Help me spec a UK-tailored HTPC? (1 Viewer)

[me_sjo]

Hi all

(Hopefully you won't all groan at another one of these threads........)

I've had a few HTPC's in the past, with my current one being an Acer Aspire Idea 510 running XPMCE (which appears to have just died!). Due to requiring a higher horsepower box to play the latest HD content, I am contemplating once again building my own (which has resulted with various success and stability in the past).

I've decided not to go for Sky HD and instead going for FreeSat HD. Not too fussed about the premium channels. Rather than spend £300 'ish on a decent FreeSat HD box i'd prefer to build an all-in-one box but it must be reliable.

I am looking for some suggestions on proven hardware for use with either Media Portal or Windows 7 that meet my requirements :-


- Tailored for UK market (If there's such a thing!)

- Great Multi-Tuner TV Support (looking at the new BlackGold BGT3595 Tuner - 2xDVB-S2, 2xDVB-T Hybrid)

- Ability to play back pretty much any format/resolution content (Typically DiVX/xVid or x264 media)

- Blu-Ray player support (I believe this requires a 3rd party add-on for Win 7?)

- HDMI output (Or DVI if solution is particularly rock-solid over something HDMI)

- Digital audio output (either spdif over toslink or coaxial - audio over HDMI could be an option if I buy a new AV amp)

- Rock Solid Stable!!


Things that have annoyed me in the past which I must avoid with this new build :-

- TV service crashing

- Programs not recording (probably due to the above)

- Not enough horsepower to play back all media (current HTPC has a Dual Core 1.6ghz CPU)


I would also consider an off-the-shelf boxed product, but i've not really found anything particularly attractive whilst searching recently.

Based on the above I suppose I am looking for recommendations on Motherboard+CPU (i'm a fan of Intel historically), Video Card (HDMI related and decoding offloading etc). Not worried about storage as I have NAS elsewhere on my network.



Many thanks

 

[me_sjo]

Nobody?

 

[Spagbol]

Just a quick note as I'm going out in a mo....

It would seem that Rock Solid Stable is the most important of your criteria as you typed that in bold.
Just bear in mind that MediaPortal (awesome though it is) is very much in development and is most definitely not rock solid stable (just look at the bugtracker page...) You most likely will have problems somewhere along the line be it with codecs, tv stuttering, tsreader issues, audio/vis sync, memory leaks or a myriad other niggles. For most of us here it would seem the journey to solve these issues is half the fun!

 

[me_sjo]

Thanks for your reply. The thing is I don't want my TV viewing disrupted by software bugs, hence the requirement for it being stable. I don't want to come home after a night our and find out my girlfriend's favourite TV show hasn't been recorded.

If MP is inherently unstable, then perhaps time would be better spent making it rock solild rather than full of half-working features *

* Tongue in cheek.. I know nothing about MP's features or stability.

Just a quick note as I'm going out in a mo....

It would seem that Rock Solid Stable is the most important of your criteria as you typed that in bold.
Just bear in mind that MediaPortal (awesome though it is) is very much in development and is most definitely not rock solid stable (just look at the bugtracker page...) You most likely will have problems somewhere along the line be it with codecs, tv stuttering, tsreader issues, audio/vis sync, memory leaks or a myriad other niggles. For most of us here it would seem the journey to solve these issues is half the fun!

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Hmmm, strange comments coming out here.

Had MP1.0.2 stable running for 6 months, with ForTheRecord doing the scheduling and never missed a recording once, also MovingPictures\TVSeries plugins being used .

Hardware\drivers can make a lot of difference, also correct configuration of TV.

As UK user then hauppauge products are most probably the best supported hardware.

 

[me_sjo]

Yes, hardware and drivers do seem to be the key thing, which is why I am posting here for recommendations

I am intending on evaluation both Win7 MC and MP and don't have an endless budget to keep swapping out cards until I get a working TV receiver.

I did look at the Hauppauge cards and see they do offer a DVB-S2 card (does MP support S2? It only say's DVB-S on the features page).

Thanks!

Hardware\drivers can make a lot of difference, also correct configuration of TV.

As UK user then hauppauge products are most probably the best supported hardware.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

MP supports anything that uses the DVB standard, so currently thats C, T, S, S2 tuners.

 

[me_sjo]

Wow, I almost forgot I had previously registered here and posted. Well for the sake of not creating a new thread, I did infact build a new HTPC last year which had been happily running win7 MC (albeit limited and not very pretty). Unfortunately I let myself be persuaded to try MythTV and in the process Fedora nuked my GPT, killed my win7, and after all that didn't work properly anyway.

So i'm back on win7 now and giving MP a go. Having a few issues but i've not tweaked or fully configured it yet. I'll most likely be posting some supports requests soon

 

[eetaylog]

Welcome back sir.

Did you get your homescreen and TV channels sorted out? One other thing i meant to mention was that there are 2 different types of homescreen, basic and classic.

Classic is the normal homescreen which simply lists all your plugins
Basic has sub-categories of your plugins on the right hand side as you scroll down in homescreen.

Classic

Basic

I would recommend using classic for now until youve got yourself set up properly, otherwise its just one more thing for you to configure.

MPconfig -> GUI -> Homescreen: Classic only

 

[me_sjo]

Thanks fella. I've not had much chance to go through anything yet. Right now the outstanding issues for either configuration or bug-fixing are:-

- Get the right channels
- Get the EPG working reliably for all
- Resolve issue with TV service hanging MP (have to reboot computer, will not quit gracefully) - might be an EPG issue?
- Understand, as I only have one TV provider (BSkyB/FreeSat), if I only have to select one channel in the EPG list or all?
- Figure out if x2 speed audio + video playback is possible for tv recordings and/or dvd playback (assume MPEG-2)
- Get home screen working how I want
- Iron out a couple of issues with the tv-series plugin (right now it's missing a couple of folders, maybe a naming issue)
-+ probably lots more i've yet to find

Welcome back sir.

Did you get your homescreen and TV channels sorted out? One other thing i meant to mention was that there are 2 different types of homescreen, basic and classic.

Classic is the normal homescreen which simply lists all your plugins
Basic has sub-categories of your plugins on the right hand side as you scroll down in homescreen.

I would recommend using classic for now until youve got yourself set up properly, otherwise its just one more thing for you to configure.

MPconfig -> GUI -> Homescreen: Classic only