requrement for tv client? (1 Viewer)

[Tobbis]

Hi I am building a htpc with a TV card. The HTPC will be in my living room downstairs and I am now thinking of building a smaller version htpc for the TV in the upper living room.
If I install the tv server version on the htpc downstairs and the client on the one upstairs, will the requirement be the same on the client as on the server?

I have the same question concerning watching movies on the client. will the medial portal server do all the heavy stuff concerning decoding encoding of the moview and just stream it to the client or do I have to have a descent videocard and processor in order to see movies on the client?

wrong header... now changed

 

[mm1352000]

Hi Tobbis

The "MediaPortal Server" is only a TV Server. It enables you to share the TV card in the HTPC in the lower living room with the HTPC in the upper living room. The video and audio is not decoded on the server. The way it works is that the TV signals are demodulated by the tuner and then the resulting transport stream (containing h.264/mpeg 2 video, AC3/AAC audio etc.) is passed (either through streaming or timeshift files) to the client/s. The clients then have to decode the transport stream. Hopefully that makes sense...

When it comes to movies and music it is much the same except that the TV Server is not involved at all. The client can connect to shares and shared folders on other computers on your network. Each client must be able to decode the video and/or audio on the client. Of course the files can be hosted on the same computer as the TV Server (in this case, the HTPC downstairs). The client upstairs would connect to the TV Server on the HTPC downstairs to get TV, and the shares and/or shared folders to get movies and music.

So the short answer is you need a decent video card and/or CPU on each client.

 

[Tobbis]

Thx, maybe I hoped that I it would just be to stream the video and sound.

It feels that there should exist better solutions if you would like to have a server that has all the connections to internet, a good media server, large harddrives etc and then just smaller clients connected to the TV or the receiver for music.

Maybe I should just buy another smaller htpc for my other living room, for example:

Produktlista - minstingen htpc4

 

[mm1352000]

I know what you mean, however at the end of the day it is the client that is displaying the video/TV, so it is the client that usually has to decode it...

That is a nice set of parts, however I'm not sure if the built-in ION video would be able to handle HD, in particular 1080i. You will have to get advice from other people about that.

 

[Tobbis]

I have checked some reviews and read what people say about it and everyone seems to agrees that the motherboard is enough to handle 1080.

This was my first choice for a HTPC but then I changed my mind and built a larger one with i3 processor and a larger chassi. Maybe I use the larger one that has room for two harddrives as my combined NAS, HTPC with tv card and then the smaller one as a htpc in my other room.