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Yep. This is what I have set up. I scrounged an old clunker of a machine to run MP, added a Hauppauge 150 card and a cheap vid card with a decent composite video out. I have Music and videos residing on my main (larger hd's) machine. The two machines are networked. On the MP machine I set up mapped network drives, made the user names and passwords match, added these shared drives to MP as the primary sources for the various media and bingo... robert's your mother's brother. I use a local drive for TV recording / Hauppauge because I think the timeshifting recording needs quicker access than is available over the network. hmmm.. or maybe I just had the share set to read only now that I think about it...

With regard to multiple machines, I use only one. I send the composite vid to an RF modulator (a little black box that converts from composite to coax out on channel 3 or 4, if you don't know) and a cable splitter that goes to the two tv's in the house. Use a Snapstream Firefly RF remote.

Obviously, this sends the same thing to all TV's, but that's fine by me. I had to use a split off of the soundcard out and a long extension cable to run to my ent centre amp as the demodulation via the TV and a VCR downstairs made for some truly horrible audio.

The only real hassle I've had with MP so far derives from the scrounged computer being a piece of crap. Dual P2 600 processors - below min specs. But MP does actually run quite well. Which is more than I can say for Microsoft media centre (the xp license is MCE). Ran that set up to help calibrate my TV displays and gave TV watching a try for a laugh... saw about 3 seconds of a show before the entire thing locked up /beer to Frodo or whoever takes the time to write code as efficient as possible instead of taking the M$oft approach of just overpowering with hardware.

Anyway, thats way more rambly than I origianlly intended but hopefully there's some helpful bits in there for folks.

<blockquote data-quote="diablomadman" data-source="post: 23952" data-attributes="member: 13384">Yep.&nbsp; This is what I have set up.&nbsp; I scrounged an old clunker of a machine to run MP, added a Hauppauge 150 card and a cheap vid card with a decent composite video out.&nbsp; I have Music and videos residing on my main (larger hd's) machine.&nbsp; The two machines are networked.&nbsp; On the MP machine I set up mapped network drives, made the user names and passwords match, added these shared drives to MP as the primary sources for the various media and bingo... robert's your mother's brother.&nbsp; I use a local drive for TV recording / Hauppauge because I think the timeshifting recording needs quicker access than is available over the network.&nbsp; hmmm.. or maybe I just had the share set to read only now that I think about it... With regard to multiple machines, I use only one.&nbsp; I send the composite vid to an RF modulator (a little black box that converts from composite to coax out on channel 3 or 4, if you don't know) and a cable splitter that goes to the two tv's in the house.&nbsp; Use a Snapstream Firefly RF remote.&nbsp; Obviously, this sends the same thing to all TV's, but that's fine by me.&nbsp; I had to use a split off of the soundcard out and a long extension cable to run to my ent centre amp as the demodulation via the TV and a VCR downstairs made for some truly horrible audio.&nbsp; The only real hassle I've had with MP so far derives from the scrounged computer being a piece of crap.&nbsp; Dual P2 600 processors - below min specs.&nbsp; But MP does actually run quite well.&nbsp; Which is more than I can say for Microsoft media centre (the xp license is MCE).&nbsp; Ran that set up to help calibrate my TV displays and gave TV watching a try for a laugh... saw about 3 seconds of a show before the entire thing locked up <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp; /beer to Frodo or whoever takes the time to write code as efficient as possible instead of taking the M$oft approach of just overpowering with hardware.Anyway, thats way more rambly than I origianlly intended but hopefully there's some helpful bits in there for folks.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="diablomadman, post: 23952, member: 13384"] Yep. This is what I have set up. I scrounged an old clunker of a machine to run MP, added a Hauppauge 150 card and a cheap vid card with a decent composite video out. I have Music and videos residing on my main (larger hd's) machine. The two machines are networked. On the MP machine I set up mapped network drives, made the user names and passwords match, added these shared drives to MP as the primary sources for the various media and bingo... robert's your mother's brother. I use a local drive for TV recording / Hauppauge because I think the timeshifting recording needs quicker access than is available over the network. hmmm.. or maybe I just had the share set to read only now that I think about it... With regard to multiple machines, I use only one. I send the composite vid to an RF modulator (a little black box that converts from composite to coax out on channel 3 or 4, if you don't know) and a cable splitter that goes to the two tv's in the house. Use a Snapstream Firefly RF remote. Obviously, this sends the same thing to all TV's, but that's fine by me. I had to use a split off of the soundcard out and a long extension cable to run to my ent centre amp as the demodulation via the TV and a VCR downstairs made for some truly horrible audio. The only real hassle I've had with MP so far derives from the scrounged computer being a piece of crap. Dual P2 600 processors - below min specs. But MP does actually run quite well. Which is more than I can say for Microsoft media centre (the xp license is MCE). Ran that set up to help calibrate my TV displays and gave TV watching a try for a laugh... saw about 3 seconds of a show before the entire thing locked up :) /beer to Frodo or whoever takes the time to write code as efficient as possible instead of taking the M$oft approach of just overpowering with hardware. Anyway, thats way more rambly than I origianlly intended but hopefully there's some helpful bits in there for folks. [/QUOTE]