home multimedia network planning (2 Viewers)

[matis1]

Im planning to install a multimedia network into my new home. i have several ideas in mind but until now no clue how i can realize them.
i want to have a server machine with dvb-t and dvb-s cards, streaming tv/radio to several rooms. ideally it should be possible to scedule recordigs from each room.
second i want to have internet access in each room over the server. there should be a raid station storing my recordings and dvd and all other data (pictures, music,...)
the clients should be noiseless and i want to be able to watch 1280p.

can some of you give me some advice in what kind of hardware would be adviceable.
what kind of software besides mp would be necessary.

 

[Willith]

Hey!

You sound like a determined person with a bigger budget then me!! I have somewhat of a home network setup which i'll throw in just to give some ideas.

Starting at the base we have two "servers" that live in the cellar. One is an old AMD Athlon 2100XP 512mb of ram which has a PCI SATA add on card. In total there are 5 HD's; 500gb for films, 320GB for Videos, 120gb for archive recordings and 120gb for other data. Finally a small 20gb drive to hold the operating system. This machine runs Ubuntu because Ubuntu is free, secure and all it needs to do is act as a SAMBA file server.

Second server is the TV server. THis has 2 DVB-S cards (1 Skystar and 1 Floppy DTV S2). It is a Pentium 4 2.8ghz 768mb of ram and has 3 hd's; a 20GB for operating system, 20gb for Timeshift files and 120gb for recordings. It runs Windows XP Pro. This machine is going to be replaced with this: Acer G330 MK2 also had the Dell Poweredge SC440 in mind but managed to get the acer at good spec and price off ebay!

We view Tv and films across a 100mb ethernet network in the house on multiple computers.

The main client providing for an LCD TV and Projector is a custom built system mainly compromising of Asus parts. It has a Pentium 4 3 GHz processor, 2gb of ram, an 80gb hd and an ATI x1650 card. This card is useless for HD and i plan to change it over. The motherboard is a Micro ATX and fits in a smallish Asus case. A quiet powersupply and big CPU fan were chosen to keep noise levels low. Replaced the ATI x1650 fan with a Zalman cooler. Machine still runs louder than i would like it.

My bedroom client is a Dell Optiplex. Designed for office and buisnesses but its small size and price makes it appealing. I believe dell do a similar sized inspiron with intel core 2 duo. This machine is a pentium 4 3.4ghz, 1gb of ram, 120gb hd. I upgraded the graphics to an Nvidia fanless 8500 card. It plays BBC HD and Channel 4 HD beautifully (though scaled down to 800x600 over S-Video for my oldschool 20inch CRT!) this machine is very quiet.

If you would like further details just ask

 

[xebix]

Willith,
I am looking at setting up something similar. I already have all of my media files on an Ubuntu server and have been using a MediaPortal box in my living room for a couple of months. It has been working great.

I am about to put another box in my bedroom. One thing I was wondering is with the TV series plugin, is there any way for a show to be marked as watched on both machines if I watch it on one. For example, I watch a show in the living room. Is there any way to have it marked as watched on the box in my bedroom?

 

[Willith]

Hi

Unfortunately i dont use the TV series plugin. I'll give you a heads up if i have time to try it out.

 

[matis1]

hi wilith
thanks for your reply
can you give me some more details on your mediaportal setup?
can you setup recordings from each machine? how about thestability of your system? what kind of remotes do you use?
thanks in advance...

 

[Gixxer]

Willith,
I am looking at setting up something similar. I already have all of my media files on an Ubuntu server and have been using a MediaPortal box in my living room for a couple of months. It has been working great.

I am about to put another box in my bedroom. One thing I was wondering is with the TV series plugin, is there any way for a show to be marked as watched on both machines if I watch it on one. For example, I watch a show in the living room. Is there any way to have it marked as watched on the box in my bedroom?

please take a look at this...

UserGuides/CentralisedDatabases - MediaPortal Manual Documentation

 

[Willith]

Hi

At the moment i am running RC2 with the modified TSwriter for grabbing the Sky EPG data. I tried RC3 but had stability problems which i think is a result of the modified TSwriter after a few tests.

The server is an Acer Altos 330 with Xeon 3.0ghz processor and 4gb of ram. This is enough ram to use ramdisk so timeshift files can instead be stored in the ram rather then on a hard disk. This machine is pretty fast working with the MSSQL database.

Currently i now have 2 FloppyDTV DVB-S tuners, one of which has the Sky card with a T-Rex cam and sits in the floppy drive with the floppy mount kit. The other FloppyDTV DVB-S card does not have a cam and so can only use FTA broadcasts (Freesat) this is set as the primary card in MediaPortal.

The Acer Altos does not come with firewire so i had to use a Firewire PCI card.

The asus mentioned before has died. Think it was my fault trying out an alternative Hyperthreading P4 chip..

So thats being replaced by another Dell Optiplex. They can be had for not much on ebay and produce very little noise. They come with a PCI express socket and 2 pci sockets. There is an optional riser card avaliable for those who wish to use a full size PCI express card as opposed to a low profile one. Still, the space inside is quite limited and long cards will not fit. Have had success playing HD TV on it.

Channel changing ranges from a maximum of 4 seconds to sometimes a second or less (depends on if channel is on same transponder, encrypted or if it swaps over to the second tuner).

The server sits in my cellar along with my Ubuntu media server and i access them via remote desktop.

Overall it is stable enough for everyday use. I still dont think however it is intuitive enough for people who've never touched it before to be able to use it (likely it still doesnt operate like most STB software, sky for instance). If a channel has changed frequency it can be a bit annoying (firstly its not always obvious and secondly if there is a problem with a channel mediaportal seems to take a few moments before it becomes responsive again.

I am happy enough using the Microsoft remote as i can set the volume and power buttons to the TV. There is also a power button for the computer so you can tell it to go to standby. It has a large numerical pad but i hardly use this (just the main arrows and ok button).

If i set a recording on one machine it instantly appears on the other. The integration is pretty seamless.

 

[eetaylog]

just to add my two pennies.. are you planning a wired or wireless network setup?

i would suggest a wired cat5e setup for stability and security.

 

[matis1]

for sure im planning a wired network, maybe wifi for some cients streaming radio or music, but i dont want wifi in the bedrooms...

for all who are interested, my actual plan is to setup MP on a windows home server system and use the computers i actually have, as there is no working solution for MP using thin clients like popcorn hour and i didnt find a (stylish) client computer that meets my demands (1080p output). For instance dells hybid studio looks very nice but has a poor graphic solution and is too expensive...

a good site to read more about that is comfortainment = comfort + Entertainment - Starseite (sorry, only german)

 

[benjerry]

I was thinking about a quiet, but cheap, client system for in the bedroom able doing 1080 res.

Planning this for the moment, cost about 300 euro here:

HPC Zirco M-ATX Slimline Black 250W
MSI K9A2GM-FIH M-ATX AM2+ Phenom AMD 780G SB700 FSB5200HT 4xDDR2 800 PCI-Expressx16 + OnBoard Video
ATHLON 64 X2 5050E 2.6GHZ PIB SKT AM2 2X512KB FSB1000 45W
Memory/2GB 800MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2)
SPINPOINT M2 120GB 8MB 2.5IN SATA 8MB 7200RPM IN
MS Windows XP Professional Upgrade (SL) UK

Completely noiseless is difficult I think at a low price. I guess best is to end up with using 1 big slow fan for on top of cpu plus some airduct to outside.

I didn't decide yet on remote control. Best would be one using RF and with backlit buttons.