New bedroom pc for network streaming through MP (1 Viewer)

[SitheSly]

Hi all,

Just got a new house and finally got the stage that my antec fusion MP system is not good enough any more.

My plan is to swap out some of the components of the Antec with a new networked pc (lots of old work pc's being binned, plan to grab one and stuff full of hds).

But the first bit i'm looking at is a mini pc in the bedroom networked with homeplugs to the antec (for now) to stream movies and maybe tv server.

During my searched i came across this thread on AVForums

Acer Revo 3700 vs eMachine 1401 - AVForums.com

Neither of the two machines in the title interest me, but the Zbox HD-ND22 mentioned at the bottom does, has anyone had any experience with one and will it handle all hd formats (including 1080i)

Cheers for any advice

Si

 

[porky996t]

Hi Si,

Don't know if it helps any, but this is my set up. I currently use an Antec Fusion HTPC case which houses the TVServer and 5 HDD's (1 x SSD for OS and timeshift, 1 x 160Gb HDD for recording TV, 3 x 2Tb for storage of Films, TV Series, music and pictures). The Antec box also houses 1 dual tuner DVB-S/S2 card, and 2 x dual tuner DVB-T cards. The Antec Fusion box is used to view TV etc in the front room at 1920x1080 and optical audio to a cinema unit. I then use 200Mbps AV Homeplugs to network to the bedroom & kitchen clients which are Zotac Zboxes (ID41) with a SSD in them. The Zotac clients work well with the 200Mbps Homeplugs and are connected to the TV's via HDMI with HDMI audio out - (they do have optical out too). These boxes come with a mounting bracket that allows them to fit behind the TV's and be hidden. They work great with Full HD and are very, very quiet.

I use a MS Remote Control (RC6) on all units throughout the house, and have StreamedMP on all systems for consistency. The GF uses without any problems - and this is a BIG bonus. I also use Powerscheduler ++ on all units so they can shut down on their own when not used and also fire up the Antec box using WOL when needed.


HTH,



M.

 

[Jay_UK]

Porky,

Sounds very similar to mine....

HPTC Living room
Antec case
Connected via SPDIF for audio, HDMI for picture
SSD for OS
3TB & 2TB for content
Gigabit connection
PS++

Client1
Zotac HD11
SSD
Homeplug
HDMI connection
MCE remote
PS++

J.

 

[SitheSly]

Thanks for the info guys,

I like the idea of this kind of set up better than my idea, as it would mean not having an always on networked pc. Not yet come across powerscheduler, but sounds very interesting.

Jay, i seem to remember reading somewhere that the HD11 can struggle with a 1080i input, what has been your experience? Don't think it will affect me to much as not sure i am going to use the TV server (...maybe later), i have Sky downstairs so really just looking for movies and music around the house on client pc's.

Cheers

Si

 

[porky996t]

@ Jay - "Sounds similar to mine" - I know, I copied your setup

@ Si - The Zotac ZBox ID11 is no longer made (I was told). I was looking to buy the ID11 and found that the ID41 had replaced it. The processor speed is slightly faster on the ID41 (1.8 instead of 1.6 GHz) in addition to having USB 3.0 sockets and faster RAM.

I was a bit wary of the Homeplugs but have found that they work great. I did a bandwidth test on a full HD recording streaming to the client and it used about 36Mbps max, - and was thus well within the speed quoted for the Homeplugs.

 

[sanjosanjo]

Porky,

Sounds very similar to mine....


Client1
Zotac HD11
SSD
Homeplug
HDMI connection
MCE remote
PS++

J.

I have an HD-ID11 with Seagate ST9250410AS 250GB drive and 2GB of RAM; I've been having the worst time with this. I can't install any OS (I've tried various versions of Windows and Linux). The Windows installer tells me I can't install on the drive. Can you tell me about your OS and whether you had any setup issues?

 

[porky996t]

Hi sanjosanjo

I had no problems at all.

I used a USB DVD drive and set the BIOS to boot from USB Drive first. The Win7 DVD was placed in the DVD Drive ready for booting and away it went at first boot installing the OS onto the blank SSD.

Do you have another HDD you can try?? Also check the settings for the HDD in the BIOS too.

Let us know how you get on.


Good luck.



M.

 

[sanjosanjo]

I'm using an eSATA DVD drive to perform the installation. I performed a format with the Seagate DiscWizard and I was able to get farther into the installation. But for some reason it goes haywire after the first reboot - it starts the installation all over again instead of continuing where it left off.
Did you have to install any special drivers to get your installation to work? Also, were you using a Windows 7 64bit?

 

[porky996t]

Ahh... I vaguely remember mine doing something like this on an install reboot and IIRC when it wanted to reboot during the install procedure I just unplugged the USB drive (or possibly just ejected the disc) to stop it installing from the beginning again. When it needed to read from the disc I think it popped a dialog box up saying 'unable to read disc' and I clicked "try again" after making the disc active again.

I'm using Win7 32 bit



HTH,



M.