4 decoding. Not sure if this is a signal or decoder issue as yet

MediaMan

Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking of going larger than needed on the CPU and RAM because it's a bit of future-proofing and not a huge difference in overall cost. I am also thinking that with that horsepower I could run a virtual machine on that box with output back to an otherwise useless old PC that I have gathering dust.

But @Ninja12, good point about those CPUs needing lots of power and cooling. I hadn't thought of that and I do want the box to be quiet, so will ratchet my choice of CPU that down to a more appropriate spec.

Was also thinking about whether the mobo will match the case, as the mobo has a lot of I/O connectors directly on the board. See this picture in this review of the mobo.

How can I tell if the Antec Fusion case will allow external access to those connectors, or is it a given thanks to the ATX standard?

wibbleman

The setup I describe below tickets all the boxes re: your requirements..

It is not a speed machine but records and plays everything perfectly..

HTPC: ASROCK 330HT (Atom 330, Nvidia Ion, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 64bit, 500GB HDD)
Tuner 1: USB Hautpague 900H (DVB-T - mpeg4)
Tuner 2: USB PCTV 460e (DVB-S2)
External HDD: WD 1TB USB
Remote: Emprex 3009URF RF remote.
Software: Media Center, XBMC, NeverMiss TV, HULU Desktop, Squeezecenter

With the above I get all the DVB-T Irish channels, and all the FreeSat UK channels.

XBMC, HULU desktop and NeverMiss TV are run directly from my media center front end so everything works from the remote control. (I use a VPN to get the non-irish web base TV -with NeverMiss and Hulu).

ninja 12

MediaMan wrote: »

Was also thinking about whether the mobo will match the case, as the mobo has a lot of I/O connectors directly on the board. See this picture in this review of the mobo.

How can I tell if the Antec Fusion case will allow external access to those connectors, or is it a given thanks to the ATX standard?

Both that motherboard and the Antec Fusion are Micro - ATX , and are compatible with each other .

The motherboard should come with an IO shield to match the ports . It just clicks into place in the rear of the case .

zuroph

wibbleman wrote: »

The setup I describe below tickets all the boxes re: your requirements..

It is not a speed machine but records and plays everything perfectly..

HTPC: ASROCK 330HT (Atom 330, Nvidia Ion, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 64bit, 500GB HDD)
Tuner 1: USB Hautpague 900H (DVB-T - mpeg4)
Tuner 2: USB PCTV 460e (DVB-S2)
External HDD: WD 1TB USB
Remote: Emprex 3009URF RF remote.
Software: Media Center, XBMC, NeverMiss TV, HULU Desktop, Squeezecenter

With the above I get all the DVB-T Irish channels, and all the FreeSat UK channels.

XBMC, HULU desktop and NeverMiss TV are run directly from my media center front end so everything works from the remote control. (I use a VPN to get the non-irish web base TV -with NeverMiss and Hulu).

Hi, sorry for noobish questions, but how do you set up XBMC to run from media center? whats the channel flicking speed like on this, is there a delay? and is there an EPG for all channels?

EDIT: I found the answer to the first question online, very good! how does the remotre handle handover?

MediaMan

@ninja 12 - thanks for the reassurance re microATX and I/O.

@wibbleman - interesting - hadn't thought of using a small ION box and adding the extras via USB. Price still adds up though, but probably more thrifty than what I was looking at, which is good.


Things have taken a twist, as it turns out that I now need to get a new desktop PC for general use, which means I can offload the NAS and Squeezebox server functionality to that, so now I can consider either a more lightweight HTPC, or perhaps a media streamer such as WD Live HD plus a dedicated Satellite/Saorview receiver. Still thinking about that one - I do like the idea of a HTPC but it would now be so much easier to just buy a PVR HD receiver off the shelf...

Unfortunately it would be impractical (read: too much hassle) to run the satellite feed to the room where the desktop PC will be and thus be able to run a frontend-backend configuration.

Either way I'll post details of what I end up going for, and am still interested in more suggestions.

Now over to the PC Building forum to check out a "regular" PC build...

wibbleman

zuroph wrote: »

Hi, sorry for noobish questions, but how do you set up XBMC to run from media center? whats the channel flicking speed like on this, is there a delay? and is there an EPG for all channels?

EDIT: I found the answer to the first question online, very good! how does the remotre handle handover?

There is an epg for all channels.
The remote works perfectly as the XBMC addin for media center closes media center UI then opens xbmc. The opposite happens when you close XBMC. Remote perfect in both apps.

zuroph

wibbleman wrote: »

There is an epg for all channels.
The remote works perfectly as the XBMC addin for media center closes media center UI then opens xbmc. The opposite happens when you close XBMC. Remote perfect in both apps.

Thanks for that, seems like a good stopgap until XBMC introduce their pvr on main release