Removing the foot on the Standby brake (1 Viewer)

[viking1]

Hi folks,

I think I got it all working including recordings, getting rid of commercials, standby/restart etc. Very nice indeed.

Now the challange: The HTPC is in standby most of the time when not being used (reducing noise and power). My wife and I want to use the same PC as a file server for some common files (a calendar and other files being updated daily). We can both read and update by file sharing, this is all working in itself.

I can give my wife a tool to wake up the HTPC from her own PC by sending a "Magic Package". This also works fine and the delay is around 15 sec, which is OK. By doing so, I'm not forcing her to move from her own PC to the HTPC just to turn it on.

The issue is how we can keep the HTPC alive (avoiding a new standby) until we have finished our calendar work. Actually, it seems to be simple to keep the PC alive, but not so simple to "allow" it go go back to standby.

The TV, which acts as a screen to the HTPC is off. File sharing with some I/O's during a longer period is the only thing taking place at the HTPC. Some ideas could be:

1. Use VNC or semilar to remote control the HTPC. This is possible but not a nice solution. VNC is also terrible slow updating the screen when MP is running. (I dont shut down MP before a standby). The WAF is low here.
2. I can keep the HTPC alive by starting a process at restart which is in the list that hinders PowerScheduler to go into standby. If I could stop that process from my wife's PC it would also work. How to stop the process then ? Kill it from a remote PC ? Update a file that the process could test every 5 secs or so ?
3. I could perhaps let my wife start a program (by a dbl-click or by part of the initial "Magic Package" request) that starts a process at the HTPC (again Powerscheduler could be told to stay alive). Now, if she then could stop that process again, it would work. One example could be a FTP program that would start a process at the HTPC for each user or just for any user. I have not searched for this yet.
4. Microsoft utility PsExec seems perfect for all this, except that it seems to require both a userid and password. This is unacceptable unless I can define a User at the HTPC AND avoid having to click with a HTPC mouse for selecting a user at the welcome screen. I dont want to specify a user every time I start the HTPC. Perhaps there is a solution to this, but I do not know of it. PsExec would have been perfect.
5. ...

What else could I do ? The requirement is that my wife must be able to wake the HTPC, keep it awake until she has finished the work and then allow it to to into standby again within a reasonable time

I guess that other MP users may have semilar considerations, if they want to use the HTPC for other things than just MP. So please tell me: how do you do it ?

 

[vanderstok]

Sorry, no useful answer for now (so you can stop reading now... )

I had the same idea to use 1 PC for multiple purposes. I now have reached the conclusion that it may seem efficient, but it's just not working out: there seem to be too many conflicting requirements (watching hidef movies, recording TV, listening to music, playing games, browsing internet, sharing files, running security devices ... at the same time! )

I have now moved on an bought a NAS (quite cheap nowadays), put in mirrored disks and use it as file server. No difficulty in sharing flies. It also contains all my movies, music and pictures. Only recorded shows are on my home theater PC. When not using it, my htpc is in standby and the disks in the NAS are not spinning, so I still have low energy consumption. There are also some other interesting features in current NAS's: built-in torrent client, i-tunes server, backup features etc.

 

[viking1]

Thank you Vanderstok, for your comments.

I realize that you may very well be correct, - unfortunately in that case. I have not given up yet, but I may reach that point. It is a pitty, if the use of the HTPC in practice stops using the same HW for other stuff, like you said. It is also a waste of HW resources. You may start wondering if this is a result of the nature of a HTPC or a result of the functions in MP. Maybe users of MS MCE also limit the PC usage to HTPC stuff only. Does anyone have a feeling for this ?

As I read your comment, you have limited the HTPC usage even more, as you only store "Recorded shows" at it, you do not store music, pictures and films. I guess that you at least use the HTPC for playing music, pictures and films ? Otherwise, you have reduced the HTPC to a disk based TV recorder.

I will think a little of all this and probably try to implement one of my own ideas, and see how much it hurts . I can also just keep the HTPC running all the time and pay the price (noise and power bill). WAF dipping somewhat here.

I'm also thinking about the reason for me to use a HTPC. Downloading stuff (mainly videos, films and IPTV) from Youtube and the internet in general is high on the list. Unfortunately, Youtube and IPTV seems currently not to be high on the planned new features for MP.