HTPC and MediaPortal?

[Jeinhor]

Hello everyone,

This is not really a question about the hardware in my will-be HTPC, but I couldn't find anywhere else to put this question. If any moderator would like to move the post, please do. But to not completely violate the rules, I'll specify what I am thinking of buying:

* 1x Antec Fusion V2 Black
* 2x gamepad controllers (USB)
* 1x motherboard with integrated HDMI-connector and SPDIF/out (toslink, optical)
* 2x 1 GB RAM
* 2x 250 GB S-ATA drives (mirrored and striped using Windows Server 2003 software RAID)
* 1x Digital TV-card (preferably with two tuners; will I need two seperate antenna cables? any recommendations?)
* 1x Core 2 Duo CPU (of some kind, probably the ones that will be released soon, E8XXX, low power consumption)
* 1x Thermalright heatpipe CPU cooler

Would be glad if someone could answer the questions in the above specifications (and give me comments on it; good? bad? recommendations?), but it's not my primary question. This is:

I want my HTPC to be capable of the following features, preferably directly from the MediaPortal GUI (by links, plugins or any way possible). In short, I would like to know if this is doable with MediaPortal:

* Standard functions, watch TV (+HDTV), timeshift, record, schedule (using both tuners so that I can watch TV and at the same time record another channel)?
* Play DVD-movies (mounted in DAEMON Tools (automount?)) and movies in HDTV-format (the motherboard has a built in HD-decoder)?
* Launch Internet browser (so the HTPC can be used for surfing the net directly on the TV-screen)?
* Launch emulators for NES, SNES and so on (playable via the two gamepads connected to front USB-ports)?
* Play music?
* Show pictures located in a picture-folder on the local computer?

All this should run on a Windows Server 2003, which will also serve as a fileserver for my LAN.

I've heard MediaPortal 2 is being developed; is it available yet? Will it be easy to upgrade, release dates?

A big thanks in advance!

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Standard functions, watch TV (+HDTV), timeshift, record, schedule (using both tuners so that I can watch TV and at the same time record another channel)?

Yep.

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Play DVD-movies (mounted in DAEMON Tools (automount?)) and movies in HDTV-format (the motherboard has a built in HD-decoder)?

MediaPortal can automount ISOs using DAEMON Tools and it can also play ripped VOBs.
MediaPortal cannot play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD discs natively, either directly from the discs or ripped to your hard drive (this is mainly because Windows itself doesn't natively support this).
Some people have set it up to launch PowerDVD via mediaportal to at least get this partially working.
MediaPortal will play back high-def content so long as it's in a format it supports i.e. AVI, MKV etc.

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Launch Internet browser (so the HTPC can be used for surfing the net directly on the TV-screen)?

Depends what you want really, there were a couple of browser plugins, but they're a bit out of date and I couldn't get them to work very well. The alternative is to use the MyPrograms plugin to start the browser, but then you'd have to use a keyboard and mouse rather than the remote...

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Launch emulators for NES, SNES and so on (playable via the two gamepads connected to front USB-ports)?

yep, either the MyEmulators or MyPrograms plugins will handle this for you.

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Play music?

Yep.

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

* Show pictures located in a picture-folder on the local computer?

Yep.

Originally Posted by Jeinhor

I've heard MediaPortal 2 is being developed; is it available yet? Will it be easy to upgrade, release dates?

Nope, not available yet and probably won't be for a good while.

[Paranoid Delusion]

1x Digital TV-card (preferably with two tuners; will I need two seperate antenna cables? any recommendations?)

First choice

Terratec 2400i downside PCI-e only

Second

Pinnacle Dual DVB-T PCI needs reasonable signal, apparently not good in weak reception areas.

Third

Hauppauge T500 PCI can give grief on resume from standby\hibernate. (issue for me has gone on both Vista and XP, yippee, but because of this have put 3rd).

All these are a single coaxial connection. no cable splitter needed.

[Jeinhor]

Big thanks to both of you!!

Will most probably go with MediaPortal, really cool it supports the emulators. Launching the browser from MyProgams is enough, will have a mouse and a keyboard. Seems the hibernate issue wont affect me since the HTPC will always be turned on (as it also acts as a server for my home network).