Need help with home media & TV strategy

€>sense

Hi all!

I would like some help and advice, I started off looking for a NAS device and a networked bluray player that would play music, photos, movies from the NAS. Budget about €500.

Of course the more I researched the more confused I got as other possibilities dawned on me:
nettop boxes +/- TV tuner cards,
just building a big HTPC and forgetting the NAS,
someone on the forum here mentioned a box in his attic that is streaming TV around his house...

Now I need help formulating my strategy as I've totally lost it.

I have a home office with two desktops (1 work + 1 gaming), gigabit wired network to living room, kitchen, sitting room, bedrooms, Living room currently has sky+ and an old DVD player that is currently playign media through usb, but not in HD to HDTV. There is also dual coax running to all rooms that has the giggbit network. Switch is in home office, but attic is also wired for gigabit. Wireless network also for ipods and android smartphones.

I think I ultimately (might take me a few years) I want all the rooms wired with ethernet and coax to have access to all media and all TV, but where do I start? (I hadn't thought of ditching sky, but that would free up quite a bit of cash to do soemthing more advanced and is soemthing I would like to work towards).

I'm fairly competent techwise and believe I can do this, I have built gaming and other rigs in the past, but it has been a while.

So questions, ultimately I'll need something in backend and something connected to the TV(ingore other rooms immediately, but I want teh solution now to ahve an eye to the future for thoses rooms)...

1) Do I invest more now in a backend box (€300-400) or in the box connected to the TV?

2) Can a HTPC deliver something my wife and kids can really use i.e. no long boottimes, as easy to use as a dvd player or sky?

3) If so, please recommend the interface W7 media center, or Linux variant

4) If I'm cutting out sky and building a HTPC for satellite and terrestial HDTV should I build or buy or do something like buy a nettop and plugin sufficient usb TV tuners? (I'll need 2 satellite and 2 terrestial tuners right?)

or maybe I should just get the network bluray and NAS.

Sorry about this but need someone knowledable to get my head straightened out.

Thanks in advance to anyone taking the trouble to reply.

aFlabbyPanda

take a look at what I have at the moment which I think is what you are after. You can skip the dvblogic software if all you want is FTA channels (bbc, itv, rte, etc).

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75218877&postcount=42

€>sense

Thanks BrianjG!

Sounds like a great set up and very close to what I'm looking for.

You have put the investment into the backend box, and re-used or minimised the spend on the front end.

I can see the sense in this.

I have some questions however before I follow down this route:

1) Your HTPC in the attic would need to be permantently on to be available if for media or TV, or recording. Can the power settings be setup to minimise the power drain by going to standby if not being used? For power reasons I had thought more of a low power backend NAS that would serve files on demand and download torrents. Does a low power consumption backend HTPC exist?

2) Is that box noisy, in my setup I have a home office with two PCs - an old dell optiplex for work and a gaming rig. I would be tempted to try to repurpose the Dell for this role, it is quiet and only 275W but possibly under powered.

3) How does your box and network cope with the loads particularly under HD?
Say streaming 3 HD channels & recording one with some bittorrent downloading going on in the background?

4) Does Media Centre on the HTPC manage all conflicts in channel watching and recording? I would need it to stop someone from swiching channels and stopping recording say if more than 3 satellite channels were being accessed.

5) Can it do series link robustly like sky? This would be a dealbreaker for me, missus would kill me if something was missed. I noted that it took you a while to get epgs sorted out, I wouldn't mind that time investment, but would worry if it was a daily or weekly task to check them, download them, update them etc.

6) I've been having alook at MCEs and it appears that the market is limited except for Xboxes. That would be a hard sell to the Missus, and I kinda hoped that my solution would end up with full internet on the TV. Does the X-box have full internet - I also read that it is not gigabit only fast ethernet? Is there an Android device that could suffice? My limited research indicates that another HTPC would not work for DRM reasons and that they cannot share schedules and recorded content. Is there Linux solutions to the media extender issues or a totally Linux solution - back end and front end?

Thanks again!

aFlabbyPanda

1. Yes pretty much. The power settings are set to sleep the drives after 10 minutes and sleep the system after 15. The xbox will wake the machine when it needs to connect and with the solid state drive it only takes about 3 to 5 seconds to boot from sleep. The recorder within MCE will wake and sleep the machine as required for schedule recordings. So far its worked OK.

2. Noise was a concern for me and I worked hard to make sure we would not hear it or any vibration noise (which was an issue at the start). Now in saying that I was the only one in the house looking up at the ceiling and mumbling 'I can still hear it!'. My wife and kids could never hear anything. Some foam under the case sorted out most things.

3. Never had a problem. I tried using wifi and those powerline units at the beginning but it was a disaster. I ran CAT5 cable to each room and even with a 10/100 switch it worked fine. The kids would often be watching a bluray rip, & recording a HD channel, & the wife watching corrie and me downloading stuff and never an issue.

4. Yes if you try to do more than it can it will display a prompt asking what recording to cancel or which xbox to stop displaying live TV.

5. Yes and better in my opinion as it offers recording of repeats, other channels, HD or SD or both. But you know the way sky will run a trailer for a series and you can click a button to add it to record?, well you can't do that. No the EPG was 1 time deal. It just took me a while to get the workflow in place. Now it happens automatically. Picking which channels to show in the EPG is a manual process to begin with so if the HTPC detects over 400 channels (sky, euro, aljaseer, etc) you need to go through the list and untick (1 at a fecking time!) which ones you dont want.

6. I've tried a few other media center extenders and the xbox is the best by far. What would be the problem with using one from your wifes point of view? In short there is no real web browser for the xbox. My elite is connecting at GB but I would need to check the others, even though I never had a problem even if they are only 100mb . I don't follow the DRM issue. Anything I record with my HTPC can be played on my 10.1 tablet or mac or PC with either VLC or Plex. No idea on the linux front as I'm not familiar enough with it (I work as a windows server admin so was happy enough going the route I did).

€>sense

Dear BrainjG,

Thanks for all the help, I'm getting there.

Wife is very skeptical of entire project, and if X-box is mentioned as the solution I see a flat "no" as it will be impossible to convince her that this is anything other than a ruse to allow my gaming infect the rest of the house. However, I cannot see any slim client coming in under €200, so I guess the xbox is the way to go.

Questions again....I hope you're a patient man,

1) Does the x-box output 5.1 HD sound with all the dolby stuff? How does that work? Does the HDMI cable pass through an amp on route to TV or does the TV pass the HD sound out to the Audio receiver?

2) Lack of a browser on the x-box wouldn't be the end of the world, you-tube is on there, it does play music, and any basic plugin browser would be sufficient for the type of looking up wikipedia etc. I had in mind. I can always use the phone. What remote do you use to control it - can these be sourced easily?

3) This is a biggie. How do you handle the maintenance on the TV server, updates to OS, reboots, security software, & all the other stuff that generates popups and interrupts? Again missus would not tolerate popups on screen in middle of something really important, or for them to interrupt recording.


4) Assuming I'm going to put a Media and TV Server box in the upstairs home office, I'd also like that box to act as my NAS, downloading torrents, and serve content via DNLA to phones, tablets etc. What kind of spec would I need? I would like this box to be quiet (can't afford silent) under 25db (I tolerate this at present in the office but would like quieter), have absolutely minimal power consumption with excellent and robust sleep wake functionality and start at 2-4 TB but have the capacity to grow.

Can you help with this or will I start a new thread? I am very grateful for the help so far.

aFlabbyPanda

No problem at all, glad I could help. To be honest when I started this (around 3 years ago) I went at it blind so I don't mind passing on what I learned.

1. Mine are plugged in via HDMI straight to the TV but AFAIK they will pass 5.1 through either optical to an amp. I don't have an amp in my current setup but I will be adding one later (when funds allow).

2. I have a few remotes, the stock ms one http://goo.gl/mMZRP , and this one http://goo.gl/dzg3e which is my fav as it has shortcut buttons for my movies, etc. There are loads out there and you can get logitech programmable ones too.

3. The extender will display only popups regarding the TV/Media (scheduled recording clashes, etc), nothing to do with AV updates, ms patches, or anything you would normally see on the desktop. I use remote desktop to connect to the PC and do whatever I want (schedule torrents, upload music, etc) but I just hold off doing any reboots or stuff that would interrupt viewing.

4. You can see the spec I used which (outside of the solid state drive) came in under 250€. But to be honest you could spend a little more and get a quieter (mine's in the attic remember) machine if you want to be sitting next to it.

If you want more 4TB you are going to have to get a NAS box or add RAID which is going to drive up cost (unless you are happy spreading stuff across multiple drives like I have).

€>sense

Thanks Brian,

Can you elaborate a bit further on the software some of which I'm totally unfamiliar with what it does.


DVBLINK TVSource
Hadu CCCam Plugin
XMLTV Gui
Torrent Episode Downloader
uTorrent
SCRU
MediaBrowser (replaces MCE Movies mode)
<meta>browser

€>sense

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056502052

Have started thread on the PC board looking for hardware advice.

subway

i have a very similar setup as brianj

we cant discuss the exact setup for sky as it leads to a site ban, even tho its used legally.

DVBLINK TVSource
allows virtual tuners in 7MC. only needed if you are setting up a tuner farm (more than one 7MC box in the house) or want very low power / low profile box in front of the TV. ie, it can stream tv across your network, but 7MC thinks its a proper TV feed, so full EPG etc

Hadu CCCam Plugin
sorry, big nono here (been given a warning in the past over it)

XMLTV Gui
downloads EPG data from various sources (digiguide would be the best) its needed as many of the guide sources are blank in 7MC so need to be loaded manually
can be used with dvblink or big screen epg to inject into 7MC

Torrent Episode Downloader
uTorrent
again, these are something i'm not sure if were allowed to discuss, they cant be that hard to figure out anyway (google)

SCRU
linked to the above, never used it so cant comment.

MediaBrowser (replaces MCE Movies mode)
add on for 7MC that gives a nice layout for movies. has gotten slower and buggier over time. plenty of complaints online, but still the best if you dont want to leave the 7MC interface. recently ive given up on it and started using XBMC integration

<meta>browse
downloads meta data for use in mediabrowser or xbmc, includes reviews, synpsis, cast and crew, background images etc. personally i prefer media center master, but i doubt there is much to differentiate them so personal preference really

aFlabbyPanda

If you want more details on the others items drop me a PM and we can chat over email.

SCRU,
Some torrents are multiple rar files and all this does is monitor a folder and extract them automatically for me.

€>sense

Thanks Guys,

I've no intention of messing with Sky, I'll either keep my sky plus box to keep the missus happy, but considering what we watch my main motivation is to get the saorview and Freesat stuff. This accounts for >95% of our current viewing.

€>sense

Getting back to the hardware stuff.

I ran a little test today, borrowed the kid next door's new xbox. Installed Win7MC in a virtual drive on my gaming box, and after a time got it to work, not with TV just with streaming music and movies.

Hit lots of problems, (moslty VM related - I think), but eventually got it music and movies playing back.

Big issue however with stuttering. Every 30s or so. rem this is on Gigabit network.

I think it may be two things:

Virtual Machine only had 1 GB of ram to run Win7 and it was a vm.

Still worried about perfomance though as a result. I'm assuming that you do not tolerate stutters every 30 sec.

or

possibly my lan cables from PC to wall and xbox to wall were only cat 5. They were old and I couldn't find a rating on them.

Would cable quality do that?

aFlabbyPanda

were these avi files you were trying to play? if so thats a bug in the extender. its an issue that myself & loads of others on web also have. Its the only issue I have with my setup and the simply way to avoid it was to switch to playing mkv or mp4 files instead. I find they are better quality anyway (mkv are mostly blueray rips).

aFlabbyPanda

also if you are just going to user freesat & saorview then you wont need the following,

DVBLINK TVSource
Hadu CCCam Plugin
XMLTV Gui

subway

I'd still recommend xmltv, large amounts would have no guide data and even more would just be now / next. And even then you only get now next when you switch to the channel.

aFlabbyPanda

windows MCE works fine with freesat & saorview for EPG listings (14 days). never needed xmltv until I added the dvblink application.

subway

really? when did you set yours up? i've been running mine for about 2.5 years and was always missing guide data.
have been using dvblink for about 1.5 years so been using xmltv and bigscreenepg the whole time

i'm assuming something major changed if microsft decided to buy epg data for all the channels?

aFlabbyPanda

Well to get the freesat epg I used a UK postcode instead of setting it to ireland and it just worked. When I reran the setup for saorview it just picked up the epg guide. never had a problem at all.

i've had my htpc for 3 years now and 3 months ago switched to dvblink. THEN i lost my epg and had to use xmltv.

€>sense

BrianjG wrote: »

were these avi files you were trying to play? if so thats a bug in the extender. its an issue that myself & loads of others on web also have. Its the only issue I have with my setup and the simply way to avoid it was to switch to playing mkv or mp4 files instead. I find they are better quality anyway (mkv are mostly blueray rips).

Yes were avi - makes sense now! but an itunes rip of a recent CD?

subway

That must be it, I've always used dublin for the setup.

Regarding the extender stuttering, I've no problems with avi and the fact that a cd is doing it too suggests another problem.
If you have a laptop try connecting it in place of the xbox and ftp a large file to see what kind of speed you get.
It could be something as simple as a kink in the cable.
Similarly, check what the pc is doing at the same time, if its using a lot of cpu that would cause stuttering so try see what's running etc
it could also be the vm, can you try a simple file share to the xbox from the dashboard rather than the mce environment

aFlabbyPanda

subway wrote: »

Regarding the extender stuttering, I've no problems with avi and the fact that a cd is doing it too suggests another problem.

its related to the codec used and not the container. They will play fine through the dashboard,

http://goo.gl/3HMRR

subway

that would explain an issue with a cd tho?

ive never come across it before, the links suggests its high bit rate avi rather than a specific codec that causes it? which codec do you have issues with?
would you be interested in sending me a sample file so i can see for myself?

(off to download some high bit rate avi files)

edit/// found a nested link

Xbox 360 support for AVI
Video Profiles: MPEG-4 Part 2, Simple & Advanced Simple Profile
Video Bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps.
Audio Profiles: Dolby® Digital 2 channel and 5.1 channel, MP3

Xbox 360 support for H.264
Video Profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to Level 4.1) profiles.
Video Bitrate: 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30fps.
Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)

Xbox 360 support for MPEG-4 Part 2
Video Profiles: Simple & **Advanced Simple Profile
Video Bitrate: 5 Mbps with resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps.
Audio Profiles: 2 channel AAC low complexity (LC)

Xbox 360 support for WMV (VC-1)
Video Profiles: WMV7 (WMV1), WMV8 (WMV2), WMV9 (WMV3), VC-1 (WVC1 or WMVA) in simple, main, and advanced up to Level 3
Video Bitrate: 15 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30fps.
Audio Profiles: WMA7/8, WMA 9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA lossless

guess ive never come across an AVI with a bit rate that high

subway

well, downloaded the biggest avi file i could find (3.7gb) (~3000kpbs video + ~500kpbs audio)
and whaddya know, s-s-s-s-stuttery all the way.

@ €>sense
if its a big avi file this definitely is the issue. if its a normal avi <2gb then i would look at what i listed earlier

€>sense

Can't run any more xbox tests had to give it back to the kid next door!

Have not committed to the x-boxes yet, could run media portal on PCs.

I'll get the server first and retest with fresh install of win7MC - borrow the xbox again before purchase!

Worst case scenario i'll have to get nettops.

aFlabbyPanda

dvblink will allow you to share the tuners with another HTPC running MCE so you could use some shuttles instead of the xboxes.

would also address any stutter or future codec issues. but may increase the budget.

€>sense

Had to go back to work so left this in hiatus.

Hoping to get back over the weekend to some research.

Some questions arise.

Do I need a T2 card at all? Is HD on saorview coming in on a T1 card?

As regards satellite, I'm planning to simply remove sat feed from sky box and plug into tv tuner card. I don't need to move satellite dish to new satellite do I?

Because if so, I might reassess.

Seapoint

Your existing Sky Box is pointed at 28.2 E, here's a list of all of the Satellite channels you can receive, legally & free from within Windows Media Centre, no plugins required.

http://en.kingofsat.net/freqs.php?&pos=28.2E&standard=All&ordre=date_maj&filtre=Clear

I'd try this as a first step. When you get it up and running, make an image of your installation drive.... then go for the next step!

That's where I'm going now, looking at Hadu CCCam & DVBLINK TVSource.

The big danger is that I'll upset my other half who loves Media Centre and all it does!

subway

you dont need a T2 card in ireland, and wont for the forseeable future.
for sat, you will be better off with an S2 card for future proofing.

like seapoint says, no sattelite readjustment will be needed.

seapoint, feel free to PM me if you need any help at any point with your setup