Anyone built a 3 or 4 Tuner system? (2 Viewers)

[TV_Fan]

My buddy says: "Oh yeah, I always cancel out of the scan..."
So the unit is only a LITTLE defective.

Someone else is lending me a HDHomeRun next, that seems cool, hooks up to the ethernet and sends data to your computer that way. (Trouble might be...the TV data is taking a round trip if I use something with an extender. Else the PC must live under the TV.)

How do you all keep your fans quiet enough to use the HTPC in the living room?

 

[2BitSculptor]

I live on a noisy street, and the ceiling fan is loud as well, so I pump the amp up to cover it all .... don't notice the HTPC all that much.

I'm gonna be building a quiet client for the LR and put the TV-server in a closet in the office. I've got the R45 and coax run with wall plates, and the tuners are in the office with the router and modem. All my stored media (music, tv-series and movies) are already on network shares.

Chuck

 

[Mew]

How do you all keep your fans quiet enough to use the HTPC in the living room?

To try to keep my HTPC under the TV as quiet as possible I have the fastest passive graphics card I could find (currently an ATI HD5450, I have bought a passive ATI 6570 but it seems to be faulty as it can not go above 1080i 25/30Hz, no 1080p).

I have a 92mm case fan (92mm Noctua NF-B9-1600 Vortex) and two 60mm case fans (Acousti AcoustiFan: DustPROOF 60mm)and a quiet PSU (Corsair HX 750) with a large fan. I recently replaced the CPU fan, which was the noisiest component and could be heard (but not enough to distract when watching TV) with a Scythe Shuriken Rev.B. When we next watched a film my wife did not realise the HTPC was already on, such was the difference. The loudest components now are the 2 60mm fans. These are already replacements to those that came with the case and are quieter, so I am not sure I can do much more. The HTPC is now very quiet but I guess I will always strive towards as near silent as possible. It is a compromise between cooling and noise. I guess it helps that it is a dedicated HTPC, not used for anything else so does not need powerful (and hot) graphics cards and CPUs.

Mew

 

[TommySharp]

I tried something out the other day just for the hell of it.... Here in NZ our digital "freeview" is only about 10 channels but only 3 different broadcasters which turns out that with only a 3 tuner system you could record every channel at once....

And by golly it worked, hard drive lights were flashing away like crazy but every channel available was being recorded at the same time.

This probably doesn't go anywhere to answer your query but just thought this was so cool I had to tell someone......

 

[TV_Fan]

I suppose I have a lot more searching to do, but thought I'd give you all a build status:

Settled on taking my old HP laptop out of retirement, to place under the TV.
Using an HDHomerun for the video source, 2 tuners for now...may get a second unit to get to 4 tuners.
Starting out using WMC...I tried the XBOX extender, but the remote lagged significantly, plus XBoxes have only so many hours in them before you have to replace them...too expensive/fragile to use as a MediaCenter.

So onto my current issue: Harmony 880 and WMC. The GUIDE and RECORD buttons do not seem to be implemented, as they were not on the HP remote. Surely the codes exist somehow. Any ideas how to get them/encode them?
Does MediaPortal solve this problem some other way? I really like the MediaPortal interface, just starting with the OS defacto choice as I set things up.

 

[2BitSculptor]

I have the Harmony 300. I don't now about WMC, but I have the remote selected in MediaPortal as MS MCE remote, plus have some keys reprogrammed using the Harmony online config program (using MediaPortal as my selected HTPC device).

Chuck

 

[TV_Fan]

Thanks,

That's the piece I need to give MP the tipover as the preferred interface.

 

[2BitSculptor]

fwiw, I am also using the MS MCE IR receiver with the Harmony remote.

Chuck

 

[TV_Fan]

That AND that WMC is recording repeats of season passes, even when told not to.

I suspect its interpretation of "New" is new to it (Tapes each episode only once), rather than "First Run".

The HP laptop has an IR sensor in front, runs quiet, and consumes less electricity than a PC or TiVo box....seems the ideal choice for a "green" HTPC.