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I am converting an extra machine of mine to be a HTPC. Athlon XP Barton 2500+ @ 2.1Ghz 1 GB Ram Radeon 9700 Pro An old IRMAN serial IR receiver to use an old remote control for input I order a hauppauge dvr-150 card for analog channels, and a HDHomerun for QAM digital and HD. I have currently setup Media Portal, with out the tuners, and it works pretty well for playing back videos and what not. I have a couple of questions: Should I consider another front ends other than Media Portal? I have read others in this thread talk about Myth, Sage, Meedio, etc, but theres not been much talk about the strengths and weeknesses of each. Secondly, 1080p H.264 play back is pretty much limited to Blu-ray or HD-DVD, right? That is to say, no tuner card or what ever records HD in H.264, correct?
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May 14, 2007 02:31
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 15:18 |
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I have been playing with most of the DVR programs for the last week or so, to see which ones work the best with the Silicon Dust HDHomerun for recording QAM256 Digital cable channels. I have been looking at Windows apps, pretty exclusively sense this machine does get some use for other things a that require Windows. So no Myth or Freevo. Sage treats it as a network recorder and was the easiest to set up. You pick your cable line up, and de-select all channels, then you just click the remap button in SAGE TV and remap all of the clear QAM channels to their QAM address. You don't need to use an ATSC remap file or anything. I guess the hardest part is using the HDHomerun GUI tool and VLC to figure out what each channel is, which can take a while. Beyond TV and other Windows programs will need an ATSC remap file. This is extra work, but there is a tool to do it for you on the Silicon Dust forums. One problem is that most DVR programs don't want the ATSC physical channel to be higher than 69 (the remap tool will automatically map them higher), and they don't want any Major channel number to exist on more than one physical channel (the remap tool will also do this). Short of the long is, use the remap tool to figure out where things are, then manually edit channels to work. I decided against Sage TV because HD channels stuttered a lot, or got macro blocks. Sage did have the advantage of being able to play back other files on my system (that it had not recorded), but that ability is not super useful for me... I can play those files back manually, if nothing else. I decided against Media Portal because I was not impressed by it scheduler or ability to resolve conflicts. I also get the feeling that its more "Europe-centric" in design. You can make it work for US line ups, but it kind of feels like an after thought. No surprise as most of the designers are from Europe. There was a plug in for ZAP2IT to get US tv line ups, but the non SVN version crashed on my system. The SVN version worked, but 3 or 4 of my channels would not get guide data for some reason. I didn't go with GB-PVR, mostly because I didn't like the interface. Yeah, I know... shallow of me. I settled on Beyond TV for a few reason. It worked well with the HDHomerun, after I got it configured. Plays back HD well, and has no problem recording 2 HD shows at once (and watching another at the same time). Has an easy to configure scheduler that resolves conflicts well. The line up guide of my cable stations is correct. About the only negative thing that I can say about beyond, is that it doesn't show your TV in a window if you go back to the main menu. Once again, I know, shallow. Beyondtv, like Sage, is a retail product. It's a little cheaper than Sage, and they are having a promotion till the 5-22-07 for a free Firefly remote. I ordered it, bundled with an PVR-150MCE card for $109 so I could have a second analog tuner. I also ordered a wireless keyboard/joystick mouse that was $30 when ordered with a bundle. All in all, I think I am going to be pleased with my HTPC. I would be happy to answer any questions that anyone has. Just shoot me a PM or reply to this thread.
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May 20, 2007 02:42
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This might be a question for SH/SC, but is there a cheap IR receiver out there that I can use just a normal IR remote. It could be USB or serial, but USB would be better. I would also rather have something that comes with the software that it needs or uses free software instead of something that requires Girder.
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Mar 31, 2008 19:41
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more falafel please posted:Ok, I think I've got the parts for my first HTPC build all set. The purpose is: Just a software recommendation, XBMC is currently being ported to Ubuntu, OSX and Windows. All of them are considered "pre-alpha" but are all pretty feature complete. The Ubuntu port works pretty much perfectly. The Windows port is mostly there, but can't browse SMB shares (it can play back files from SMB shares that are mapped as a local drive through Windows). go to xbmc.org and check their forums to read more.
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Apr 10, 2008 18:24
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evilalien posted:SMB sharing works for me in the latest build of XBMC for Windows. As a longtime user of XBMC on my old xbox, I think I will be building a new htpc soon based on either the Windows or OSX XBMC. Oh, cool. Guess I need to update.
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Apr 10, 2008 20:31
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Bacicot posted:Last I heard, Orb can be used to stream TV to the xbox. I think you can record TV with Orb as well. Has anybody tried this? Or is this something that's already been asked and answered 5 or 6 times in this thread? I haven't found much info about it. Orb can transcode and stream to an Xbox 360 (it looks like crap), but I am unaware of you being able to do it to a normal Xbox or XBMC.
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Apr 11, 2008 17:23
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I was able to get this MCE remote to work on my non-MCE, normal XP computer the other day using these instructions.quote:Blade: You need two files for the Windows XP native MCE Remote driver, irbus.inf and irbus.sys. Then I used LM remote to rebind the keys to something useful. Just thought I would through that out there for anyone who was looking for a good USB remote that has IRblasters for cheap. note: I have not messed with the IR blasters yet, but judging by that guys instructions, they might not work.
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May 21, 2008 16:56
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