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Media Center/HDTV PCs: A Few Qs

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Dryden

Dryden

Sober as Sarkisian
Staff member
Tech Admin
About two weeks ago the TV tuner on my antique Sony floor model console TV went out, and being faced with either spending nearly $500 for a new tuner + picture tube for a 20-year old TV, or just buying new, I was forced to pitch the old Sony (*sniff sniff* I loved that TV ... they just don't make floor model TV's in solid oak cabinets anymore). I ended up buying a 46" TheaterWide Toshiba HD-ready RPTV, and have been very pleased.

Since I've got a boat load of PC parts laying around, I'm going to build a Media Center PC to drive my new Toshiba, and I'm wondering if anyone on the board has experience doing this?

I figure for about $300 + my existing on-hand hardware, I can merge the functions of a PVR, over-air HDTV tuner/receiver, DVD burner/duplicator, MP3 Jukebox and video game system.

I've got a P4-1.7Ghz ASUS motherboard/Intel CPU combo just returned from refurb (blown capacitors) with 1Gb of RAM to use. I'm going to buy an ATi Radeon AIW 9600XT w/ remote and an ATi HDTV Wonder daughtercard to run PIP/POP and TiVo-like PVR. I've already got WiFi LAN throughout my place for network connectivity, and I've got an unused SB Live! 5.1 card pulled from an older system for audio.

I've got two OS choices, and this is where I'm getting hung up ... should I use Windows Media Center 2005 (OEM/Developer copies from my MSDN subscription) or Linux with MythTV and FreeVo? Does anyone have any experience with either of these software packages?

The Windows Media Center software is polished, functional, and supported by ATi. The Linux software is ... well, Linux, so free, open source, and all that warm fuzzy stuff. The software choice is important to me because it means the difference between MS proprietary encoded MPEG2 or standards compatible MPEG2.

For all of you that burn your own video DVDs from broadcast TV, what applications packages/OSes do you use?

I'm not new to any of this, but I don't want to spend a week of my time going down a road that won't provide me near-seamless appliance results. I know my girlfriend will be POed if the PVR crashes while recording Sex In The City or Queer Eye. :biggrin: The last time I spent any significant amount of time with digital video editing was probably five years ago when I worked with Adobe Premiere 4.
 
ScarletInMyVeins said:
What the hell did you just say? I don't understand any of that jibberish but it sounds pretty cool. I have a 57'' widescreen HDTV... can you make mine a media center? whatever that is...
Click to expand...
LOL! A Media Center PC is like an all-in-one entertainment center for your TV.

This is the obvious worst case scenario, but imagine buying an HD-Ready TV (no HDTV tuner) and adding stereo/type components piece-mail to build your entertainment system ... you might wind up having:

1) a VCR
2) a DVD player
3) a TiVo or some other Personal Video Recorder (aka PVR)
4) a surround sound receiver
5) a PlayStation, X-Box, Nintendo, etc ...
6) an HDTV/DVR receiver or digital cable/satellite decoder

Image also the subscription fees! You will probably pay through the nose for digital cable, then pay even more for HDTV (which cleverly isn't presumed to be digital cable). You'll also pay the per month rental fee for your digital cable/HDTV tuner/dedecoder, and you can tack on a few more bones monthly for your choice of digital cable+PVR or subscribe to TiVo separately.

You've got $XXXX amount invested in incompatible games for your gaming system(s), at least a few hundred in a surround sound system and DVD player, which probably isn't even a recorder ... the list goes on.

The idea behind a Media Center PC is to do everything in one unit, which is functionally no different from any other modern PC aside from some extra software, a remote control, and a TV tuner. The benefit is that you can add/remove/customize your hard drive space to your budget to "TiVo" months worth of TV if you desire, and if it's recorded in standard MPEG2 format you can either burn it to your own DVDs (a 9Gb Dual-Layer DVD burner can be found for less than $50 online) or you can share the video over a network to other computers. You can store all your MP3s on your media center and stream those around the home, play games (it's still a PC, afterall), etc ... etc ...

Windows Media Center 2005, for example, is Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2, and an added program named "media center" which can burn DVDs, record TV shows, launch a program guide, browse your MP3 collection, manage photographs and display them, and is "dumbed" down to be useable with a basic RF remote control. You can still minimize or close the media center application and run plain-old Windows XP normally, play games, do your spreadsheets ... crap like that. Hell ... surf the Internet while watching TV in a window ... for all purposes, it's a PC with a 50" (or whatever) monitor.

The reasons to do it is it's cheap, flexible, and easier to manage (heck, any audio/video phile will save at least $200 on RCA-stereo audio, S-Video, Component Video, DVI/HDMI, and Optic cables by not having all that other crap), and with an HDTV over-air TV-tuner, you can watch HDTV for free with a simple amplified antenna that hides behind the TV on the floor.

See here, you can get ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX HDTV channels for free with a $20 Radio Shack antenna and HDTV over-air tuner:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

The downside to doing this is that it's still about as reliable as a PC, in fact maybe even less so since it has so many tasks it's required to manage. Hence my post, I'm wondering if anyone has done such a thing, or at least give me some DVD/TV-capture clues for when I record this upcoming college football season. Obviously, I want to find the most stable software I can, because I'll be livid if Media Center gives me the "Blue Screen of Death" in the middle of the OSU/Texas game come September.

See here for more info on Windows Media Center 2005:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.mspx
 
Upvote 0
I don't know what the hell you just said, still...

I just think it hilarious that the whole gist of the post was:

I had this:

About two weeks ago the TV tuner on my antique Sony floor model console TV went out
Click to expand...

And now I want this:

The idea behind a Media Center PC is to do everything in one unit, which is functionally no different from any other modern PC aside from some extra software, a remote control, and a TV tuner. The benefit is that you can add/remove/customize your hard drive space to your budget to "TiVo" months worth of TV if you desire, and if it's recorded in standard MPEG2 format you can either burn it to your own DVDs (a 9Gb Dual-Layer DVD burner can be found for less than $50 online) or you can share the video over a network to other computers. You can store all your MP3s on your media center and stream those around the home, play games (it's still a PC, afterall), etc ... etc ...

Windows Media Center 2005, for example, is Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2, and an added program named "media center" which can burn DVDs, record TV shows, launch a program guide, browse your MP3 collection, manage photographs and display them, and is "dumbed" down to be useable with a basic RF remote control. You can still minimize or close the media center application and run plain-old Windows XP normally, play games, do your spreadsheets ... crap like that. Hell ... surf the Internet while watching TV in a window ... for all purposes, it's a PC with a 50" (or whatever) monitor
Click to expand...

I mean... they both sound pretty cool to me... maybe you can get an amish guy to build a solid oak cabinet for your new media center.
 
Upvote 0
Dryden

I use a dell server, got it for $300, with an ATI All In Wonder, CD/DVD player, DVD recorder, Two internal 250GB drives and two 120GB external drives as a basic DVR or media center. I have a 2.8GHZ processor and 1024MB or RAM.

I use Win XP but the ATI came with other software to use as a media center. It has a remote. I am not a big TV fan, now that there is no college football, but I record programs for my wife and kids and burn them to DVD for them to watch. Video eats up hard drive space fast, make sure you have alot of GB's.

I watched the draft this weekend on my PC while doing some work and studying. I have Win Media Center myself, as you mentioned it is XP with the media extensions. I read the media extensions are all from one software company but cannot recall which one. If you have the latest win media center try it. You can't go wrong installing XP and adding what you need.That way if a program does not work the way you like you can uninstall it and try something new. That may be a little more difficult with the Media Center components.
 
Upvote 0
I use a dell server, got it for $300, with an ATI All In Wonder, CD/DVD player, DVD recorder, Two internal 250GB drives and two 120GB external drives as a basic DVR or media center. I have a 2.8GHZ processor and 1024MB or RAM.
Click to expand...

That bitch come with an Oak Cabinet or not?
 
Upvote 0
bucknola said:
I do not drink when I am in my deer stand.
It hurts to much when you fall out of the tree.

Those arrows are sharp!
Click to expand...

Well-- You know what they say... Alcohol and Bows don't mix.

Alcohol and Guns on the other hand. :wink2:
 
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