Setting up my HTPC tomorrow for the first time....anything you would suggest? (1 Viewer)

chesh

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  • February 5, 2009
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    Ok, I'm finally making the leap. I've been reading all the different HTPC forums for the last couple of weeks and I decided on using MediaPortal. I've had a softmodded Xbox with XBMC for a couple years now and it's worked better then I can ever have hoped, but it's time to take the plunge into LiveTV and HD recordings. Anyway, as my title says, I'm setting up my first ever HTPC. I'll give ya the layout of my network first, then I'll ask the important questions. Anyway, here's the specs:

    I already have a "server" that's running WinXP Pro sharing out about 5TB of movies and TV shows from multiple hard drives. It's got a 2.4Ghz HT P4 proc, and 2GB of RAM. I have a Movies and a TV share on every drive. With XBMC I just did a multi-path for a single source so that all my TV and Movies would show up in a single share on it. I'd still like to be able to access all of this and my MP3's being shared by this computer also. Doesn't sound like a problem with MP.

    The HTPC: Some history on this computer first....I had thought my mainboard / CPU had gone out in the server PC after having a surge on the outlet. So, I built this one....wouldn't it figure after spending a couple hundred bucks on the SOB, the server PC started working again. So, this computer for the last 8 months + has been a glorified burning computer so that I wouldn't have to reset the "server" (With an uptime of 120 days now and counting) in order to burn a disk. Since this is the PC in question for all the HTPC stuff, I'm going to be a little bit more descriptive on it's specs.

    Pentium 4 Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2Ghz
    MSI P6N SLI Platinum Mainboard
    2GB G-Skill DDR2 800 RAM
    Leadtek PX8500 GT TDH 128-bit GDDR2 512mb RAM PCI-E 16x fanless video card (Dual DVI or Component out)
    APEVIA 500W Power Supply
    Samsung 20x +/- DVD-R/RW SATA
    1x 250GB Maxtor HD SATA 3.0gb
    2x 1TB WD HD SATA 3.0gb
    Thermaltake DH101 HTPC Case
    Hauppauge! HD-PVR 1212
    Windows XP Pro

    All the computers are connected via Gigabit switches or Wireless-N. The "server" is a gigabit connection, as well as the HTPC will be gigabit also. Pretty much just laptops are wireless-n. The TV is a 42" Vizio 1080P, and the surround sound unit is a Harmon/Kardon AVR147. The xbox has been connected to the TV via monster cable component out w/ the optical out for the audio. Also, using a Logitech Harmony Xbox360 remote for control of everything (muBWHAHAHAHAH)....You get the idea. I'm a techie nerd that loves playing with gadgets and my life gets really boring if I don't have some project that is challenging me.

    Ok, so that's the specs. I live in Washington in the states and my TV provider is Comcrap. This is what I'm hoping to do with the HTPC and please correct me if I'm wrong, can't do it, or suggestions to make my life that much easier: I'd like to stream all my media off of my "server", be able to play games (Steam, etc) on the HTPC on the TV, watch liveTV with the ability to pause and rewind it, play .rar sets (Ex .rar, .r01, etc) from my "server" for the archived stuff, possibly use my xbox360 / xbox as a media center extender, change channels with the IRBlaster that came with the HD-PVR or firewire, weather / news available on demand, and anything else you could think of I'm forgetting here.

    I've been researching the HD-PVR and from what I can tell, I'll have to install gary's patched version of the SVN in order to have support for it. I found the thread that has the Adobe Air version of the Hulu player and I plan on using MyShortcut to install that into the menu. I've found MyShortcut, so I should be able to do shortcuts for my games. I found Rar-Mount 2, and I'm pretty sure that will work for my playing from within .rar files. I'll try out a couple of skins and see how I like them.

    Now, before I dive head in, does anyone have any suggestions for me? One thing that I haven't researched much (read, not at all in Windows) is how to change the channels on the STB with firewire. I've installed MythTV onto a laptop before and done it via that, but I've never tried in Windows. As for the gaming portion of the menus, is that something you have to hack in, or do certain skins make that available, or is there a plugin? Speaking of plugins, what are the need-to-haves, the should-haves, and I'm guessing everything that isn't listed is a don't bother unless you find a need for it. Is there anything I'm forgetting???

    Anyway, to all those that come by this and read it, :D . To those that got suggestions or have similar setups (HD-PVR and Comcrap), :D to you too! I'm looking forward to being a part of this community and helping it grow wherever I can.

    P.S. Should I install just MediaPortal or both MediaPortal and the TVServer. What is the TV Server really for? (The wiki is kinda confusing on that part.) Is DVI or component out better? Since the HTPC will be handling the recordings and the majority of the playback (due to it being hooked up to the main TV in the house) will I need to upgrade anything (RAM, CPU, GFX Card)? Thank you again for reading this!
     

    dcwp

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  • October 9, 2006
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    Wow, that looks like a sweet setup! Your hardware is far beyond what you will need, so you should have a very smooth MP experience. I don't use a set top box or do much gaming, but I can offer a few bits of advice.

    First, expect to spend quite a bit of time getting things right. It sounds like you are used to that, but you won't likely get everything right in the first day, week, or maybe even month. I've been using MP for a couple of years now and I'm still figuring some things out.

    Following that, you are well advised to do a simple install without any plugins or skins and test everything before moving on. That way you can keep track of what has been changed. It is an unfortunate reality that some plugins don't play nice together and can have negative effects on unexpected parts of the system. I always start with a clean install, then add the plugins in order of importance to be sure any problems can be isolated and eliminated quickly.

    Here are a few points from your post:
    TV Server - you will need TV Server if you want to stream live TV to clients. It is included by default in the final release of MP 1.0.0.0 so no need to hunt down something special. After you have done the install, you should configure MP through the MPconfig.exe utility, then don't forget to also configure TVServer, which has its own utility. For QAM tuning, this will take quite a while. After that, install MP on your clients and just configure MP. No need for fiddling with the TV server config on a machine that doesn't have tuner cards. Also, not that in the US with Comcast, you need to choose the correct kind of QAM to scan for. I use "QAM Standard" as the default choice finds nothing on my Comcast cable.

    You may want to assign the timeshifting and tv recording folders to a separate HDD from your system disk. Your machine is probably fast enough, but I experienced I/O problems and stuttering when I had all of that assigned to folders on C:.

    Be sure you've got all the necessary codecs. If you search codecs in the wiki and forum, you'll find some nice lists of what works/doesn't work in MP.

    As for useful plugins, here is a list of absolute must-haves:
    MPTVSeries: It will group all of your TV shows into a single database regardless of their physical location, no need to search through different directories like you were talking about. If your series are well-named, this will make a very nice graphical interface with banners, screenshots, episode info, etc. This is by far the most-used plugin in my house.

    Moving Pictures: This one does a very similar thing for your movies. It compiles them into a single database with posters, fanart, imdb info, etc. Depending on how your movie files are named, you may have to spend a little time ironing this one out, but it is *well* worth the trouble.

    Music: There is a very nice option in the music configuration to scan your shares and create a single database, again so you can browse music without worrying about physical location. But it does take a long time. I have around 32,000 audio files and it takes a good 30-40 minutes to do a fresh scan on my whole library.
    Audioscrobbler/Last.fm: You may or may not be interested in last.fm support, but one of these plugins (I think the last.fm one) has a coverart download utility. If you run it after scanning your music lib, it will pull down artist and album art for all of your music, making your music browsing a graphical experience. Very nice indeed.

    Multishortcut: It sounds like you will want the multishortcut extension. This allows you to place buttons in the home menu (or plugins menu) to handle any external applications. So if you wanted to launch a game, external viewer, calculator, etc from within MP, this allows you to do that.

    There will be much much more to figure out as you go, but based on what you describe here, this should get you started. Good luck and keep us posted!
     

    chesh

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  • February 5, 2009
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    Spokane, WA
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    Thanks for all the info!!!! I just got done putting everything in the DH101 case. Can't wait to get off work and take it all home and play with it. I'll be posting pics as soon as I get everything cable tied, etc! :D
     

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