[GHM]

I'm about to jump in with both feet using a computer as the hub for my music, tv and internet surfing. Can some one expalin too me if I can use Direct TV with the TV tuner built into the computer? I want to listen to music and surf the net at the same time. Or channel surf while doing one of the others. I may be in over my head. I plan to put this stuff together next week. I also planned to watch dvds movies through this computer also.Thanks for any help.

[jqp]

Hmmm, you may be in for a rough ride with this goal.

See my post here

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=34382.0

Video and audio are taking more and more bandwidth these days for high definition. For example to broadcast HD takes 4x the bandwidth of SD (standard def).

So to do all the things you mention on one PC and over 1 network connection would be tough.

That is why internet radio = compressed
internet video = compressed
music (mp3)  = compressed

But you don't want compressed.

Now once the media is on the local hard drive that is a different issue.

Also even though the Dish doesn't come over the internet, the hard drive may get bogged down with data (I/O contention issues). This is why business servers have system to minimize I/O contention (SCSI,SAN, iSCSI, NAS)

But the way browsers are set up, you may impact performance just by "surfing the web". In the "old days" you couldn't burn a CD while doing ANYTHING ELSE or you would get a coaster. Still we need "Burn Proof".

SO these are all potential issues you may have to address. I would say get a few PCs, suited for groups of tasks that will not occur at the same time.

I do not have an HTPC or sqeezebox so I am not an expert on these setups, but a PC is a PC...

[GHM]

Thanks you for your in sight jqp. I will only be using the internet connection to surf with. And the other features using the other inputs of the PC. I've decided to go with a Media Center PC using

# Processor: Intel Viiv Technology with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6300
# Processor Speed: 1.86GHz
# Chipset: Intel G965 Express Chipset
# Processor Cache: L2 Cache = 2MB
# Bus Speed: 1066MHz Front Side Bus
# Memory: 2048MB PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM memory(2x1GB for ultimate performance) (expandable to 8GB)
# Hard Drive: 320GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive

I will only multi task maybe two programs at a time in most cases. Hopefully it won't bog down too bad. I talked to a technician at SYS about this with their MD systems. He said even with the processor speed I'll be using now..it should be over kill for my uses.

I plan to use the digital coax output to my Monarchy 48/96 DIP and from there too my DACs. Next week I plan to buy a 42 inch LCD to use as a monitor in my great room. I looked at the SBs even the Transporter which seems very nice. It came more down to getting the most for the money. I wanted another computer but also wanted a DVR or TIVO with capabilities of saving all my music to a HD. The Media Center PC seemed like the best bet to do this and gain extra user friendly abilities.

I'll test the setup hopefully by the middle of next week . I hope it all works out. I got to download some of these programs for recording DVDs to my HD. I love movies as much as music and want to create a library that's easily accessible.

Once again thanks..I may need your help again before the following week is over.

[satfrat]

I'm about to jump in with both feet using a computer as the hub for my music, tv and internet surfing. Can some one expalin too me if I can use Direct TV with the TV tuner built into the computer? I want to listen to music and surf the net at the same time. Or channel surf while doing one of the others. I may be in over my head. I plan to put this stuff together next week. I also planned to watch dvds movies through this computer also.Thanks for any help.

I'm a little late but I'd just like to add i'm doing all these thing with Windows XP 2005 Media Center Edition. It has an interactive program guide that can be tied into Direct TV for recording purposes, DVD movie storage, CD Library and much more. My HTPC is the heart of my home theater system with 2005 Media Center being a big part of it.

Robin

[GHM]

I'm about to jump in with both feet using a computer as the hub for my music, tv and internet surfing. Can some one expalin too me if I can use Direct TV with the TV tuner built into the computer? I want to listen to music and surf the net at the same time. Or channel surf while doing one of the others. I may be in over my head. I plan to put this stuff together next week. I also planned to watch dvds movies through this computer also.Thanks for any help.

I'm a little late but I'd just like to add i'm doing all these thing with Windows XP 2005 Media Center Edition. It has an interactive program guide that can be tied into Direct TV for recording purposes, DVD movie storage, CD Library and much more. My HTPC is the heart of my home theater system with 2005 Media Center being a big part of it.

Robin

Thanks for your comments Robin. I love the setup. I run everything through this system. I have cable, satellite, on air HD, and  DSL internet running as well in this system.  Having this at the touch of a few buttons is AWESOME!! I watch all my DVD movies through the setup as well. There's no going back now!

[ctviggen]

How does Windows Media Center Edition do with DVDs?  Can it copy them onto the hard drive?

[GHM]

How does Windows Media Center Edition do with DVDs?  Can it copy them onto the hard drive?

I haven't tried copying them with the WM. But I have copied DVDs to the HD no problem. From looking at the Media Player's on screen options. I should be able to copy dvds with the WM. I may need one of those code fixes to do it with copy right stuff, but I'm not sure.

[ctviggen]

That would be cool if it would copy DVDs to the hard drive.  The only bad thing is that you'd really start needing a ton of hard drives. 

[GHM]

That would be cool if it would copy DVDs to the hard drive.  The only bad thing is that you'd really start needing a ton of hard drives. 

Several music videos come already loaded on the Media Center..it is pretty cool! I see music giant planning to offer HiDef video downloads from their site. It works directly with the WM center.

[satfrat]

How does Windows Media Center Edition do with DVDs?  Can it copy them onto the hard drive?

Yep, no problem and as it is with the CD Library, movies are stored with DVD covers. I fell in love with 2005 Media Edition when I had CD album covers stored in the library. But then I upgraded Window Player 10 to 11 and that does the same thing plus it has an awesome search engine for digging out songs, aritsts, album titles from your library. Totally cool. But for movie storage, an exterior HD server is definitely needed. I have a 350G HD and I only have 20% storage left (CD library only). I think it's Sansui that just came out with a 1 Tb HD for $399. Too bad I only do Seagate but hopefully they won't be far behind.

Robin

[Porter]

BY FAR the best way to do this is using MythTV.  It uses a linux back end but the GUI is similar to a commercial PVR device.

Play music, rip music, watch TV, record TV, rip DVDs to disk, burn DVDs, play existing media, play emulated video games (SNES, anyone?), stream content to the web, etc etc.

www.mythtv.org
www.mysettopbox.tv

[satfrat]

BY FAR the best way to do this is using MythTV.  It uses a linux back end but the GUI is similar to a commercial PVR device.

Play music, rip music, watch TV, record TV, rip DVDs to disk, burn DVDs, play existing media, play emulated video games (SNES, anyone?), stream content to the web, etc etc.

www.mythtv.org
www.mysettopbox.tv

Sounds like  a myth to me.  Sorry, the devil made me do it, I couldn't resist.  Actually your site looks quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. 

Robin

[Porter]

 

I laughed.  Not my site though... just a cool open source project.

There is another one out there called Freevo that is simpler to set up but doesn't have quite the breadth of features.

[robert1325]

I have a modded xbox with xbox media center,  very functional.   Since I got my PJ It's collecting dust,  the picture quality wasn't good enough for the big screen.   The sound is quite musical and dynamic with a nice rich bass.