Early Christmas to myself

[the_ancient]

Well I just ordered my christmas presents to myself. Upgrading both my Home Computers.

Here is what I have now

HTPC
Thermaltake Mozart Case (existing)
ASUS m2A-VM Mother Board (new)
Crucial 2GB DDR2 533 Ram (new)
Athon X2 5600 Windsor (new)
hauppauge PVR 150 (existing)
AVermedia PCIe Card (new)
Vewsonic VX2235 22in LCD (new got it last week)

Desktop
Base is a Gateway 614G (existing)
ASUS m2A-VM Mother Board (new)
Crucial 4GB DDR2 533 Ram (new)
Athon X2 5600 Windsor (new)
XFX geForcce 8600GR Video Card (new)
(2) 19in Acer AL1916WAbd Monitors (new)
(1) 22in Acer AL2216WAbd Monitor (new)

I am also adding the Buffalo TeraStation 1TB NAS to my network....

Now I cant wait until it all get here.................

[Daniel_DBS]

Wow! That's quite a setup your going to have going on! What do you plan on doing with 1 TB of NAS? I have a 500GB NAS and its nowhere near full!

[Zacrifice]

What software are you using for the HTPC? I've been looking into this a lot lately but I really hate the idea of using windows media center but linux ones are really lacking where I want it.

I don't need nor want free to air recording and myth tv just doesn't work how I would like and LinuxMCE i've been unable to get stable at all on an old system that I'm playing around with..

[the_ancient]

Wow! That's quite a setup your going to have going on! What do you plan on doing with 1 TB of NAS? I have a 500GB NAS and its nowhere near full!

Southpark and Porn


I dont really know, but for $600 I could not pass it up...

[the_ancient]

What software are you using for the HTPC? I've been looking into this a lot lately but I really hate the idea of using windows media center but linux ones are really lacking where I want it.

I don't need nor want free to air recording and myth tv just doesn't work how I would like and LinuxMCE i've been unable to get stable at all on an old system that I'm playing around with..

I use Beyond TV from Snapstream Media...

I have tried alot of them, including Myth on a Linux Box. IMO BTV is the best out there right now.

It is not free but it is reasonably priced. Esp if you buy it WITH a card. One of the things I like about it, that I dont currently us but will be by this time next year, is the BTV Link Software, that allows you to have "workstations" that feed media from the main HTPC server

You can now even get a h264 encoder to reduce the file sizes of tv shows...

If you looking at building a HTPC I would look at BTV

[Zacrifice]

had a look at beyond tv (not in depth mind) however it's PVR software.
What I'm looking for really is a player of media, something that can play all the DVD's and CD's I've ripped too hard drive I'd also like to be able to control the software through a web browser, especially for music so that I don't have to turn on the TV, all the software I've looked at does all this other "stuff" and doesn't do the web control, or its highly unstable or its so poorly done that it makes it useless.

Right now I just connect the notebook up to the TV/Stereo which is getting a little painful.

If you know anything like that or anyone else does either linux or windows, I'd be very grateful to know about it

[the_ancient]

had a look at beyond tv (not in depth mind) however it's PVR software.
What I'm looking for really is a player of media, something that can play all the DVD's and CD's I've ripped too hard drive I'd also like to be able to control the software through a web browser, especially for music so that I don't have to turn on the TV, all the software I've looked at does all this other "stuff" and doesn't do the web control, or its highly unstable or its so poorly done that it makes it useless.

Right now I just connect the notebook up to the TV/Stereo which is getting a little painful.

If you know anything like that or anyone else does either linux or windows, I'd be very grateful to know about it

BTV does come with a separate Media Center, these were suppose to be integrated along time ago, there is a 50 page thread on that topic in the BTV forums, customers like myself are not happy that they have not taken the steps to Integrate the 2.

It already has a Web Interface, but I dont know if it will control what your wanting.

You might look at SageTV as well, it does not come default with a Web Interface but there is a user created plugin that adds the web interface

[RickWeb]

What software are you using for the HTPC? I've been looking into this a lot lately but I really hate the idea of using windows media center but linux ones are really lacking where I want it.

I don't need nor want free to air recording and myth tv just doesn't work how I would like and LinuxMCE i've been unable to get stable at all on an old system that I'm playing around with..

I know your all going to hate me but i using Vista on my media centre attacked to one 50" HD screen. Vista not that bad the control alright aswell i found some software and a pci card that allows me to plug my cable into my pc and watch that pretty cool.

I have tpo many computers.

[the_ancient]

I know your all going to hate me but i using Vista on my media centre attacked to one 50" HD screen. Vista not that bad the control alright aswell i found some software and a pci card that allows me to plug my cable into my pc and watch that pretty cool.

I have tpo many computers.

Native Windows HTPC Programs offer ok basic Functionality, but does not offer all of the advanced functionality that a few HTPC Program like BTV or SageTV offers.

It is like CRT vs LCD Monitors, or Dialup vs Broadband, You just dont know what your missing until you Upgrade

[RickWeb]

Native Windows HTPC Programs offer ok basic Functionality, but does not offer all of the advanced functionality that a few HTPC Program like BTV or SageTV offers.

It is like CRT vs LCD Monitors, or Dialup vs Broadband, You just dont know what your missing until you Upgrade

I mite have to give one of them ago lets see how it runs on vista

[Zacrifice]

heh, from what I've seen of windows media center it does almost everything I want, but the pain of windows and having to buy another copy (especially vista) is just a major turn off!

The Ancient is right though, you don't know what your missing until you give them a go, many of the linux and even windows HTPC software is far more powerful and capable then the windows version.

[Zacrifice]

Ancient, I'm having a look at sageTV now.. seems interesting and definitely worth investigating

[the_ancient]

Ancient, I'm having a look at sageTV now.. seems interesting and definitely worth investigating

Actually so am I, they have made some good improvments over the last version I saw. I may have to download the trail and see if I can get my FireFly remote to work with it

[the_ancient]

I know your all going to hate me but i using Vista on my media centre attacked to one 50" HD screen. Vista not that bad the control alright aswell i found some software and a pci card that allows me to plug my cable into my pc and watch that pretty cool.

I have tpo many computers.

I am going to hae to admit I was wrong on this one, I just upgraded my PC's to vista (I has basic vista on my new laptop) and the media Center in vista is VASTLY improved over xp MCE,

There are a few MINOR things that I dont like about it but for the most part it gets a A+ from me.

I started playing around it with because I could not get (and still cant) BTV to read from my Terrastation, So I was going to use VMC to watch a few movies I have on there, but after spending the last 1-2 days playing with it, I might stop using BTV altogether.

I just downloaded the SDK so maybe I can fix the minor things that I will mis from BTV (like only recording New shows, not reruns and smart skip, etc)

Just for Vin, Now I can watch all of my pron on the big screen

[Vin DSL]

You're fighting a lost cause, Ancient!

Give it up, bro...

You're pathetic, to a point, but...