Completed My Wireless SD Setup (1 Viewer)

[steveperthau]

Hi, this is my first post.
Thought you might like to see my setup.
I have:
icute 450w case
Gigabyte 8I915p duo mb
3.2 GHz Intel p4e
2x team 512k ram
Silverstone NT01 heatsink with 2x 40m fans (it gets hot in Perth Aus)
3 x 250 GB sata2 drives
Avermedia dvbt 777
Gigabyte ati x300se
Samsung 22" lcd 2ms
5.8 GHz av wireless sender & receiver with IR repeater(computer is located 3 rooms away from TV through brick)
Panasonic 42" WS plasma SD
WinXP

My thoughts:
Most of the stuff I watch is SD avi (divx/xvid), not much in the way of HD around as yet so will stick with this for 12 months.
I keep everything I watch I put on the hard drive; even to the point of converting DVD’s to xvid. Will need to look at larger drive in future...ugg.
No dedicated sound system installed yet, prolly won’t do it for the TV but maybe for the projector when I get the dosh to buy one. Not really sure it worth waiting for a 1080p projector at a decent price I think I might just get a 1024 or 1200 native res WS instead.
The avermedia remote is not the best (I can’t start mediaportal remotely with it unlike solutions with mce remotes). I don’t feel confident that this card's remote will continue to be supported by htpc software.
The ati card is a great budget card but I do run some games from time to time so I will need to upgrade the card, this is going to mean that I will need a new system due to power requirement of future directx10 cards, all well; I might just keep the box as a dedicated htpc system.
Im not impressed with the quality of the av wireless signal (its analogue). It was a great idea to buy one of these ($200) and has been used heaps but the remote signal doesn’t always get through and some ghosting is present, so I plan to use hdmi cables with repeater and a conversion box from dvi/spdif and to hdmi. Will cost a bit (approx guess at this stage of $500) but it is definitely worth it and I will make it 1080p so it can be future proof. I will also look at a USB extender and put a wireless keyboard/mouse etc in the TV room.
Not a big fan of avermedia they haven’t supported my card with there new htpc software, it’s a fairly new card and they should have done the work to make it compatible but they just decided in there wisdom that they won’t support it...
Panasonic 42: I have had trouble getting the correct output resolution when directly connected via DVI, should be 852x480. I have used powerstrip but for a noob it’s quite a painful process to get it perfect so it’s not worth worrying about and I will stick with 800x600.

My goal at the moment is to have only the Panasonic box hanging for the wall with only face plates behind for the hdmi, antenna and power. It looks nice and I will have more space.

I will admit learning all this htpc stuff is a bit daunting but im pretty happy with my setup.

Steve,
Perth, Western Australia

 

[OgdenP]

Rather than the long video cables or wireless connection, have you considered using a client/server arrangement (my guess is that you probably have, but discounted it to reduce clutter )? Sounds like an interesting setup, though.

I am a new user of Media Portal too. I've just set up my first dedicated HTPC using an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI Motherboard with AMD 64X2 4000+, 2 x 1G DDR2-800 RAM, 1 x WD 500GB HDD and SATA2 DVD Burner with a Compro DVB-T300 and a DigitalNow TinyTwin dual USB tuner, in an Antec NSK2400 case and controlled with a Microsoft MCE remote. I've only just connected this to the TV for the first time on the weekend and still have a few issues to iron out, but so far I am very pleased with the facilities it provides and the picture quality on our cheap old TEAC TV (connected via S-Video) is vastly better than the built-in analogue tuner.

- Peter (also from Perth, WA)

 

[tomskwomble]

Peter, I also have a DigitalNow TinyTwin tuner. I've been very happy with it but I would really like to use it in Media Portal. I take it you had to add the definitions yourself to get it working ? I had a go at using GraphEdit but it wouldn't detect my card - or else the card definitions showed up somewhere else in GraphEdit because of it's USB nature and I couldn't find them ? If you've already gone to the trouble of getting the TinyTwin working then I'd greatly appreciate any help you could give me.

- Nick (also, also from Perth, WA)

 

[OgdenP]

Peter, I also have a DigitalNow TinyTwin tuner. I've been very happy with it but I would really like to use it in Media Portal. I take it you had to add the definitions yourself to get it working ? I had a go at using GraphEdit but it wouldn't detect my card - or else the card definitions showed up somewhere else in GraphEdit because of it's USB nature and I couldn't find them ? If you've already gone to the trouble of getting the TinyTwin working then I'd greatly appreciate any help you could give me.

- Nick (also, also from Perth, WA)

Nick,

I am using the TVServer, which seemed to automatically detect the TinyTwin without having to do anything special (other than install the BDA drivers, of course).

 

[tomskwomble]

Hi Peter - thanks a lot for the info Looks like I have an evening of software installing to look forward to. Yay!