Media PC

Krusty_Clown

secret_squirrel wrote:

In unrelated MCE news I just upgraded my FX5200 to a passively cooled 6600GT the difference in picture quality ranges from good (TV) to stunning (Divx) would have done it a long time ago if I had known it would make such a difference.

I'm currently using an FX5200. Are the gains really that good? Which one is passively cooled? AGP? In a small factor case? How's the heat?
So many questions!

TCP/IP

after reading this post i went out and got a 6600 will review it tomorrow for you all i am replacing an ATI X550

secret_squirrel

Krusty_Clown wrote:

I'm currently using an FX5200. Are the gains really that good? Which one is passively cooled? AGP? In a small factor case? How's the heat?
So many questions!

The gains are amazing I may be biased but when I was watching a 500Mb divx of Dr Who the Xmas invasion it was one of the best pics I ever seen on my TV especially since it doesnt support component or progessive scan.

Now just to be cautious - the fit of the svideo cable is a lot better on the 6600 than it was on my 5200 but I dont think that had much to do with it. Its also possible that I had a duff 5200 but I doubt it. The 6600 series has a lot of extra media processing in it.

My case is a media one that takes a full ATX board so its fairly roomy and runs quite cool. However I have 3 fans in the box. An 80mm slow speed 1 from quiet PC and a 120mm in the PSU and a 92mm on the cpu all running slow enough to be silent. The only noise my case makes from the HD.

Im not running games or a temp sensor at the moment, but I literally just had the case off and the passive heat sinks on the 6600 are barely lukewarm to the touch.

One down side is the power connector on the 6600 clashes against the power connector on my DVD-rewriter, so thats removed until I get a shorter one or some a couple of low profile connectors.

My 6600 is this one. There is also a PCIe version.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

heller

FrankGrimes wrote:

Heller - would building your own Media Center PC be an option for you? I set out a few months back from not knowing my PCI from my PCI Express and what not, and thanks to all the info on the web was able to get up to speed quick enough and built my own one and have since built one for my sister and all is well. It means you get way more bang for your buck. For 2 grand you could build a monster media center which will whup any of the pre-built ones you listed below. If you are buying pre-built, Hush PC make super looking machines and theyre silent, though in my view way over priced for the mediocre specs.

I am considering it, but I'm pretty much a novice so it would take me a while. I would only do it if I think I would enjoy the experience, which I assume everyone here does. Otherwise I will pay the extra to save me the hassle. I would be grateful for any good links you have.

Recent messages are about upgrading the FX5200 to a 6600GT. I had no idea what this meant. I clicked around and I guess these are graphics cards. What does a graphics card do, re TV? Give a good picture? Do I need a good one when using a PC monitor for my TV? Do you only need a good one for games?

My Dell catalogue says the media centre PC I'm thinking of has a "256MB PCI express ATI Radeon X600." I can upgrade for 133 euro to a "256MB PCI express nVidia GeForce 6800 with DVI". Would it be worth it?

MR DAZ

Can the lads that have already there media pc's up and running post up some pics of them ..

I want to set one of these up but the case might be a prob herself wants it to "Blend" in in the sitting room with the telly


Now.. I have been looking in to this for a while... my two worries are getting a nice case and making sure that the system will not be too loud

I'm thinking of going with a shuttle case rather than the HTPC cases as i think there very bulky and big

Any thoughts?

FrankGrimes

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Davegirl - the Hauppage MCE 500 is the one to go for. Its dual tuner so if you're using cable just needs one input and it'll take both from that. If you're using NTL Digital or Sky digital you'll need two set top boxes and a second back plate if it didn't come with (PM me if you need it as I have a spare one my sister didn't need and its available for €15 with delivery). A set-top box only outputs one channel thats why you need two boxes and two separate inputs.

Yep, the Xbox 360 can watch one channel live while recording another, or record two at same time if you go with the setup above. The TV connected to the 360 is not connected to TV signal at all - it is only connected to the 360 which in turn is connected to the Media Center PC. No recording happens on the 360 - it merely tells the Media Center PC what channel to display, and what to record and it works great.

MR DAZ - I have my Media Cener PC setup in a separate room (where it is used for normal PC stuff), and in the living room I have an Xbox 360 acting as a Media Center Extender connected via wired LAN, though it can also do wireless (i.e. can do almost everything, bar Divx playback, that can be done on the actual Media Center PC). The 360 is actually quite noisy but to be honest I genuinely don't hear it when watching tv or playing music on it and I love this setup as I built one PC and it serves all the needs in the house, not just media center. Cos its in another room appearance and sound on it don't matter so its in a midi tower case.

I built a HTPC media center for my sister and its sitting proudly in her living room and fits in well - just looks like a fairly big amp. Its almost silent too. This is the case she chose and you'll find it recommended in many places as its a good compromise between decent appearance and decent amount of space to work in and add into.

heller

Hi all, I would appreciate a yes/no answer to this very simple question. I am a novice at this.

Can a media centre PC (pre-built say) do everything that an old-fashioned VCR used to do? (Can it record TV shows, to the hard disc or to DVD, play them back, rewind, fast forward, pause, etc)

All I want to know is, can I do all the same stuff i used to do ?

Thanks very much. Yes/no will be fine.

PowerHouseDan

Yes

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

secret_squirrel

This is my baby :

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/htpc.php#ht400

Graham

Excellent choice secret_squirrel, I have exactly the same case, I also has the smaller HT201 (my brother has it now).

I do find it's a little fiddly to work inside though. the positioning of the DVD drive in relation to the mobo makes accessing memory/FDD connecters a pain without removing the DVD. That's something I never want to do though, it took a couple of hours to get the metal plate stuck onto the drive drawer in just the right position.

heller

Does anybody know if the new Microsoft O/S "Vista" due out this year will include the media centre edition?

or will vista be a separate O/S from MCE ?

FrankGrimes

some versions of vista will have media center, others will not. not sure if its only the Ultimate edition that will have it, though I know that version definately will

secret_squirrel

Graham wrote:

I do find it's a little fiddly to work inside though. the positioning of the DVD drive in relation to the mobo makes accessing memory/FDD connecters a pain without removing the DVD. That's something I never want to do though, it took a couple of hours to get the metal plate stuck onto the drive drawer in just the right position.

Agreed. The DVD drive bay is quite close (depending on your mobo) to both the drive cable/memory sockets and in my case when I upgraded to a 6600GT I found the power cables on the DVD and GFX card clashed. Hence I have a shorter DVD drive on the way.

That DVD door plate is the biggest bodge job in the case. I had to use 3 layers of that stick pad stuff and even then it still aint great. They could easily make a better design. Also I would like to see some isolation of the 2 drive cages to reduce sounds/vibrations. A few nylon/rubber washers and stand off screws would go a long way to improve things. I've just got the case acoustic insulation from Quiet PC for it.

All in all its a good case if you have a fullsize atx mobo lying around as I did.

subway

could someone recomend a cheapish half-decent tv tuner to run with mce?
im thinking of getting a budget setup running on an older pc to replace my dvd player.

GeorgeBailey

Hi,
Another newbie question here. I've been looking at Dell's media center offerings, in particular the 5150C
I can't see a tv tuner mentioned anywhere here. Would this not be one of the first things you would need in a Media Center PC?

Regards,
GB.

subway

http://img.dell.com/images/emea/products/dimen/5150c_chassis_back_314.jpg

that looks like a tv card down the bottom

GeorgeBailey

subway wrote:

http://img.dell.com/images/emea/products/dimen/5150c_chassis_back_314.jpg

that looks like a tv card down the bottom

Fair enough. Like I say, I'm a newbie Although I still don't see it mentioned anywhere, which I find strange!

Dave Sully

subway wrote:

could someone recomend a cheapish half-decent tv tuner to run with mce?
im thinking of getting a budget setup running on an older pc to replace my dvd player.

http://www.hauppage.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

i just got one of these - €`170

TV and FM radio for your PC! Built-in Personal Video Recorder with video out!
Record your TV shows or videos to disk using our built-in hardware MPEG encoder.
Play the recordings back on your TV set using our built-in hardware MPEG decoder
Burn your home videos and TV shows to CD or DVD*. DVD authoring software included
Includes MPEG Editor, TV program scheduler, CD/DVD burning software and IR remote


Drivers available for MCE 2005

subway

hehe,
im not even planning on paying 170 for the pc itself.
im thinking more on the lines of 50eu or so...

secret_squirrel

Dave Sully wrote:

http://www.hauppage.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

i just got one of these - €`170

..........................

Drivers available for MCE 2005

:rolleyes: Nice advert

A pvr150 or pvr150mce will do fine - you can probably find loads on ebay. New and secondhand.

On an unrelated note - did anyone else's guide listings for the irish channels vanish today or was it just mine? Had to go back into settings to get them back.

Smoggy

Hi,

Yesterday my media center decided to crash and mess with all my stored TV listings. Been as it took me what seemed like a life time to enter them in , im hoping that someone has the settings file so I can restore mine ( I made a backup of prefs.xml - but this doesnt seem to be the right file )

NTL DIGITAL - DUBLIN

Thanks

- Just as a side note , my media center remote seems to switch on my xbox 360 which drives me mad , anyone else had this and knows how to sort it I would be grateful.

- Now just read Squirrels post : My guide didnt vanish , I just lost huge chunks of channel listings , so what was 101 RTE1 is now FTN or something

Graham

Same happened here, went to look at the EPG and bam, channels all over the place.

Will try and sort them all out later today.

That'll teach me not to practice what I preach. When media centre is fully configured and working properly - TAKE A BACKUP

Wavey

Afternoon all, Just updating this post. Got my guide back up and going.

Another problem i have.

E4 is tuning to the wrong freq. Its tuning to 472 MHz but it should be 64 MHz accoring to here
http://www.ntl.com/locales/ie/en/athome/frequency.html.

The picture is awful.

I have found the Tuningoverrides.xml but what part do i need to edit?

Also the scan did not pick up Discivery or Channel 4 so i added them myself. The guide seem to be correct for them but if i switch to these channels they are actually tuned to TG4 and BBC1.
Do i edit the Prefs.xml or the tuningoverrides.xml?
And which part of theses do i edit?

Also, now that i have my Guide set up properly, Which file should i backup to avoid all this hassle again?

Thanks

Wavey

OK..... I managed to get Discovery and C4 tuned in by changing the last entrys in MCEtuningoverrides to the Discovery Channel freq. 575MHz.
But still no joy with E4.

I will attach a pic. The freq. in the tuningoverrides.xml is 64MHz. Is this correct?

Dell-Boy

subway wrote:

http://img.dell.com/images/emea/products/dimen/5150c_chassis_back_314.jpg

that looks like a tv card down the bottom

Hi guys,

What sort of inputs should a tv card take? Which ones are best?

(The input comes from the settop box, right?)

Thanks,
DB

derekphonic

I got a lot of help here on boards wrt setting up my Media Center PC. I built the machine from scratch, but there is lots of stuff on this thread about buying one off the shelf. I'm really happy with the machine I built, and the exact specs are there, incuding a komplett shopping list.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054856517

GeorgeBailey

Hi,
Another idiot newbie question here.
Does anyone know what sort of internet access do you get through a media center extender? Is it just a select few sites or can you access whatever you want? For example, could you access the vodafone website to send your free text messages?

Graham

Media centre itself only highlights a few sites in it's online spotlight, these are usually sites that have been optimised for the 10' usage.

If you want to use other sites you'll just open internet explorer (or your browser of choice) and browse as normal.