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PC Multimedia Centres - Discussion
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Hi All! 
As technology stampedes ahead at a seemingly ever increasing pace, I, like others, have taken the plunge and followed the PC route to make the most of what is on offer.
PCs have been a hobby of mine since the early 1990s, and the mind boggling range of graphics cards, sound cards, analogue and digital TV cards with PVR features, etc, that are now available at sensible prices make the PC an ideal and relatively cheap platform to satisfy the videophiles amongst us.
I won't bother posting my machine specs just yet. This new thread is just a tester to see if other like-minded people are out there on the DS forum and feel the need to discuss what they are doing.
I sincerely believe (and I'm probably wrong
) that systems like this ARE the future!
What do you think?
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
Note to Forum Moderators: If a similar thread exists elsewhere on DS, please point me there and delete this one. Thanks.
As technology stampedes ahead at a seemingly ever increasing pace, I, like others, have taken the plunge and followed the PC route to make the most of what is on offer.
PCs have been a hobby of mine since the early 1990s, and the mind boggling range of graphics cards, sound cards, analogue and digital TV cards with PVR features, etc, that are now available at sensible prices make the PC an ideal and relatively cheap platform to satisfy the videophiles amongst us.
I won't bother posting my machine specs just yet. This new thread is just a tester to see if other like-minded people are out there on the DS forum and feel the need to discuss what they are doing.
I sincerely believe (and I'm probably wrong
) that systems like this ARE the future!What do you think?
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
Note to Forum Moderators: If a similar thread exists elsewhere on DS, please point me there and delete this one. Thanks.
0
Comments
There are too many problems with using a PC as a media centre. Noise is a real problem. Whirring fans and HDDs are very intrusive. Using a laptop, or a micro ITX PC, solves this problem, but at the expense of flexibilty.
A PC takes a lot longer to boot than a TV or DVD player, so you need to leave it switched on all the time. More noise and wasted electricity.
PCs crash, home entertainment hardware is very reliable.
A PC generates a lot of RF noise, which messes up audio and video signals.
Most of these problems can be solved, either by careful design or system installation, but why bother? Sky+ is a far better PVR than anything available for the PC. An iPod connected to your audio system is easier than using winamp.
A central server locked away in a soundproof cupboard, and a thin client network media player in each room would work, but it's too expensive at present. I've tried, and given up.
I agree with you entirely on the problems front, but that was part of my thinking behind starting this thread in the first place.
The noise situation, be it mechanical or electrical, is entirely beatable at very little additional expense. It's just a matter of people sharing info on a thread like this regarding how they've gone about it.
The same goes for the crashing out and unreliable hardware argument. Certain operating system and hardware combinations simply don't work together no matter what Microsoft or the hardware manufacturers choose to tell us.
It's only by sharing knowledge in a thread like this one that us Inspector Gadget DIY types can avoid being ripped off and end up with the systems we truly want.
I'm hoping to attract some software guys to the thread as well to see if we can come up with a dedicated GUI (hopefully customisable) to make the systems easier to navigate.
I nearly gave up too. Apart from the GUI, I'm definitely there now as far as a quiet, reliable, high quality, single-user system goes.
Having played with other alternatives and not personally liked them (or found those to be less reliable than the PC approach), I'm back to the PC and loving it.
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
Simple facts are as mentioned above, noise, slow booting, crashes, wasteful electricity usage etc.
The plus points should mean that it is possible to have one box do the lot for all the home if setup that way.
There are always many people who will say that a Media PC offers upscaling for their HDTV and such and such, which it does, but it is not anywhere near as simple or reliable for the average person to just turn on and press record.
www.thegreenbutton.com
www.avforums.co.uk
www.avsforums.com
www.htpc.com
www.xpmce.com
As I see it the only solution that offers out of the box connectivity, live TV/PVR functionality and the client server model suggested in an earlier post is Windows Media Centre, with Media Centre Extenders or Xbox360s. I have MCE on a mini-ATX PC in my office, connected by long S-Video lead to the bedroom for HTPC viewing. I also have a modded Xbox with Windows Media Center Extender for Xbox and XBMCE in the lounge, with wired LAN connection to the PC. It works well.
My issues with this;
- its still at the hobby stage at the moment. MCE is fairly stable (note 'fairly') but is complex to operate for the average consumer.
- unless you have freeview, you cannot take a digital feed directly into the PC; you need a set-top box with an analogue feed which the PC re-encodes. The PQ is never going to be as good as a direct connection to the TV. This may get fixed when Microsoft brings out Vista; I'll believe it when I see it.
Despite these caveats, I've no regrets. The next challenge is to get the wife to use it!
regards,
Paul
The reason - the OS was £20 cheaper than Windows XP and I'll be throwing into it a Freeview tuner at some point in the near future and I prefer the MCE interface to that of any software you get with TV tuners.
Is it quiet? Not really any quieter than any other PC?
It is very flexible - I've got Office 2000 on it, user accounts locked down for the kids accessing the internet, it's a print and file server, kids can play games on it.
Would I build another one in a hifi style PC case for my entertainment centre? Probably not, unless I could build a fanless one that ran cool enough to stick in a cabinet. I'm tempted to go for a DVD recorder with hard-drive at the mo.
The one thing I forgot to do before installing it is set up suspend to ram mode (S3) in the bios, so that it runs fanless / no hdd etc when suspended. I don't think you can change this after you have installed windows.
absolutely - the new iMac really does look fantastic.
but the problem is they are still geared up for bedrooms/dorms really rather than liing rooms.
as you say, once they get front row into a mac mini type box, add in some airport av type device, and the ability to output it all to your tv, and we'll be laughing.
Iain
Well over the next few weeks i am hoping to get a 50" HDTV i really wanted a Mac mini to put my movies and itunes through the TV, but i might wait for front row and plug my iBook upto it for now
i think htpc are really good they are coming on a long way.
And i think some point soon more and more people will be turning to using them as i think it is only a matter of time before the software becomes more and more reliable and user friendly.
As stated in an earlier post hardware can be bought which runs more quietly than a standard Pc.
Near silent coolers and Silent PSU's all help to making a quiet pc.
Also now it is possible with long cables or Rf Technology and infrared Technology to locate the main pc unit in another room and still be able to use it in the living room eliminating having a big noisy box next to the tv.
Im currently using my quite old pc as a htpc at the moment in my bedroom and it works ok for me i like it because theres is only the need for one unit that does everything i need, music, photos, dvd, video, internet, digital tv, record tv, record 2programs at the same time, record onto dvd etc.
The software i currently use is opensource called Media Portal does the job for me.
More and more people i know are starting to get interested in this sort of thing so i think its only a matter of time before it takes off on a big scale.
Maverick
Talking specifically about Windows Media Center (tm) then my reaction is to run away from it. It's a closed environment and can only share content with itself (mainly). Of course, Microsoft wants MC-based PC's to be all over your house! But I'd like to be able to get any sort of machine, whether DVD/HDD, CD/HDD, MP3 jukebox.....plug it into my network and instantly talk to everything else.
Already there are devices such as streamers that require Windows-based server software to be installed on a PC - what's the point of that? If I buy a streamer, it's probably because I have some general file server on the network somewhere which has got .mp3 files on it. It could be a Windows machine, it could be Linux, it could be a Mac, it could be a standalone network hard disk, it could even be a CD player with HDD/jukebox, or a DVD/HDD or PVR with MP3 content on its disk, or a Playstation 3...
Basically, choosing anything that requires Windows is very limiting. Look at the closed Sky platform as an example! Not only is a PC-based solution more complicated as other people have mentioned, the monopoly that Microsoft have got on the operating system will cripple progress.
[1] Multi-Media Streaming on Demand - I have just made that up, as I predict that the technology will be used for more than just video in ways I cannot even imagine at the present.
@MacBurp
Hi. I know that this wasn't the best place to hang out for talk about PC Media Centre related stuff, but I thought that starting this thread here would give the wider audience that DS attracts the chance do join in and maybe find out what all the fuss is about.
Those links you gave are very useful thanks. I'll follow them up tonight. I'm still keen to see how much interest it attracts here though.
@Dino
Hi. Yes, flexibility was what attracted me to the whole idea in the first place. My machine gets used for all of the same functions as yours. It's nice to have the one box that replaces everything else hi-tech in my living room.
The room is now devoid of 21st century distractions if I feel like just chilling out. The PC lives inside my sofa (yes, you did read that right!), so the only items on show are the remote USB DVD drive and the wireless keyboard, mouse and gamepad. The last three can always be thrown in a nearby cupboard if I feel the need to hide them.
@ maverick2005
Hi. Add your uses for the machine to those mentioned by Dino and that really does help to explain the attraction of using this approach.
And yes. I do already have a near silent PSU and all other fans under thermal speed control from my Asus motherboard. The whole system is quieter than the cooling fan in my surround amplifier when idle, and only gets noticeably noisy when gaming.
With an AMD processor running at a notional 4.1GHz and a suitably overclocked and cooled ATI Radeon 9800Pro graphics card, it blows any games console currently available clean out of the water. The additional noise generated when gaming is a very small price to pay.
Glad to hear that the Mac Mini is making inroads too. I'm not biased towards or against any platform as long as it does what the end-user wants.
Thanks to all for contributing your thoughts. Keep 'em coming!
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
I agree entirely with you re the Windows Media Center (tm) Operating System. Ive not played with it myself, but from other forums that I visit (sorry DS) the impression seems to be that Microsoft want to tie you down to their way of doing things.
I'm still running Windows98SE which is, relatively speaking, a much more open platform. There's loads of third-party applications and drivers available free of charge to customise 98SE into pretty much whatever you want.
Most (but not quite all) modern software and hardware which claims to be 'XP only' is still perfectly happy to run under 98SE. In the case of the software at least, the publishers are being told by Microsoft not to mention support for the older OSes.
There's always Linux for the more adventurous user. Now that truly is an open platform. Anyone who can write in 'C' can write their own apps and drivers for pretty much any hardware.
What the dedicated PC Media Centre user really needs is for someone to start writing a Linux GUI in my humble opinion. Maybe with enough input from a group of guys like us, he could give Microsoft a real run for their money.
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
You can get satellite cards too, and for PQ, a PC feeding a projector/plasma screen via DVI with media scaled to the displays native resolution is the best PQ available to Joe consumer today for sensible money. No ifs, no buts - prove otherwise if you can.
ATI Radeon video cards can output RGB scart via home made/3rd party cables or component video via an easily available 3rd party or ATI cable.
The Apple Cinema display is the highest resolution display available on the consumer market, and can only be driven by a Mac/PC. No Home cinema kit can do it at full resolution.
99% of homes own a PC these days, add a freeview card, silent fan, and an acoustic insulated cases for about £150. Not bad all considering.
Thanks maverick2005!
I tracked down the 'Media Portal' software you were telling us about and it looks absolutely awesome.
For anyone else interested in taking a look, it can be found here :-
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
It's absolutely free and will run on any PC running WindowsXP with a processor speed of 1.4GHz or above and with 256MB or more of memory. A full list of supported graphics cards is also given.
Unfortunately, my system runs Windows98SE at the moment, so a major change will have to take place before I can use it.
This won't put me off though. I'll make a bootable DVD backup of my C drive as is so that a full restore to it's present state can be done easily in a matter of minutes if everything goes tits up.
Should be trying it out sometime in the next week or so, work permitting.
Thanks again. You're a diamond geezer!
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
It is also available on the Personal Computer World cd,october edition,along with a load of other free/opensource stuff. Very handy for if you're are still on dial up.