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poemdexter posted:I have cable with a set top box. My tv in the bedroom can catch a bunch of channels. I'm just worried that I'll get the card, and then I won't be able to catch Noggin or Nick Jr. because they're encrypted. I don't suppose there's a way I can check if they are before I drop the cash on a card is there? Like Fnord said, it'll depend on the cable company. I used to have Comcast and I could pull all the channels except the premium ones(HBO, etc.) without a STB. I'm not exactly sure ont he package we had, though. If you buy a Hauppauge, or any other quality tuner, then it will have both the Coax and Composite/S-video inputs. So you could get the tuner with both, try it without the STB, and if that doesn't move to the Composite/S-video and IR Receiver/Blaster. That would be my recommendation. The HVR-1600 is the most common tuner, or used to be last time I was looking, and does have both inputs along with a remote and IR Blaster.
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Mar 2, 2009 17:50
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poemdexter posted:Thanks for the help guys. I talked to the cable company and everything is encrypted after 71. So I will need a set top box to record the channels I want for my daughter. Since I already have a stb in the living room and this is where the pc will be, I guess I'll have: In order to watch a show and record another, you will need a second STB since the channels are encrypted. All the tuner will be doing is grabbing a signal sent from the STB. Imagine your HTPC Tuner as a TV, it's the same idea. So the STB will do all the decoding. For viewing, I think you've got the right idea. The TV will now act as if it were a PC monitor. For a HDTV you can use either a DVI>HDMI or RBG cable to go from your HTPC graphics card to the TV. If it's not a HDTV I know it's possible but I've never tried it so not exactly sure what cables you'll need. You'll also have a cable going from the tuner to the STB called an IR Blaster. This will send the signals from the HTPC to the STB to change channels. You'll have something like this: 
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Mar 2, 2009 21:02
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Jensen posted:I've been researching and am getting a little frustrated, maybe one of you guys can help. That looks exactly like the official MCE Remote from Microsoft, except black. I don't see anything that says it's a programmable remote, so i'm going to say its impossible. What they mean by IR Blaster is that if you have one(which says its included), that remote will send a command to the PC, which will then send a command to the TV using an IR Blaster to turn it off.
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Mar 2, 2009 23:52
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Jensen posted:I have the little IR receiver dongle thing that you see there. Is that considered an IR blaster? That USB device that is pictured is the IR Receiver/Blaster according to the picture description. Now, I can't tell from the picture if the blaster is part of that device, or if like most I've seen, has a connection to run a wire for the Blaster. Did you get any cables with a little IR thing on one end, and a connector on the other?
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Mar 3, 2009 15:18
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Withnail posted:Anyone know if a 2.8ghz p4 is capable of handling hd video? It currently stutters on a lot of the hd videos I've tried. But it only has 1gb of ram and a pretty crappy video card. I'd like to upgrade the ram and video card and squeeze a little more life out of it. But if it's going to be bound by the cpu, I won't bother. No way can that handle 1080p. 720p I think it could. Before I upgraded I had a 3.2 P4 running 720p with on-board graphics. If you're having problems then I'd say either get a HD Accelerating graphics card, which you can get 8600gt for very cheap, or get a cheaper processor, E2180 or something with dual cores. Unless you want 1080p, then you'll need to step up from that.
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Mar 7, 2009 16:56
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Moogs posted:I, too, am interested in this. No this is not true anymore. The newer graphics cards can now do hardware acceleration. It takes most, if not all, the load off of the CPU. many reports of 0-1% CPU usage while playing the killer 1080p sample. I also thought those cases were cool. I bought the Thermaltake one that's similar. They run VERY hot. So much so that I couldn't OC at all. The reason is that you have to use the stock CPU fan/heatsink because others just won't fit. That was the case with mine anyway.
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Mar 12, 2009 00:07
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Ok, I discovered today that my Satellite STB has a Coax out, but it puts it all on channel 3. So now I'm trying to set this up for recording using MediaPortal. What I hope to get to is: -MediaPortal tunes to channel 3 at all times (The TV Server already has found only channel 3) -When I want to change channels, it changes the STB using my IR Blaster I haven't looked into this too much, but GB-PVR might do this more easily. We'll see. Let me know if you've got any ideas to help me out.
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Mar 19, 2009 03:37
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dfn_doe posted:You'll have to excuse me if you already answered this and I missed it, but why on earth would you want to use rf capture over coax from a satellite stb?!? This is bar none the absolute worst signal path that you could possibly get to your htpc. What capture card are you using on your PC? Does it have an svideo input? How about your STB? That coax output on your STB is for people with stone age TVs... I didn't answer it, but basically, it's either that or nothing. My apartments set up so that a run of S-video/rca cables would be around 30' across the floor and around a few corners. Leaving plenty of spots for me or someone to trip on. The coax was so nicely left there by a previous resident and runs straight through the wall. The apartment was always wired for cable before, and tey jsut switched to satellite. The quality actually doesn't look that great, but its not enough worse compared to rca for me to care. Its only SD stuff anyway, cause they didn't put in HD dishes. So in short, yeah it sucks but I'll take it. Though, I'm not getting it to work so it may be nothing both ways!
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Mar 20, 2009 00:26
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I can run an IR blaster because the hole in the wall, not outlets a literal hole someone put there, is big enough for an IR blaster cable. I would widen the hole, since its hidden anyway, but the complex has the size written down. I'm trying GB-PVR now, and the problem is when it changes channels it changes the input from coax to look on for a signal. Like I said, its a real lovely solution, but its better than nothing, maybe.
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Mar 20, 2009 15:06
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monkeybounce posted:So if I understand this correctly, your HTPC is in the living room and your STB is in another room, but there's a length of coax running between the two rooms that you can run a blaster along? Ah, i see what you're saying. This reason being that there's only one STB and moving it to the HTPC would move it away from the main TV. And my roommate wouldn't appreciate that. edit: And its DirecTV so I would need a second STB to do this.
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Mar 20, 2009 16:58
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Milky_Sauce posted:Is a Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz enough to handle 1080p video? I mean without any work-around software. Just with any old program. This will be with at least 2 gigs of ram, Windows XP, and unfortunately a built-in video card (Intel GMA 3100). Just want to make sure before I spend the money. That's a tough call. It will do 720p perfectly, but it may not be quite enough for 1080p with "any old program." Maybe if you get CoreAVC it could do it, but it would still stutter. Like I said, close call but that's my opinion.
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Mar 25, 2009 00:53
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Fitret posted:I've asked in the AVS forums, but I figured I'd try here, too. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16137612&posted=1#post16137612 I'm not 100% on this, but those other channels are probably encrypted. You can get the unencrypted, usually only local channels since they have to provide those for free, but the premium channels in HD (ESPNHD, A&EHD, HBOHD, AMCHD, etc.) you'll need a cable box to decode the encrypted channels. edit: Dis-regard this. Your AVS forum post says that your TV picks them up fine. It could be a problem with Vista MC. I never used it for what you're doing so I can't really suggest anything. Of those 127 digital channels, how many are repeats? I know my TV picked up NBC-HD at 23.1 and 108.6 for example. Wood for Sheep fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Mar 27, 2009 |
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Mar 27, 2009 22:15
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rugbert posted:Is there a reason more people arent going for this: Well, it's mini ITX not Micro ATX so you'd need a special case for it. Also, it's from a MUCH less reliable company. Gigabyte is one of the most reliable, and I've never heard of Zotac. And the reviews don't help with that matter much.* *Take the reviews, and my assumptions about them, with a grain of salt. There's only 7, and I usually base my assumptions of the reviews off the negative ones more then positive ones. But that could be just me. I'm also looking to update my HTPC a bit so if these really are amazing let me hear it! Wood for Sheep fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Apr 14, 2009 |
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Apr 14, 2009 03:50
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Not exactly sure where to post this, but I'll start here. Having problems with subtitles. Whenever I copy one of my DVDs, I hard code the forced subs into the video file. Now for some of my movies, I never did this. I don't really want to re-rip them all. (I realized I could do this about 3/4 of the way through my collection.) Anyway, so I've found subs online, but using CCCP it shows ALL of the subs. And I can't find a setting to have it play just the forced subs. I don't want to manually edit each sub, because I don't know of a way to edit out just the non-forced subs, and I'm afraid I'd delete some forced subs that I missed. How do you all handle forced subs that aren't hard coded into the rips?
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Sep 4, 2009 06:49
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