Hello all
My mom is a poor old soul these days. She has a number of ailments that means she is more or less housebound. She lives on her own and so the telly is important to her.
We've bought her a PVR, but she just can't get the hang of operating it. So we want to buy/build a HTPC that me or my brother can operate remotely via Teamviewer or logmein.
So we'd like something smallish, a large remote control, two tuners. She already has a hd tv, so HMDI port would be good.
I've googled a fair bit and HTPCs don't seem to be popular any more, all the guides seem to be several years out of date, so if someone would be kind enough to give me a list of components, case, psu etc I'd be very grateful.
I did look at Mythtv, but it seems overkill for what we want so I'm guesing win7 would be a good choice for the OS?
Thanks for any help you can give.
HTPC's haven't really fallen out of fashion.
My setup is in my signature (Rig2), running XBMC, which can be operated by a web browser, mobile phone or Windows Media Centre remote.
I think there are plugins for TV Tuners, I don't think it does it out the box.
Thanks for that. I have your guide bookmarked and that was what gave me the idea. I was on the point of ordering one, but the lack of a remote control put me off. Also not sure about tv tuners in that box.
Thanks again
My box doesn't have TV Tuners, but you can add them with USB. Not quite sure how they would integrate into XBMC though.
I got a Windows MCE Remote for about £13 from China and it works really well.
I too can completely recommend a HTPC running XBMC. Like Soopha, I too have a Chinese MS MCE remote control that works great.
The only experience I have with TV tuners however is through MythTV and that is so much more complicated than XBMC.
If you're willing to mess around with Codecs-and-wot-not, I'd also suggest taking a look at MediaPortal. MediaPortal is purely Windows based and has TVTuner support built in. I was using MediaPortal for years but I was eventually won over by XBMC.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks for all the replys. I'm really tempted by soopahfly's box, but have never had any luck with USB TV Tuners. It seems obvious from the pictures, but can someone confirm that there are no free expansion slots please
Off to have a look at MediaPortal now.
Thanks again
No free expansion slots I'm afraid.
Quote from: soopahfly on August 28, 2011, 09:33:32 AM
No free expansion slots I'm afraid.
Thanks for the reply.
Love MediaPortal. Think were going to order one and take a chance with USB tuners.
Thanks for all the help
Let us know what it's like once you've got it setup with the tuners. It's something I've toyed with doing time and again but never get around to.
I have been using Mediaportal for a few years now its a good bit of kit I have dual PCI cards myself and it works flawlessly with them, from reading the Mediaportal forums the Hauppauge USB tuners work quite well.
I used a PCI tuner in mine via media portal, but actually used if more for client media portals as I don't get TV reception in other rooms...
You can set one computer as the server, and install a client on other computers and then have full TV control from other computers including pausing TV etc and at the same quality as on the host PC..
Sorry a bit off topic and not so relevant in this case but thought I'd share a cool feature ;)
UPDATE!!!!
(http://techreport.com/r.x/zotac-zbox-culv/pcie.jpg)
If you take the motherboard out, there's a second Mini PCI-E socket.
Thought I'd give you all an update with this.
Not bought the Zbox yet, as we unsure how easy it would be for mom to use and to remote from our end. So Using an old laptop of a decent spec, I put a fresh copy of Win 7 Professional on it and installed Mediaportal.
The laptop has always been problematic and now suffers from the "pluged in not charging" malarky. It's also running with the lid down and in an enclosed space.
The installation of Mediaportal was fine, but it or Win 7 couldn't find drivers for my Hauppauge USB tuner, but a manual install did the trick.
Then it was time to setup Mediaportal. Boy are there a lot of options to configure and they are not always where you expect them to be. Took me ages to work out where the setting for the EPG was.
Anyway, long story short. It's setup and running at moms house, with me logging in via logmein or remote desktop using the concurrent user hack. Moms watching ropey old Miss Marple films and is happy as larry. I even have VideoReDo TVSuite installed on the laptop to edit out the adverts and trailers for her.
Things still to do:
Buy the Zbox. The laptop is overheating and crashing. On a reboot, Mediaportal no longer see's the tv tuner. Reboot again and all is fine. Not sure if it's Win 7 or Mediaportal. Thing is; it looses all the scheduled recordings.
The remote control is not working fully. Thought I just had to tell Mediaportal is was a MCR and all would be well if using Win 7. Going to try Eventghost next.
Don't know how, but I need the telly to always be on HDMI2. Can't see an option in the settings anywhere to make it the default source on switch on.
As suggested I may try and use the laptop as a satalite in her bedroom, but I'd need a HDMI to scart lead if such a thing exists.
Mediaportal is really very good. We spent over £300 last year on a HD PVR. If I had known about Mediaportal then I'd never have bought the PVR
Here is what ended up with
Zotac Zbox (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004DUMMUE)
Hard Drive (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0031M9JCE)
Memory (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0031GELDM)
USB Tuner (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hauppauge-NOVA-TD-Diversity-digital-freview/dp/B000N4LYH6/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1319630319&sr=1-4)
And a cheap Emprex remote from ebay
Installed Mediaportal and For the Record to manage the recording side of things. For the Record is probably OTT for two tuners TBH, but I thought while I'm at it. And you never know when we might add a second cheap USB tuner.
So far touch wood, no problems with the tuner
There are lots of plugins available for Mediaportal that will let you watch iPlayer Youtube etc; Manage your music and TV and flims by downloading and tagging descriptions, stars etc
But the best thing from moms point of view is I take care of all the recording for her remotely. All she has to do is sit down and enjoy whatever is on and if she is having a bad day I can even start the film/ tv programme off for her, as long as I'm at my pc, but I have done it from my phone.
Thanks again for the advice
It sounds really good, good work, I might have to setup something similar for my parents next time I'm home, as they want to be able to watch iPlay and the likes!
This is a Good Installation Guide (http://www.4therecord.eu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1510), of course I didn't find it until too late.
It's well worth getting the unlock code he mentions for the SAF codecs. I expected to wait a while, but the reply was instant.