Ongoing New HTPC - Will these components work? (1 Viewer)

[Owlsroost]

i thought i'd go with basic because there's no mediacenter included and with premium, you'd have to disable it...

I run MP (with the EVR renderer) on Vista Home Basic - it works fine.....

I use it in 'Vista Standard' desktop mode which means you get 'desktop composition' enabled (but not the full 'Aero glass' effects - they only come with the more expensive versions). This means that you can have MP playing video in a window/fullscreen/foreground/background and it just works - no messing around with 'fullscreen exclusive' modes etc.

One thing which is missing in Home Basic is RDP, so you have to use 3rd party software if you need remote desktop access - I use TeamViewer 4.

Tony

 

[pridehaveit]

I have the Shuttle SG33G5M and i would not buy it again because the fans of the power supply are very loud.
Its not suitable for the living room.

 

[Frantid]

I agree with the slower processor and a standalone graphics card recommendation. I tried the integrated amd solution, but running Blue-ray or HD was not easy to ensure accelerated playback. I went ahead and purchased a graphics card and have no problems. I can run two monitors and still get accelerated playback. You really don't need a big cpu unless you're doing video compression. I'd recommend two hard drives 1 OS & 1 Media.

 

[Boiler]

I have the Shuttle SG33G5M and i would not buy it again because the fans of the power supply are very loud.
Its not suitable for the living room.

can't confirm this. i bought this a while ago and it's running very, very quietly. in fact, i can't hear a thing, i have to go really close to the case to hear the fan.
also, as recommeded, i went with a slower processor (dual core 3gh) and radeon hd4550. since all my files are stored on nas, i didn't need a bigger hd.

after some initial trouble with the hauppauge tv card, everything is running very smoothly now. 1080p mkv's play almost instantly over the gb-lan.

 

[cwhisperer]

i'm building a new htpc for exclusive use with mediaportal. the htpc only serves as client and database host, all files are on several NAS.

Shuttle Modell PC-SG33G5M

TV: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100

what do you guys think of this system? will it be good enough to stream hd material (1080p mkv)?
thanks for any opinions/advice

do you have a good experience with Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100? I'll use it under XP or do you know a better dvb-t card? thx

 

[elliottmc]

i'm building a new htpc for exclusive use with mediaportal. the htpc only serves as client and database host, all files are on several NAS.

Shuttle Modell PC-SG33G5M

TV: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100

what do you guys think of this system? will it be good enough to stream hd material (1080p mkv)?
thanks for any opinions/advice

do you have a good experience with Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100? I'll use it under XP or do you know a better dvb-t card? thx

The 1100 is a hybrid card, digital/analog. However, the analog side is software encoding, so won't work with mediaportal. If you need digital and analog, get the HVR-1300, which has hardware encoding for analog.

If you don't need analog at all, go for something like the Nova-t PCI or Nova-t-USB stick. Mind you, I'd go for dual digital, so you can watch/record more than one channel at a time, so go for the nova-t 500 PCI, or the nova-t USB diversity stick (I have one of each, and they work great).

Best wishes,

Mark

 

[Boiler]

AW: Re: New HTPC - Will these components work?

do you have a good experience with Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100? I'll use it under XP or do you know a better dvb-t card? thx

i had some trouble getting it to work, but this had something to do with the 'save folder' or something for recorded tv stuff.

however, channel switching was so slow that i decided to use my htpc without a tv card. i hardly watch live tv anyway, and if i do, i can use the tv itsself: it's faster and better quality

as for your question: i don't know if slow channel switching and low quality are a characteristic of this card or if it was because of my setup. in general, i'd say there are probably better cards which are easier to setup. hope this helps!