Small barebone pc with Win+MP to connect to MP TV server (1 Viewer)

Nybbe67

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December 28, 2007
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Hi all

After I tried a month to have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Openelec and Mediaportal PVR plugin, connected to my livingroom MP server, I finaly give up to get it to work. It is full of digital blocks and a crappy picture quality and starting to try out a Gigabyte Brix GB-BXBT-2807 (with a SSD and 4GB ram) instead, with Windows 10 and MP and connect it to my MP server as a client.

Does the spec look allright for the purpose? SDTV and 720TV, MKV's and DVD's.

Best regards
Niklas
 

ravenrocks

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October 11, 2007
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Are you gonna decode 1080i, i.e swedish hdtv(Except for svt, which sends a progressive signal), then it seems a bit too weak. If not then you should be ok with the Raspberry.
Are you using Wifi or LAN?
These are the big questions for the client I would think.
 

Nybbe67

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December 28, 2007
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Yea, even decoding movies in 1080p, Swedish SVT1 and SVT2 (720p). It should be connected by wifi. The Rasperry didn't work, either its to weak or the wifi is to slow. I guess the Pi don't connect with AC speed.
I think now that its better to try with an Intel NUC DC3217IYE instead. Or?
 

HTPCSourcer

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    1080p is much less CPU-intensive than 1080i. While the former works, the latter can quickly lead to the CPU overheating, particularly in small NUC-type PC's whose cooling concept is sometimes inexistent. As a consequence the CPU wil throttle down and you will observe stuttering. In other words reasonable cooling is essential for TV if you want to decode 1080i channels.

    HD Live TV is unlikely to work flawlessly via Wifi. Contrary to video replay, playing Live TV is time-sensitive. If possible use a wired network for TV.

    With respect to hardware choices I am succesfuly using a Baytrail system myself, that decodes and plays 1080i without issues - after I've put a cooler underneath the case. Check out my sys specs: HTPC2. Price last year was approx 100€ (licensed Win10 included).
     

    Lehmden

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    Hi.
    SDTV and 720TV, MKV's and DVD's
    SDTV and DVD needs much more power than 720p HDTV, also you may not expect this. SDTV and DVD are normally interlaced material where the player (the Mini PC) need to recalculate every second line of the picture in real time. This needs a lot of power, much more than even Full HD (1080p) playback...
    Even a stock Raspberry Pi2 (I have one in my bedroom) w/o overclocking or additional heat-sink is able to play SDTV and DVD flawlessly. Same is for 720p and 1080p. As I don't have PayTV (FTA is 720p here in Germany where all decrypted channels are in 1080i) I haven't tested 1080i so far, but can imagine this will be too much for the Pi2. On the other hand, a much faster Pi3 should be able to play 1080i. If it's not working for you, most likely your network connection isn't fast enough so a faster client won't give you any benefit...
     

    Skywizard

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    I have just yesterday, put to work an ASUS VIVOmini connected to a 55" samsung TV. I am using 2 x dual Hauppauge USB Tuners and 1 Kaiser Baas USB Digital radio/TV stick.
    So far so good although I am not convinced that USB tuners are all that good for TV Tuners - I am happy to be corrected.

    I would like to use a RAMDISK for timeshifting. I have downloaded and installed one but what I would like to know is how to install it so that it will be automatically be created on a reboot or power up.

    Before I get flamed I have yet to do some more reading but it is not obvious on running the setup.
     

    Lehmden

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    Hi.
    As the author of the original howto I don't use it this way any longer as in meantime there is a much easier way to use IMDisk...
    I'm now using the IMDisk Toolkit downloaded from here:
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/imdisk-toolkit/

    It's very easy to set up and don't need any batch scripting at all. If you also want to have the Windows "Temp" folders on your RAM Disk you best create somewhere an empty directory and name it something like "Ram Disk" (name did not matter at all). In this new and empty folder you can create two folders named "Temp" and "Timeshift". Then start the "Ram Disk Configurator" from the IMDisk Toolkit. I only can provide screenshots in German but you may find the matching entries even if you don't read German at all, I'm sure...
    Zwischenablage-1.jpg

    First entry is the maximum size of your RAM disk. In the line below the check at "Allocate RAM dynamical" (or similar, in German it's "Speicher dynamisch belegen") is important. This way the RAM disk is at a very low size until the space really is needed... Then you set the drive letter and the file system (should be NTFS for sure). The line below is for creating the RAM Disk on windows startup (in German "Bei Windowsstart mitstarten"). And the last two lines are for TEMP handling. The mark is for creating the TEMP folder in the RAM Disk and the button is to change Windows environment variables to use the RAM Disk as Temp instead of C:\Windows\Temp and the other path used for this.

    Then go to the tab "Data" ("Daten" in German).
    Zwischenablage-2.jpg

    Here you have to select the previous created folder "RamDisk" containing the "Timeshift" folder. This way the "Timeshift" folder will be generated on every Windows Start and can be used for Timeshifting in MP.

    If you have a look at "Advanced" Tab ("Fortgeschritten" in German). Here you can set a volume name ("Laufwerksname") for your RAM Disk.
    Zwischenablage-3.jpg


    All other options you better not touch unless you really know what you are doing...

    Setting all TEMP folders to the RAM Disk has the advantage that TEMP is cleared on every restart. Normally TEMP folders are growing and growing until all available space on C: is occupied as most programs don't remove their garbage there. Aside this it lowers the write accesses on your SSD what may increase the lifetime of your SSD...
     

    Owlsroost

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