I had done a quick write-up of the initial incarnation of my HTPC,
which was to have been based on linuxmce
back
in April 2007, and it can be found
here, which is my old Adelphia
website and may be gone
.
This page picks up from there
and quickly highlights and reviews the hardware and software.
Here a some pictures of the HTPC:
The following
is a quick little (audioless) divx video showing
the set-up and intergration into my system.
The
significant HTPC hardware, as it stands today consists of the
following:
BFG
8800 GT
nvidia video card with 512MB. I bought this because the Cyberlink
PowerDVD BD Solution software
stopped working in the presence of
the AnyDVD
software with the Sapphire
x1600 Pro HDMI
card, which was not recognized as being HDMI compliant and required the
AnyDVD workaround. This PDVD+AnyDVD issue occurred
sometime in October or November 2007 with an update of PDVD.
Lite-ON
LH-2B1S Blu-ray
drive. I just had to go high def, and decided on BD over
HD DVD because of the recording ability. I am not be-holden
to
BD, nor do I have anything against HD DVD. [As of January
'08, it
looks like Blu-ray will win the format war.
Blu-ray meets my need of having a high-capacity,
semi-permanent
backup and presentation option. Period. If you're
an HD DVD
supporter, good for you. Same goes for Blu-ray supporters.
Whether or not BD does win doesn't really
matter to me.....remember, I am a betaphile
and an Amiga
afficianado,
therefore am accustomed to losing the format/platform war:-)]
80 GB and 250GB internal
hard drives. eSATA-connected 750GB Free Agent drive.
All housed in an Ahanix
MCE-701 case with integrated 7"
touchscreen.
I use a Logitech
wireless kybd/mouse combo, a USB-UIRT,
and a Harmony
One remote--like the One Ring--to
bind "them" all together. ("All" meaning my EDV-9500 ED Beta
deck,
VSX-D9600S receiver, HLN-507W 50" DLP, S-VHS, etc.)
Some of the software which is installed on the HTPC:
AnyDVD
software is used to rip BD titles to the hard drive.
I
rip
only kids movies so that I can convert them to DivX files to be served
to the MediaMVP upstairs.
tsremux,
Quick
Media Converter,
and autoGK.
Currently
these are
the tools which allow me to convert ripped-DVD and BD titles to DivX
files on my HTPC. The tools on my office PC
are different.
Winamp
which is used to play
audio files on my stereo system.
The Winamp interface is displayed on the 7" LCD touchscreen
of
the Ahanix case, and this way I need not turn on the DLP.
Recent Changes
March
2008
In my quest to have limited channel access for the boys upstairs and
since separate EPGs cannot be used by gbpvr and the MediaMVP which it
serves, I looked around for other software to complement my gbpvr.
I tried SesamTV, Meedios, BeyondTV (best picture
in playback
of recorded TV!), and some other apps. I tried MediaPortal
0.2.3
in mid-March 2008. I decided that would be used on the HTPC
as
the front-end for my use, and gbpvr would be used by the kids with the
MediaMVP
upstairs. I also added
a Logitech
Harmony One on 27 March 2008.
November
2008
I added the D-Link
DSN-323 external
enclosure with two 1TB drives on which I store A/V files and backups of
miscellaneous things. In addition to saving DVD moving from
spousal and
child-induced abuse, I will have a lot of home videos converted to DiVX
HD, etc.) The
advantage of the DSN-323 is that sharing of files will be from a
low-power platform,
which is on 24/7. The disadvantage is that the above
mentioned
MediaMVP is not a UPnP
device.
February2009
I had removed the mediaportal software after a few weeks of use last
year,
because it (ver 0.2.3?) continued to lock-up my HTPC. With the
recent
release
of MediaPortal 1.0, I decided to give it another shot, and it has been
working well. I re-installed the Diamond PVR-560 Extreme
video
card into the HTPC. The Diamond is now used with gbpvr/MediaMVP
to record shows and serve them to the kid's TV in the family room.
And the PVR-500 tuners are used with MediaPortal soley on the
HTPC for my TV weekly recordings (Terminator: TSCC,
Heroes, Damages, and soon for the return of Rescue Me).
I
finally have the set-up I had hoped for over a year ago.....
Future "desirements":)
Also
a digital tuner
card in the HTPC will be "necessary", when I
either get digital cable or Direct-TV.
It's not what we know,
it's what we
do. And we know what to do!
Comments, broken links, questions, or concerns?
e-mail me at my kimnach.org
or at my roadrunner.com
address
