The HTPC Thread - Dont buy an HTPC - The Something Awful Forums

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tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Is that pulse-eight USB-CEC adaptor the only game in town for controlling kodi running on an old laptop with the TV remote or is there some other perfectly functional knockoff found with keywords I don't know?

# ¿ Jun 16, 2015 05:05

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 02:21

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Rocksicles posted:

Just download Yatse for your android phone, or the other remote for iphone. Miles better than a tv remote

That's like, exactly the opposite of what I'd like in a home theatre remote. I don't want to have to unlock my remote (and wait for it to do its wifi sync thing, and look at it to find the buttons because it has no tactile feedback) to pause a movie. A TV remote is perfect with the chromecast, which is awful when you have to use the app client, because you can pause and play without lag.

We have a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad now that works great, it would just be sweet to use one remote most of the time and a physical keyboard when we need it.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2015 05:57

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Thermopyle posted:

Phone or tablet as remote sounds awesome until you have to use it regularly.

Try using it without looking at it.

Well, sounds like this guy uses and likes his phone remote, which is kind of strange but power to him!

# ¿ Jun 16, 2015 15:04

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

How does the Flirc work with your TV remote when you're still watching the TV? It seems like the play and pause buttons are unmapped by my TV on the PC input so I guess those will be fine, but they do stuff when the tv is on other inputs. Is there some way to mute the Flirc so that it doesn't detect when I'm doing stuff with the TV in another input?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 13:50

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Don Lapre posted:

Lots of tv remotes have universal functions. So program the VCR or whatever second device as something you dont own

Ah, my remote doesn't have that. I guess I'll give this USB-CEC adapter a try, then.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 15:34

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Cornjob posted:

Cons: Less processing power, less memory, smaller hard drive (although it is ssd), no disc drive, fewer usb ports, more $$$

Pros: not refurbished, smaller

Am i missing something?

Pros: is that same shade of blue that matches every other piece of consumer electronics in your home. :swoon:

# ¿ Jun 21, 2015 03:24

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Rat Supremacy posted:

What's a good simple, stylish remote that works good with Kodi? I've got limited HDMI-CEC working with my old RPI1, but the Samsung(TM) SMART(TM) REMOTE(TM) is an unholy piece of poo poo where most of the buttons are mapped to the smart garbage.

I use this thing. http://www.amazon.com/QQ-Tech-Bluet...yboard+trackpad

It's not beautiful and it won't wake the computer, but the price is right and it reaches the twelve feet I need it to without dropping out unlike those dumb RF dongle keyboards.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 21:14

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

clockworx posted:

For anyone interested, the ECS Liva is the lowest I've seen it ($80 shipped on Newegg):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856501007

Officially only supports Win 8.1 and Ubuntu, but Googling turns up people using Openelec and other software. Everything is non-replaceable, but good for streaming-only or if you want to add an external drive. I use mine for WMC, with an IR receiver and external storage for holding shows.

�Intel Bay Trail-M N2807 1.58 GHz
�32GB eMMC Storage
�2GB DDR3L RAM
�Dual Graphics Display
�Low Power Consumption (5V / 15W)

That thing looks awesome, it's good to see that this sort of PC is turning up more often for when my lovely Win 7 laptop dies. It's not quiet or efficient.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2015 17:42

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

owl_pellet posted:

Until upgrading to Windows 10, I had been using my Xbox 360 as a Windows Media Center extender to stream video files to my TV. This no longer works so I played around with some media server software today.

I first tried PS3 Media Center, but couldn't get it to see my TV even after upgrading Java and forcing it to use the networking device and IP address it should have been, so I uninstalled. Next I tried XBMC/Kodi and I am currently running that although I would like the functionality I used to have which I'm not sure Kodi can do:

1. Ability to wake the PC from sleep from the TV

2. The software to autorun on startup and persist in the background

Both of these could be handled by having the PC never sleep, but I would like to avoid that if I can to save power. Any recommendations?

1. This can be done with certain remotes. I had a KB+trackpad handheld that worked with a 2.4ghz dongle and woke up the computer when I put it to sleep with Kodi. Now I use a bluetooth one and it doesn't work that way. This is more a computer issue than a Kodi issue, though. The same device wakes my Macbook from sleep on bluetooth no problem.

2. You can do this with Kodi. Just add a script or whatever. Googling "run a program at startup windows" is your friend. You can also alt-tab out of Kodi or quickly turn it to windowed mode with \ if you want to for some reason.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 02:13

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

I made a huge mistake ordering a FLIRC shipped to Canada from the manufacturer, didn't I? A post from 2013 makes it sound like I'll be waiting for it to clear customs for two months.

"Wtf is this thing? Is it a terrorist and/or sex thing?"
"I dunno, Doug. Let's ask someone else tomorrow!"

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 14:36

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

KingKapalone posted:

Currently using my laptop as my temporary HTPC to access Plex and I have an overscan (I think that's the term) issue. The edges all around are cut off a bit on the TV. The laptop and TV are both 1080p. It has an Intel HD graphics chip but I can't find where to fix the issue in the graphics settings. I've done this easily in the AMD interface before. Any tips?

If the tv settings are correct, check your display settings for "overscan". My MacBook Air likes to do this same thing and moving the overscan slider around fixes it right up.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 05:49

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

redhalo posted:

Anyone else have any experience with Windows Storage Spaces on Windows 10? I don't have any questions, just want to warn that it's complete poo poo in unexpected ways.

I started out with four 3TB hard drives in a pool, it wants you to tell it how bit to make the virtual pool for adding future drives, 15TB seems to be the max limit for some reason so I set it at that. Then all of windows reports the virtual drive as 15TB despite my physicals drives not actually adding up to that, which creates a scenario where checking my percentage usage is incorrect and I filled the drives up before thinking things through. Whatever you set the max virtual space to, you can never change it to a lower number, even if it is still higher than your physical space. So getting pissed about the misrepresentation, I planned on trying DrivePool to do the same thing. Storage Spaces won't let you just migrate the drives back to normal drives unless they get reformatted or you have enough empty physical space on the virtual drive so that it can move everything off of a drive on to the others and shut that drive down, which I didn't have. So I installed two more 3TB drives to start shuffling poo poo off of the virtual drive till I had enough space to shut a drive down, remove it from Storage Spaces and add it to DrivePool so I could shuffle enough off for the next drive and so on. Incidentally File Manager reports a certain amount of data on the Storage Space, but the Storage Space Manager reports that I'm using a couple TB more that there really is, so once the new drives are filled, it doesn't think I have enough space offloaded to shuffle between the remaining to shut a drive down. So now I'm adding a third drive to offload more data.

TLDR: Just use DrivePool from the start it's better in every way and dead loving simple. I'm sure some of you more knowledgeable than me are having a laugh at my pain.

...you had 12tb of drives, why didn't you just set the max to 12tb?

Also, how much animus are in twelve terabytes? Like, in terms of days, months, years?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 19:39

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

TheScott2K posted:

Porn really adds up when you go all--megaposts with your downloading, especially now that so much of it is in HD

Yeah but how many days of porns is that?

Say it's pure bluray quality, about 150mb/minute. That's 9gb per hour or 216 gb per day of porns. Per porn-day if you will.

So a 12tb volume has 55 porn-days on it. You can watch porns every minute of each day for two months before you've seen every second of every porn once.

If your average pornsesh is 30 minutes, and you have a sesh once a day, that's 2640 seshes in your pornvault. That's seven years of pornseshes, give or take a double sesh day.

I imagine around year five you'll have forgotten year 1's material and find it arousing again, so maybe the OP has just created a post apocalyptic porn vault, which is probably better than anime I guess.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 20:44

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Uthor posted:

Just switch to hentai and get both at once.

I don't understand. There's a difference?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 23:38

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Here's our current setup:

Win 7 Laptop running Kodi for the TV in the basement. The laptop is only on when we're watching, because it's loud as gently caress and lovely.
Apple TV and iMac hooked up to the roommate's TV.

I'm interested in sharing the media on Kodi in the basement with my roommate upstairs. I thought I could just grab Kodi for Apple TV, but he's basically never seen a keyboard before and it would be a headache for me to constantly troubleshoot that for him.

What's a better option for sharing this stuff? I imagine I can setup an automator script to scan a samba folder periodically and copy whatever ends up in there, then let him manage it with his weirdo setup, but is that a good way to go?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 20:02

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

TheScott2K posted:

Set up a Plex server for your roommate to access. I've had much better luck getting normal people used to Plex than the clusterfuck of knobs and switches that is Kodi.

Would the server have to be running all the time for the app to access the media on his end? I'm not really willing to pay for a subscription and I doubt that he is as well.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 20:34

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Thermopyle posted:

So...where is the media stored? I'm assuming not on the laptop? I mean, whatever device has the media will have to be on when he wants wants to watch it...

Yeah, just stored on the laptop. I had a more elaborate thing set up before but it was easier in the end just to keep it on the laptop itself and just delete animus when space runs out.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 20:45

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

redhalo posted:

Wha? If you want to be hands free of troubleshooting and leave it to him to figure out then I don't get why you don't just share the folder on the network and call it a day.

Get 12TB and never delete again.

This is a good point, the problem there would be that I'd have to either announce when our laptop is on so he can scramble and get a local copy, or set up a script to watch for the network folder and copy all new items (hence Automator).

He's interested in possibly, maybe adding the $7 for a plex pass to the rent so all our laptop's media would just go into the cloud while we're using it and be available on his xbox whenever, right?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 22:12

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Thermopyle posted:

Yeah, BitTorrent Sync is good. If you really don't want to lift a finger in aid of the other party, this is a good solution.

Eh, I think setting it up at all is pretty kind because it really doesn't take privileged knowledge for both of us to do the bare minimum (set up and connect to a shared folder and do the transfers while we sleep, say) but he's kind of incapable of doing - or unwilling to do - anything but follow maybe one or two steps that I lay out for him and complain when it breaks.

Thanks though, I had a feeling that an NAS would be the next step here. Or moving the laptop and IR blasting to the FLIRC somehow...

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 00:07

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

I think we got mixed up here guys, these are 100% ripped import blurays that are totally legit! Very rare.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 05:32

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

xgalaxy posted:

I had an HTPC running Kodi + a separate file server. After I got the new AppleTV and the new Plex app I was able to drop HTPC/Kodi completely. gently caress tweaking Kodi settings and all of the hassle with computers and HDMI handshaking issues. It *just works* now. And the best part is I replaced a huge computer box pretending to be home theatre equipment with a small black box that can sit on top of my bluray player.

The only thing I'm really missing at this point is an Amazon Prime app but I know that it is being worked on (playing, not buying).

That isn't the best part of all of this. Since I was making the jump away from Kodi I decided to also overhaul the file server at the same time. I decided to move away from FreeBSD and go with a very basic Ubuntu server install with the only changes to the base system being 1) sshd + config 2) zfs file system 3) Docker installation. Everything is ran through separate Docker containers. This is making the maintenance of the system so much easier. Sonarr is a container, CouchPotato is a separate container, etc, etc.

For me the idea of an HTPC is dead. Devices like AppleTV, Roku, etc. being so capable and cheap now have made it obsolete.

This is awesome. Our router and HTPC are both in the process of dying now (so many DNS problems or straight up crashes, i/o errors and BSOD crashes), and I'm getting a new job so we're in the market for an overhaul. Can you describe how you manage your acquisition and labelling of totally legit import rips this way? How do you get the 100% legit animus onto the file server so that your ATV can use them?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2016 04:53

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Yeah, our kodi install is relatively low maintenance. It's not a solution for grandmas because if your scraper fails or a file doesn't transfer or rename correctly via the renamer, you have to track the file processing path and manually adjust things, but as far as kodi configuration goes, I haven't had to adjust it since changing some key bindings and installing a skin. Though maybe you mean when add ons break or something, which just sucks.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2016 20:39

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

What's the recommended case for HTPCs these days, and where do you buy this stuff? This seems to be the cheapest mini-ITX case on Amazon but it's like a whole square foot and I don't need or want something nearly that large.

I can grab a USB 3.0 hub as well so I guess one port is alright. Otherwise I was planning on grabbing an external 65w power supply. Here's the whole part list that I'm planning:

65w AC Adapter for a Dell Inspiron
Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX case
Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB HDD
Vision Tek Red 2x4GB DDR3 RAM
Win 10 Home
Patriot 60gb 2.5 inch SSD
AMD Athlon 5350 (2.05Ghz
ASRock Motherboard AM1H-ITX

Because :canada:

this is like a $550 build, but I'm reluctant to save the $150 (and like $25 on the SSD I guess) by ditching Windows and futzing around with OpenELEC until the end of time.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2016 23:10

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Don Lapre posted:

The silverstone ML05 is tits

pair it with a 300w SFX power supply.

Can I hack the 3.5" drive into there somehow?

# ¿ Apr 26, 2016 23:13

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Don Lapre posted:

It has a bracket sitting over the motherboard that holds a 3.5" drive, a 120mm fan, or a slot loading optical drive

I read the spec page and it says that it holds 3 3.5" drives OR 5 2.5" drives, so I assume it'll fit 1x3.5" and 1x2.5". It's only $70 and fits into our layout really well, and I love the LED dimming feature so I'll get it. Good recommendation.

Ed: Actually, I was looking at the ML03 instead of the 05. The 05 looks fine as well, since the 03 is like nearly 3x as much.

Opinions on fans? The PSU is through an adaptor so I thought I read that I don't need a fan, but HDDs and CPUs get pretty hot on their own.

tuyop fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Apr 27, 2016

# ¿ Apr 27, 2016 03:20

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

smoobles posted:

I wanna replace my aging HTPC but this time I don't wanna build anything.

Are there and small profile HTPC's or mini PC's on the market that you guys would recommend?

The i3 Intel NUCs look like they kickass. In canadabux it looks like you could get a really nice, fully capable HTPC that makes no sound and has like a 9 square inch footprint for around $900 (including win 10). There's some assembly required but I think it's just plugging in RAM and an SSD and installing the OS. They're much cheaper in the US.

Or a Raspberry Pi 3 with openElec. I don't think you need much more than the computer to do HD video and stuff, but I didn't look into it much.

# ¿ May 9, 2016 22:20

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

So my motherboard came and it only came with an atx splitter for two devices. Does this mean it only pulls enough power from the dc adapter (and I need a power supply for more) for two drives or just that I need to buy my own splitter? It has six SATA 3 ports on the board.

# ¿ May 10, 2016 06:19

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

The harddrive in this new build is really loud. What kind of software things can I do to make it more quiet? It holds all the movies and shows so it's a little important.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 15:41

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Don Lapre posted:

Replace it

Is that a warranty thing? I ordered it through amazon so I'm not really sure what I'm claiming here. "Harddrive is too loud, please send another one" doesn't seem like a legitimate request.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 06:42

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

On this new build, with a 2.05ghz quad core, kodi is maxing out my processor on 1080p playback. Is this expected, or what? I thought a Raspberry Pi could manage 1080p.

Edit: enabled DXVA and disabled windows defender and 1080p playback is hovering around 70%, which is fine I guess.

tuyop fucked around with this message at 06:10 on May 13, 2016

# ¿ May 13, 2016 05:59

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Yeah, after digging down a little bit and updating my drivers, I see that Kodi is hanging out at 4-7% CPU utilization no matter what it plays. Other things are taking up the balance up to 25-40%. Is it recommended to pre-optimize media if it'll be streaming to an Xbox One over wifi?

# ¿ May 13, 2016 17:26

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Except for loving HEVC files. Also, I'm so upset about a $300 price tag for an NUC. It came out to about $800CAD including OS and a 4tb hdd.

In new box news, my motherboard just died. Won't POST, troubleshooting points to failed board. I've had it for two weeks so I'm sending it back to Newegg.

This kind of makes me think I should send everything back and get an HEVC-capable system. We'd get about $400 back for this one, so are there any mini-ITX builds that'll hardware accelerate HEVC?

# ¿ May 18, 2016 03:09

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Amdis posted:

Nothing important like that, it's just going to be a dump for all my media files.

Whoa dude, this might be the wrong forum for you, we only consider solutions for legitimately acquired esoteric anime imports, endlessly redundant Linux distros, and ~family photos~.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 22:25

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

4gb of RAM should be enough to run kodi and plex, they're CPU heavy rather than RAM heavy, if you're running very old hardware.

You can just confirm this with task manager or whatever, though. If your RAM is constantly pegged, more of it should help. If your CPU is pegged, you need a new computer.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2016 07:39

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

I can't view that link but I have a flirc and map the arrow keys to arrow keys and pause/play to space bar. With a harmony 650. I use a tiny bt keyboard and trackpad for searches and stuff.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 08:03

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Sony's reading the writing on the walls that digital distribution is the future.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 05:06

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Your desktop may consume so much power that a separate low-power HTPC pays for itself. Ours breaks even in 18 months, and we probably could have done better with a headless NAS box and an RPi (but then there'd be no Exodus for my LINUX DISTROS) so meh.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2017 07:29

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

My HTPC is also a Plex server for my family and friends and none of us want to shell out $150 for a lifetime license plus the cloud storage for all those terabytes of sweet home movies and photo libraries, so it stays on. It's better than the desktop staying on, which is what we had before.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2017 16:11

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

KingKapalone posted:

Anyone have an issue where their Harmony remote shuts off the cable box even though they've told the app not to ever do that when setting it up?

It's probably HDMI CEC doing that. Check your tv settings.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2017 02:58

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 02:21

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

I actually paid to download xpadder before I used input mapper. Luckily for me, inputmapper didn't play nice with Steam / FFVII for some reason so I was still justified in using xpadder.
Supposedly Steam will support the DS4 natively. ~~sometime in the future~~technically already does .

I have never gotten steam to work with a DS4 on my Mac. Seems to work fine with windows though. Stupid Steam.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2017 15:46

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