Hello dbone. Well I've listened to your suggestions and I've made it here. I guess I'm past the building an HTPC stage so I ought to fly from AVS Forum coop and spread my wings (figuratively) . I'll still keep an eye on that thread as well though.

I checked out your blog site too. I'm still delving into many of the other sites you highlighted for me and I'm gaining a better understanding of what is available to facilitate my "holy grail". What a mess to sort through. I'm always willing to do the research though if it's going to bring me what I need or save me money

I just wanted to drop in and say "hello" and thank you for your assistance thus far. I'll be back once I've spent some time researching the missing pieces to my ideal set up on the other sites you recommended. I just need to go through their forums to gather more answers....and most likely, more questions! I'll drag my fragmented thoughts back here and plead for help to put the puzzle together in a few days. Sound like fun???

By the way, I was convinced by another of your recommendations and I've purchased the diNovo Mini. Should be here tomorrow. I barely got that one approved by the wife! Also, I have the Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2250 if you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer. I must admit that I have it installed and set up but it's not working well for me at this point. It's on my priority list to get it functioning better though.

Hey Rhino - glad to see you joined. This is a great forum and there is a lot of information not just related to the MediaSmart Server.

With the TV Tuner cards right now I have had a mixed experience. The TV Tuner card that came with my gateway pc does not work, at least from what I can tell (the reason why I was asking about the HVR-2250 from Renethx). I think the problem though may be Vista related as I keep getting error messages about the receiver service not working... I have the HDHomerun but found out that since it is only a digital tuner I am not getting all the channels. For instance, it appears that ESPN, Disney, etc... are broadcast by my cable company in analog which the HDHR does not pick up. It is great that with the HDHR I can pick up the HD channels of my local networks (ABC, CBS, etc...) but part of the reason I got it was so I could record shows from the Disney channel for my son. An interesting thing I discovered, and this does relate to this thread, is that VMC does not pick up on subchannels, whereas the other MCS do.

Anyway, I am sure I could go on and on about things that work and too many things that don't!!!! I have said it before and will say it again, it should be easier then this!!!! Once again though, welcome to the forum. Definitely don't hesitate to participate in any of the threads or ask question to myself or other members, there really is a great wealth of information and knowledge here.

Oh yeah, slightly off topic, I am actually testing out a little app by Evil Penguin (real name) that converts video files to mkvs. I use Ripbot264 for the most part for my reencoding, but what is interesting about this program is that I have several box sets of tv shows. I can just drop the entire folder of the box set and the app will actually pull out each episode and encode individually, saves me a lot of time from having to pull out each episode manually.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Hey Scottc - check out the first ion based nettop/HTPC. Pretty slick looking if you ask me. Something like this which also gives you the choice of what MCS/UI you want to run would be pretty sweet. Expected price is around $300, right in the range of the HD200 and PCH. Curious to see how the PQ would compare against an HTPC with a discrete GPU

http://hothardware.com/News/First-NVIDI ... spireRevo/

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Good day dbone. I'm off work today with a pulled back muscle (excruciating) so I thought it might be a good idea to take advantage of the time and discuss possible software options that would enhance/optimize my HTPC experience. BTW my diNovo mini came today. Must play with!

I haven't completed my digging on other sites and forums yet. I'm currently reading lists of people's favorite VMC plug-ins. I thought I might attempt to tell my story of how I embarked on this journey and what I'm hoping the final product will enable me to do. Perhaps this information will be a useful description of my needs to help the experts on here prescribe the proper formula of settings, software, websites, etc. So here goes:

I was happy with the TV programming situation I had, but it did chap me a bit because of the monthly expense I was laying out for it. I have a 46" LCD, 5.1 surround sound, Panasonic DVD recorder with an 80GB hard drive, and a DirecTV package with the sports package added on and Setanta Sports added on. I also have an old Dell desktop and I recently bought an HP laptop and installed a wireless N network in my home. My wife and I do not watch a ton of TV. I spend more time doing research and reading articles on the computer then I do watching TV. My wife enjoys a few network shows and we both enjoy Discovery, History, TLC, and so on. Occasionally we watch TBS, TNT, FX, USA, Sci-Fi, Spike, G4 when there is a decent movie on (which is rare). I also like to watch FoxNews. I don't need MTV, LifeTime, HSN and the like. But my wife does like HGTV and DIYnetwork. Most important to me is being able to watch live English Premier League and Uefa Champions League matches (soccer ), hence the $30 a month extra outlay for this programming through DirecTV. On Friday nights and throughout the weekend we will sometimes rent DVDs and kick back to unwind. This is about the extent of our interest in programs on TV. I have recently been watching documentaries online and Youtube clips on my desktop.

So, about 2 or 3 months ago I opened a letter from DirecTV informing me that my rates were going up $3. Okay, 6 months prior to that I had received the same letter raising my monthly cost $3. I'd had enough of this vampiric (sic?) draining. I was trying to decide what to do because I just could no longer justify spending $90 a month for TV programming that we barely watched. I mean, it's the age old gripe - 200 stations and nothing is on. I only watch about 25 stations so I really don't need the rest and I don't want to pay for them. You're all familiar with this. Having recently become aware of the growing programming on the internet I had this epiphany - "I could get rid of DirecTV and watch all of the stations that interest me online. I could stream sporting events and download movies if I want too. But I don't want to sit at my desk watching programs. I want to lay on my sofa and watch from my HDTV. I wonder if I could connect a computer to my TV and render DirecTV unnecessary?!?". Okay so I'm a bit dim and most of you cottoned on to this concept a long time ago

So I proceeded to check online for websites for all of the broadcasters we watch and I found ESPN360 to stream SOME of the sports I require. Then I started combing the internet for other people who might be in the same situation as me and have discovered the answer. I was led, after much searching, to information regarding the HTPC. I honed my search on this topic and found an excellent website for building your own HTPC. I followed the instructions and pestered the forum and eventually I built an HTPC. I got it mostly set up and I am now at the point where I am trying to understand what it will take for me to get to that beautiful day when I can anxiously call DirecTV and tell them to #$@!&!%#%$.......... I mean, cancel my subscription.

Please bear in mind that I've only been at this for about 2 or 3 months, so my understanding and grasp of technical computer related aspects are limited, but growing! I am a willing learner but this is all very new to me and my desires surpass my abilities. Hence, my coming to this forum for guidance.

The vision I have for my final product is, to be able to turn on/off my TV (with the HTPC connected) with a remote, have a programming guide to select what I want to watch, ability to set up to record programs/sports, download shows/movies, watch DVDs (Blu-Ray now since my HTPC is equipped), and occasionally do some gaming. And I would like all of this to be at high quality resolution. I'd rather not have to type in web addresses and troll through different sites looking for something to watch. And I'd rather not have to open several windows or programs to accomplish this. I think we are content to just pop DVDs in and watch them, so no need to store movies on my hard drive. Maybe down the road. I think that covers it.

My HTPC has a 2.8 Ghz Intel E7400 processor, Radeon 4670 video card, 640 GB hard drive, Blu-Ray player and a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2250 TV tuner card. I have Vista Home Premium OS. I just joined NetFlix so I can download movies and TV episodes. My TV tuner card is not picking up my local OTA stations through my antenna as well as my HDTV does. So I need to get that sorted out.

I haven't settled on an interface yet. I am leaning towards VMC since it's free and installed already. But I need plug-ins, add-ons, apps, whatever they're called, to make this user-friendly and meet the WAF!!! I'd also like it to have some WOW factor if possible. But I need to understand which interface and other software enhancements would suit my situation best. Again, I'm still open to recommendations of other interfaces.

I have run across articles about some plug-ins that interest me like Secondrun.tv, ZeeVee, Hulu plug-in, Boxee plug-in, Netflix plug-in and various commercial skipping plug-ins. My confusion is, there are several plug-ins that work similarly, so which is going to accomplish what I'm looking for the best?

I'm also wondering if I should download a version of Flash Player for widescreen because some of the sites play programming in Flash which does not fill the screen of my HDTV. As I mentioned above, I need to improve my OTA signal capture and I'm looking for information on ways I can do that.

Phewww! Okay, I'm done. My sincere apologies for writing a book here. I've been accused of being verbose in the past Anyone who has read this far has enormous perseverance and I am extremely grateful.

With the information I have supplied, are there any recommendations anyone could provide?

I'm off to continue my research!

Nice find Damian. That sure is a sweet box. Powerful and nice form factor. Is it fanless? That other thing that would have made the box nearly perfect (but of course would raise cost) is an optical audio out and an IR in. Still a real good solution...especially if it's fanless or almost silent.

_________________
HP MSS EX490 with Intel E6300
4 GB RAM
7 TB Drive Storage

MediaSmartServer.net Wiki, it's loaded with helpful information about WHS and the HP MediaSmart Server.

Sorry to hear about the back muscle, possibly the worse muscle to pull aside from the neck. I am hobbling around a little, just started baseball practice this weekend and in trying to keep up with all the youngins overdid it a little!!!



Well, the good news is that many of the programs are free or have a trial period. The key now is to figure out if one App will do it all for you. Since you want live tv to be incorporated that knocks out the non PVR software (XBMC). Also, although I like the interface and the Wow factor of XBMC I find that it could require a lot of work to really get where you want it to be and could wear out the WAF very quick. MediaPortal is nice and has a lot of potential. It is a little intensive to get set up and is not really set up to be a whole house solution in my mind (i.e. lets say you have 3 HTPCs in your house, for each HTPC you need to do a complete setup as well as maintenance of MP, this for me defeats the purpose of having a server at the core of my house). So this leaves VMC and SageTV (I will explan my thoughts on Zinc and Boxee shortly and how they might be integrated).

SageTV - as I have mentioned before, I think SageTV is ahead of the pack as far as the "digital home" is concerned. You can install the SageTV Media Center software on your main HTPC and have this "serve" to their HD200 extenders throughout the house. From the HTPC or HD200s you will be able to pull up the EPG to view the tv lineup, schedule recordings, etc... The UI is a little outdated but there are enough little things you can do to get the Wow factor yet keep a high WAF. The one downfall is that online content is somewhat limited. Since you want to access tv content that you may not be able to get with OTA, a site like Hulu would be important to you. There was talk that SageTV would be getting Hulu integration, but I imagine those talks are in jeopardy given what Hulu has been doing to other content providers. You can still get Hulu on the HD200 though an app called Playon, but it is not free. Some of the other neat things about the SageTV/HD200 integration is that you can put a blu ray movie in your HTPC, and assuming the movie in unencrypted watch it on any tv that has the HD200 connected. Also, for any recorded shows, you can start watching on one HD200 and finish on another. I am currently in the process of testing out the comskip programs for SageTV so I can't report back yet on those. One thing to keep in mind, if you go the SageTV/HD200 route you are locked in to that ecosystem as the extenders only work with SageTV. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but worth mentioning. I would recommend you download the 21-day trial version of SageTV and test out. Take a look at my blog for the review on the HD200. The steps I outlined for setting up SageMC, AMIS, etc... you would follow exactly. This will give you a good idea of the feel and usability of SageTV

VMC - I have a love/hate relationship with VMC, but mostly this is due to I keep getting a Receiver Center error that I think is causing problems playing live tv. Otherwise, I think VMC has a much smoother feel then SageTV. I really like what is being done with some of the 3rd party apps as well. The one issue is that there seems to be mixed reviews on how well VMC extenders work. One way around this would be to have your HTPC set up with VMC, and as extenders get some of the new Ion platforms that I just posted on. Back to VMC though, installing MediaBrowser is a MUST if you want to get the wow factor for your videos and maintain a high WAF. There are a couple 3rd party apps that handle online content well. There is Secondrun.tv[\url]. The UI on this is very nice. However, this program is in the early stages and is prone to be very buggy. Also, there is no telling how ling until Hulu looks to pull the plug on this app. There is another app called [url=http://www.milliesoft.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=11]TunerFreeMCE that is similar to SecondRun, has additional content for the BBC, and appears to run with less bugs. Both of these app are worth testing out, and I think get you closer to "ditching direcTv". There is a popular comskip program called DVRMSToolbox that will assist in cutting out commercials, converting the recorded shows to mpeg, etc... One crappy thing is that it appears to get QAM channels (digital channels like the substations) you need to do a bunch of hacks. I think this is supposedly fixed in W7.

I mentioned earlier Zinc (known previously as Zviewer) and Boxee. These are stand alone apps and not plugins. Boxee is an offshoot of XBMC with a focus on online content. Since it is based off of XBMC though it does not have any PVR functionality. There were talks about Boxee creating their own STB, don't know how likely that is to happen. The other app, Zinc is I guess what I would call an "online content aggregator". It comes from the developers of the ZvBox which was a bust, but Zinc does seem like a move in the right direction. It has a real smooth interface, but once again no PVR functionality.

Hopefully I didn't ramble too much. I think the key would be to understand how you envision your setup at home. Do you want to have your HTPC as the hub where all serving, recording, etc... is done with extenders located throughout your house? If so right now I think the SageTV/HD200 is the best solution. However, if those Acer/Ion platorm pcs take off, I could see having VMC as the central hub with these Acers used as extenders.

Let me know if if you have any other questions or if I should expand on anything further. I am sure other folks here will chime in as well.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Good question, I am not sure if it is fanless. I don't know how closely the Acer box is to the referenced Ion System, but if you go to the linked article of the Ion system there is a heatsink fan and the reviewers did comment on the noise level being somewhat high. I guess the thinking is that all the audio will be carried out via HDMI and not the optical audio out. I would love to see an IR receiver built in to the unit, although getting a 3rd party IR receiver is not horrible. The way around this would be using the diNovo Mini which comes with a BT receiver. It would be neat, and I think Tex you commented, that the one issue you have with the HD200 is that customizing the UI is a PITA directly on the HD200. You could get a device like this Acer instead, load up SageTV on it and be able to modify the UI the same as if you were doing it on your desktop PC.

How long do you think before someone comes out with this type of platform that also has a built in slot blu ray player and card reader???

OK, I think I wore myself with all this excitement, couple hours left of work then time to grab a beer

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

I did my back playing tennis for the first time this year. Age is catching up with me. I should mail you some Ben-Gay patches - wife works for J&J and gets them cheap




Pardon the incorrect description. I read the following and thought they were considered plug-ins too:
http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3285&Itemid=232
http://www.zeevee.com/zinc/support/help




Not at all, please ramble on. I'm like a sponge I do eventually want my HTPC to be the hub and to be able to watch on TVs in other rooms, so I foresee myself getting an extender. Hopefully by then, VMC will have some extenders worth talking about. I did read your blog earlier today and noticed your positive impression on the Acer Nettop. I checked out SageTV and the HD200. They are both appealing. And I have read recommendations of Sage from various different sources. I guess, in my mind, I wasn't convinced that it was worth $80 over VMC which I already have. Maybe down the road I'll change my mind. But my poor wife, who always supports my decisions to try to save money, has indulged me nervously on this whole HTPC thing, I hesitate to add any more cost to the project until I have everything running acceptably and we're both happy. I've shelled out close to $1000 on this so far.




You asked for it....just kidding. I have stumbled upon a few pieces of software that I'd like to understand further or hear opinions about. If you have any knowledge about any of these, please expound:

Interfaces
MeediOS http://www.meedios.com/
Beyond TV http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/?utm_source=SnapStream&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=FireFly%2BPromo
MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/
Also, can you tell me if you believe GB-PVR has any advantages over VMC?

continued in next post

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Miscellaneous Software
Webguide http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/
MyMovies http://www.mymovies.dk/
MCEBrowser http://www.anpark.com/software.aspx
MyNetflix http://www.anpark.com/software.aspx better than VMCNetflix? http://myweb.cableone.net/eluttmann04/projects/vmcNetFlix/default.htm
MyTV http://mytv.senseitweb.com/
MCECustomizer http://www.mediacenterstuff.com/mcecustomizer.htm
Vista Codec Pack http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Vista_Codec_Package.htm
Vista Caller-ID http://www.vistacallerid.com/


Weather
HeatwaveVista, Vista4cast, MCEWeather, Extended4cast - do any of these stand out over the rest?


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Commercial Skip
You mentioned DVRMSToolbox. How does it compare to MCEBuddy http://mcebuddy.com/ and Lifextender http://www.lifextender.com/?


Online Content
Finally, is it preferable to have several software applications for this to cover all your bases or is it better to just go with one? If I should stick to one, do you have a favorite or one that you think would suit my situation best? Secondrun, Tunerfree MCE, Zinc, Boxee?


So for now, I plan to download Media Browser, play with the diNovo Mini and try to get my TV tuner card to pick up more OTA stations.

Cheers dbone. Your input is invaluable!

Perfect timing! I was just thinking today that I would start looking around to see if there was any news on this platform - thanks for saving me the time

This thing looks pretty sweet. Like Texas-Hansen, I have a couple questions, but so far so good! It's kind of funny, I was just showing a not too technical buddy the Media Browser interface and he was very impressed (nice WOW factor). I think it was the cover flow and fan art that got him.

I'm still a little ways away from making a purchase, so I hope this thing comes out soon enough to hear some comments before I decide on it or the Sage. The good news is, is that both are pretty nice.

_________________
---===[ Scott ]===---

I may give this a try eventually because it looks really cool but I'm still a big fan of the Sage HD200. For $200, you really can't beat it right now and it's absolutely silent...no fans and zero noise. It accomplishes what I want and does it really well so far. The Acer product would make things easier to change and future capabilities would be there and ready to go. As you note, I do find the UI via the HD200 somewhat cumbersome to change but once it's done it rarely needs to be changed. And, the SageMC interface is excellent. The fact that all this can be changed and customized is worth the effort. Although I don't really mind the technical nature of Sage and modifying it to get it so its UI is appealing and "modern", I remain of the opinion that Sage remains a little too technical for the average guy looking for plug in and go. It'll work for him but he won't get the most of it until Sage packages either SageMC or something similar to XBMC (and other imports) in the stock firmware. I think eventually the good folks over at Sage in conjunction with the volunteer developers of the imports will all come together to merge things together and make things work much easier together. The Sage HD200 really is good; in fact, I'm using it now to watch Bolt (again) with the kids.

_________________
HP MSS EX490 with Intel E6300
4 GB RAM
7 TB Drive Storage

MediaSmartServer.net Wiki, it's loaded with helpful information about WHS and the HP MediaSmart Server.

Interfaces
MeediOS http://www.meedios.com/ - I tried this but found it to be too much work to even get started up, it took me days just to get it to import my media properly... Once I had it up and running I found the UI to be sluggish
Beyond TV http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/?utm_source=SnapStream&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=FireFly%2BPromo - Never tried. I already had spent money on the SageTV software and wasn't willing to spend anymore since there are a lot of free programs out there
MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/ - I think MythTV is geared towards Linux and Mac users, so since I am a Windows user I never tested
Also, can you tell me if you believe GB-PVR has any advantages over VMC? - I found GB-PVR very simple to set up. It is mainly geared towards the PVR part, but I found it lacking in many of the other media areas (such as Wow factor, online content, media presentation), especially compared to VMC

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Just started using my diNovo Mini and I absolutely ADORE it! I can't believe how much this optimizes the control of my HTPC from my sofa. I was really tired of plugging my desktop keyboard into my HTPC to set up a program or change settings somewhere. I couldn't recommend the diNovo Mini any higher. 10 out of 10 - worth every penny!

I was skeptical of all of these interfaces compared to Sage and VMC but I always like to explore all of my options before I discount them. Thanks for the feedback!