Media Centre PC or Hard Disk Player/ PVR or... ?

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Media Centre PC or Hard Disk Player/ PVR or... ?

14 posts & 9 voices | Started 2 years ago by fubar | Latest reply from fubar

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fubar - Member

I'm a bit lost as what is possible at 'resonable' cost.

I like the idea of having a 'box' loaded most of my DVD's on and music. Was thinking of using a PC (perhaps Asus EEE Box) wired direct to living room TV via hdmi, but now thinking could buy a PVR (alongside sky) and load my dvd collection (as divx perhaps) via USB (or other)? I've used the Xbox360 to stream from my laptop but it feels a bit clunky (using xbox controller), plus my laptop isn't always on and I don't think Xbox is a great device to be sat on standby as well as a PC and only works because wired into router.

I currently have Sky+ with 'magic eye' in 3 other rooms (so we all have to watch same). Living room also has a 'normal' aeriel which receives freeview
digital (receiver in TV). No Sky movies or sport subscriptions. (I also have a spare sky box).

Can TV's now play content off a USB device direct (a usb hard drive perhaps) ?...Can some TV's stream direct from a media player / NAS drive ?

How about getting the content shared around the house / watching different stuff in different rooms...is it worthwhile or keep a different box loaded with all the stuff in each room.

Also want to get some speakers in the living room linked to 'box' / tv - not bothered for surround sound more for playing the music with a separate hi-fi.

Any pointers at what products I should be looking at...can I load a PVR with ripped DVD's and music from my PC....any particular models.

thanks

Posted 2 years ago #
NikNak7890 - Member

For me, it has to be the popcorn hour; cheesy name but an awesome piece of kit!

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/

Posted 2 years ago #
fubar - Member

popcorn looks serious piece of kit...it doesn't appear to offer the multiroom thing, or am I missing something. It would be good if they did a smaller 'receiver' which could stream from the main box and connect to another TV.

Posted 2 years ago #
starseven - Member

I use a software media player XBMC its loaded onto old xboxs(presently have five of em) and networked with homeplugs to a mac which has a couple of terrabytes of movie and tv show files on external drives.

A bit of a faff to set up, but now its running it works very well. Storing everything in one place is the way to go.

Posted 2 years ago #
fennerhorne - Member

I've got an Emprex (from Maplins) which is like an external HDD - so you can suit yourself as to how much storage you want to put in it - it's very easy to do - I installed an 80GB HDD - and it's got Media Codecs - Plays DVD files, avis, DivX etc., and connections - rgb, optical audio (I think) USB (I don't think there are any TVs with this facility built in as yet, so you'd need something like this to 'mediate' between the USB and the TV I think), plus I can 'stream' from the computer (or transfer files to the HDD) by ethernet connection (obviously computer 'on' for this), but there are WiFi boxes that do the same thing; you'd have to have a nosey around yourself but they're out there (at a price I'm sure). I've got mine connected to my surround sound system with standard audio connections. I think 'Streaming' is still in it's early stages - I can 'stream' a file I've already d/l; which I do with music, and films, but I don't think there's much at the moment where you can stream web content 'live' - it's the old 'agreeing a standards' problem I think, although I'm sure this will change. I'm surprised that there's been so little congruence(?)between computer and TV tbh; but I'm sure Apple will copy the existing technology and market it as 'iTV' or whatever (like mp3 players never existed before iPods,and smartphones never existed before iPhones, duh! I suppose once bitten (by Bill Gates) forever shy

Posted 2 years ago #
CountZero - Member

Well, there's AppleTV, that's been around for ages, or you can go one better and buy a Mac Mini, stack a couple of 500Gb or 1.5Tb h/drives and run everything through that. Like martin sez, various things like mp3 players and smartphones were around for a while, it's just Apple look at the stuff everyone else does, then vastly improves on it. In the case of Microsoft, that of course wouldn't be at all difficult, as everthing they've ever done has been a poor copy of what Apple developed. QDOS (Quick And Dirty Operating System), begat DOS (Dirty Operating System), neither of which had a GUI, until Apple developed theirs, whereopon MS made their poor copy, called Windows. They've always been second, and always will be, because they're not interested in creating software that's really easy for people to use, just making money. Thing is with a Mac Mini, you can set it up to use an iPhone as a remote as well.

Posted 2 years ago #
Ewan - Member

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap

Have a read of the above link - make sure you get the one with the dual core atom tho (230?)

Posted 2 years ago #
fisha - Member

spoken like a true apple fanboy ...

Posted 2 years ago #
vinnyeh - Member

Got a Western Digital Media Player here- basically a poor mans Popcorn Hour. Around £70 USB only, or £100 with networking and the ability to stream directly off your pc, internet etc. Plays 1080p content. Plays most media types including .mkv (HD) files, with a couple of exceptions.Mine is the cheaper version without networking - just plug in a portable hard drive with media on it.

Downsides are that the interface can be a wee bit slow to respond to the remote, and that it doesn't record.

Loads of reviews for it, just google it.

Posted 2 years ago #
fubar - Member

just found the Western Digital stuff here

Posted 2 years ago #
starseven - Member

Heres XBMC in action. XBMC is software only, you can run it on just about anything an old pc, mac or as the name suggests an xbox.
Old xbox's can be bought for 20 quid or so, you will need the remote as well though.

Posted 2 years ago #
fubar - Member

thanks...plenty to consider...just realised I have another option...ipod to tv using dock and cables...think I'll be trying a few options

Posted 2 years ago #
richmars - Member

I think you need to decide if you want a single box to record TV and store DVD's etc. If you do then you're looking at a media PC. I've looked recently and I couldn't find a single box that did what I wanted (TV tuner, record off air, networked, media store) but I may have missed something.
For the last 4 years I've been using a Windows Media PC which is very good. It's networked so I can record from TV onto it's hard drive and play back on a lap top anywhere in the house. It's just getting a bit slow now so can't cope with hi def, so I've just replaced it with a new motherboard, a single core Atom but with the Ion graphics chip, which can cope with all the hi def stuff. This is a small mini itx board, with no fans so the only noise is the hard drive, which is nothing.
I'm currently trying mythTV (which is free) which is a linux version of Windows Media Centre.
This is the motherboard.

Posted 2 years ago #
fubar - Member

I'm still wondering about freesat pvr boxes...if I dumped Sky and swapped to a freesat pvr box could I load it with (for example) divx files...(and can you then send the (same) output to different tv's around the house).

One (low cost) media pc with other devices is perhaps the way.

On the apple / ipod front...I'd have to encode at MP4 which wasn't my first choice (thinking divx)

Posted 2 years ago #

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