Partial HTPC donated to me, help me out!

[WiglyWorm]

I've been very interested in making an HTPC for a while now, but it's been on the back burner for some time. My brother in law recently donated me a P4 in an HTPC case.

I need an optical drive, a HD, and a couple other parts to get it running, so I have a few points that need addressed to help me make some decisions.

1)I will be getting an HD package within a couple of months and an HDTV (1080p) in a couple of weeks, so any solutions need to scale up to HD. Keep that in mind.

2) If possible, I would like to use it to record satellite TV (dish network). I do have a DVR through them, but I'd like to be able to permanently archive some of my recordings. Is there a capture card I can use to accept HDMI from the reciever box, record the stream, and hopefully output it on to my TV without studder/lag?

3) The current case I have doesn't have the most drive bays, I've been thinking about starting getting a RAIDed NAS box and mapping the drive in windows. Will this significantly hamper my recording/playback if I store my recordings on the NAS?

4) Is there a piece of software that can upconvert my DVDs in the same way that an upconverting DVD player will? I am considering Windows Vista's media center and a Linux solution such as MythTV, so a solution for either platform works.

Yes, I'm a newb at these things, so I appreciate any help.

[jokers_greg]

Sorry to be useless, but just adding that I am also interested in the answers to these questions. I'm going 1080p soon, and I might as well go the whole shibang. Got a PS3 ready, and maybe its time to pick up an HTPC/server combo.

[tgxiii]

I can only answer 3 and 4.

3) In short, playing your videos from an attached storage device won't hamper your playback. I do suggest keeping it wired, though, to ensure that there's plenty of bandwidth.

4) No need to worry about this. Your video card will perform the proper upconversion if your renderer is set to VMR or EVR. I'm not too familiar with players other than Media Player Classic or MediaPortal, so I can't comment on how to ensure VMR or EVR is being used on anything other than those two.

However, if your media player uses Overlay, you might need to use FFDShow's postprocessing filters. This can be complicated though, so cross your fingers and hope you don't have to deal with it.

[WiglyWorm]

3) In short, playing your videos from an attached storage device won't hamper your playback. I do suggest keeping it wired, though, to ensure that there's plenty of bandwidth.


Thanks for that. As an additional point, since this sounds like it will work, I plan on getting a very small "green" drive for the OS. Most of the so-called "green" drives are a fair amount slower. If this is the OS drive it will only effect load times for windows/etc., and not my playback from a NAS source, correct?


4) No need to worry about this. Your video card will perform the proper upconversion if your renderer is set to VMR or EVR. I'm not too familiar with players other than Media Player Classic or MediaPortal, so I can't comment on how to ensure VMR or EVR is being used on anything other than those two.

However, if your media player uses Overlay, you might need to use FFDShow's postprocessing filters. This can be complicated though, so cross your fingers and hope you don't have to deal with it.

Fantastic. I was hopeful it would be a built in solution, but I was afraid I was being overly optimistic.

[Twigglish]

If I remember correctly, someone who usually knows what they are talking about(on here) told me that using a Green drive that IS a little slower will really go unnoticed because you're really only serving videos.

[Jon]

If I remember correctly, someone who usually knows what they are talking about(on here) told me that using a Green drive that IS a little slower will really go unnoticed because you're really only serving videos.

It wasn't me, but playback from a green drive won't be any worse than what we be considered a 'high performance' drive. The only time it would really come into play would be serving up many high bitrate streams (very many and very high bitrate) simultaneously. BluRay bitrate max is 40Mbps, so that alone is only 5MBps for a HDD. Do the math. :) The 30-40MBps that most home Windows GigE networks achieve is likely to be a factor first.

Writing to the drives would pose a larger problem, but I wouldn't be recording HD programs to a networked NAS to begin with. Recording locally and then transferring to a NAS is OK, but not the prior. Many do it, but you introduce too much of a chance for video hiccups and corruption.

To answer #2 for the OP, the Hauppauge HD-PVR is probably the best (or only) 'tuner' that can record HD directly from a STB (via component connection). Landshark (Gary) has one and has a thread in here about it somewhere. It is not compatible with Windows Media Center.

[WiglyWorm]

4) No need to worry about this. Your video card will perform the proper upconversion if your renderer is set to VMR or EVR. I'm not too familiar with players other than Media Player Classic or MediaPortal, so I can't comment on how to ensure VMR or EVR is being used on anything other than those two.


Can someone go in to more detail on this? Is this something that needs to be supported by the software, or the hardware?

[tgxiii]

All modern video cards support it. As far as software, it will be easier to answer if I know which particular player you're using.

[SuperMiguel]

im not sure how it is now, ur tv will support 1080p and ur computer video card will as well.. But the only videos u can play in 1080p are blu-ray movies.. as far as i know

[WiglyWorm]

All modern video cards support it. As far as software, it will be easier to answer if I know which particular player you're using.


I'll answer your question with a question:


Do Vista Media Center and/or Myth TV allow you to specify your player, or does it use it's own (presumably Windows Media Player or VLC?).

If I can specify, I would likely play around with Windows Media Player, VLC, or Winamp before deciding.