HTPC options for a new system

bappelbe

Hi
I am looking at ditching Sky and replacing it with a free sat & Saorview system, the addition of viewing online etc would be a bonus.

The combi boxes don't seem to have good epg or record and watch another channel functions (in one box).

I am looking and a HTPC with DVB-T and DVB-S2 cards (more than one of each???)

Mythtv and XBMC are the 2 contenders that I can see so far - probably Mythtv backend and XBMC frontend seems to be what I want, as I am not sure XBMC works with the tv cards on its own. Are there any opinions on the setups of these?

I am looking for advice on hardware, I could just buy a PC with spare slots for the cards or build a new machine (last machine I built was 15 years ago).
A low power (low noise) machine would be preferable.
any Ideas? what are your setups?

I presume that USB DVB-s2 and DVB-T tuners would not be as good as PCIe/PCI ones

Bill

kaisersose77

Although i use xbmc with tvheadend, i'd have a look at this thread for a sky replacement.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056707402&page=44

The golden media triplex with dual dvb-s2 tuners and one dvb-t2 tuner and enigma 2 (dont think dvb-t2 tuner wokrks under enigma 2 yet though) seems great value for 165 euros on ebay. With enigma2 you can get the full sky epg aswell and use a plugin that organise's all your channels and i think updates them if they change frequency. Dont know how stable enigma2 is yet as i havent got this receiver yet myself but no harm checking out that thread if your not 100% set on pc based system.

Knasher

I run a xbmc+mythtv setup. Originally I ran tvheadend instead because it was easier to configure, but in the end I found mythtv to have better features/stability.

All the Irish channels are broadcast in a single mux atm. This will probably change in the future, but at the moment you would only a single dvb-t card to record all Irish channels concurrently.

I've used both PCI and USB cards. The DVB-T PCI cards are probably better in some way, but I can't say I've noticed much difference. The USB ones are much cheaper, my advice would probably be to get a USB DVB-T card and a second one when the need arises.

I would probably recommend a dual PCI DVB-S2 card. You can't get dual USB ones, and a two USB tuners would be more expensive than a dual PCI one.

Generally I'd advise you to build your own. It really isn't too hard to do, and picking out your own components will allow you to chose ones that are as quite as possible. If you do decide to build your own, I'd advise you to start by picking out the case. Generally HTPC cases are smaller than generic computer cases, and they dictate constraints on the rest of the components (like needing half height cards or only having one pci slot and how much heat your case can dissipate).

bappelbe

Thanks for that
I decided to go with the golden media triplex, I'll give it a go and if I need more I can build something later

Bill