Media Centre Questions

Alex53

Alex53

Alex53

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I am planning on buying a barebones Shuttle cube and adding memory/cpu/hard disk from an older PC. I also want to add a TV card so I can record to hard disk. One of those that encodes as you record so that you dont need a ridiculous amount of hard disk space.

Now, I have a couple of questions you guys might be able to help with.

1. The integrated graphics of the barebones Shuttles dont have TV-out. It seems most odd, since thats such a likely requirement for someone buying them. And its not like I want to have to buy another graphics card just to add TV-out. Working on a budget here. Is there such a thing as VGA to Scart converters?

2. My TV set is a humble CRT 21" Sanyo. That means the characters of an OS like Windows are blurry. Since I will use it just as an interface to play movies and music, do you guys know what I can expect from Windows Media Centre in the way of display options to make a TV set like mine good enough. I mean, if my DVD player or the playstation can do it, I am sure there is software you can put in a PC.

Maybe a Linux flavour or set of packages aimed at this? I am willing to venture into Linux even though I havent really meddled with it since Redhat 7, and that was for text only webserver installations. The problem is would it support any remote controls for PC or the TV tuner/recorder card?

Grateful for your answers :)
 
A small update is point 2. is sorted. I found some really good programs to use for a media centre.

A free one is SesamTV. Pretty decent but the media library features are a bit buggy. Still it does the job.

I still need to somehow solve the VGA to Scart situation. I really cant waste the PCI slot on the shuttle case if I want to install a TV tuner/recorder card, and buying a PCI express graphics card when the thing has onboard graphics, just to get a TV out connection sounds like a bit of a waste.
 
Thanks for the link. I had stumbled upon it earlier too. It provides a home solution for it rather than a consumer product. I am hoping to find a product rather than a DIY solution, which even that page warms could break your TV, your card or both :(

Trust make a 'Presentation Viewer' but its old and I cant find a store that sells it anywhere.

Apparently the Shuttles also have accesories, but all the stores that stock Shuttles dont have the accesories, OCuk included unfortunaltely.
 
Your best bet for a TV out sadly is to buy a cheap PCIe card you should be able to pick something up for second hand for £20. Not much more than the price of a decent cable and might even give you some gaming options!

MCE 2005 works fine on older CRT's I've got mine running on a 28" widescreen via s-video looks pretty poor on the windows desktop but does a good enough job with the media centre interface and is'nt bad with videos etc.
 
Thanks for taking the trouble to answer.

I have ended up with a different solution in mind, which will be cheaper and hopefully less trouble.

Freecom Network Media Player (patched to move files across LAN)
Western Digital Caviar 500GB in the Media Player
Hauppauge TV Card, in my PC (networked and in the same room).

So if I want to record a TV program, I can just do it on my PC, then move it to the Media Player if I want to.

Turns out just over £200 and ready to work, with just a little extra cabling and thin trunking for my LAN to reach the TV and the TV coaxial cable to reach the PC.
 
I'd plump out for a proper HTPC, you will have problems with media streamers such as codecs, subs etc. A HTPC can be updated (software/codecs) as you need them.

As for S-Video out, just buy a videocard with S-Video on the backplate. Plugging into a CRT isn't a problem, just use a PC monitor whilst you set it up, then set the CRT as primary 720x576 32 bit, 60hz.
 
Have you thought about something like a Packard Bell Store & Play?

USB it to your PC and transfer your media across then hook it up to your TV.

I got the 320gb version off EBay for £55 and I'm well pleased with it. Even my technophobe Wife thinks it's money well spent. (but only after I loaded series 1, 2 & 3 of Greys Anatomy on it)
 
Well I have seen quite a few media players and theres a good range of them but I really want to avoid having to disconnect the player, take it to my PC and connect the usb cable each time I want to move files to it.

With the freecom network mediaplayer I can just leave it there and move the files across the LAN.

I considered a Shuttle PC as a full media centre instead but its over budget and really the main extra functionality it would have given me is recording to hard disk with a TV card. But then I thought I might aswell buy the Freecom media player + a TV card and stick the TV card in my current PC and record to the hard disk in that. Which is what I have done.

Saves me money and trouble. The only shortcoming of this solution is, as squiffy mentioned, if (when) new DIVX or other codecs come out and if Freecom dont update the firmware accordingly I will find myself painfully and time consumingly re-encoding video, while on a media centre PC you just install the codecs.

But by then I will have saved up enough cash to afford a full media centre PC rather than the budget one I was going to build now, and I will still have a decent external drive + portable media player I can take around, and a TV card in my PC I can move to the new media centre PC.
 
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