Recommended Setup

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Recommended Setup

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

29 posts

Geek

#138977 18-Jun-2008 15:30

Yes Im using 32bit Vista.
Im looking at incorporating this into Media Centre, or atleast making it appear to be apart of it by doing a bit of tweaking and having it launch DVB viewer. I can explain this more indepth if you like. Im hopeing to have a clean and simple interface for all TV, Music, Video Etc. While using the harmony remote to make it simple as. By the looks of thing this can be done for media center. I haven't looked at media portal as I quite like media center.

kiwijunglist

2983 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 135

ID Verified

#138986 18-Jun-2008 16:10

From what i have read (please correct me if i am wrong) vista mediacentre doesn't work with freeview nz. (not yet anyway)

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

kiwijunglist

2983 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 135

ID Verified

#138987 18-Jun-2008 16:14

Media Portal Videos (FYI)

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/showcase.html

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

pmt82

29 posts

Geek

#138998 18-Jun-2008 16:46

Yes I read that in another post here. Suposidly it is coming but not yet. There was a way around it to by setting up a new menu item and having it launch DVB viewer full screen. When closing it would re-launch media center and appear as if it was fully integrated.

Looking at purchasing this: TV Duo Hybrid... anyone tried it yet?
http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Id=20

pmt82

29 posts

Geek

#140442 25-Jun-2008 13:42

Yesterday got the Aver tv Hybrid Duo DVB-T tuner for $180. (and the Logitech 525 remote)
Comes with the software to get freeview working straight out of the box, no need to buy codecs, powerdvd or dvb viewer. The EPG also works, haven't customized anything and it worked first time.

I am however having one issue witch I think is to do with my HD3200 (AMD 780G) not being grunty enough to handle it. It stutters on channel 100 (freeview HD test channel) and TV3 sometimes pauses on screen. Otherwise everything is working great and looking awesome. Just need to iron out thoose little kinks when I get a chance.

Anyone else got issues with the HD3200 and freeview HD? CPU load on my BE 2350 is never over 80%
I overclocked the 3200 from 500mhz to 750mhz for a quick test but don't think it did anything. I only had an hour to play around with it so hopefully get something sorted this weekend. Will try new 8.6 Catalyst drivers tonight,

On a side note will any of the new HD4000 ATI cards do Hybrid with the 3200? I know the 3450 will but im hopeing that something similar with the added 8 channel LPCM audio over HDMI will be released. This with a Blu ray drive, will complete my HTPC in everyway.

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#140482 25-Jun-2008 15:53

Bad news for you, I'm afraid...

I was in the same situation a month ago and after much research the only solution prooved to be a graphic card from nVidia. Just read the forums, everybody with this mobo talks about motion blurr and fuzzy image especially on TV3. I got the mobo due to very good reviews of the integrated graphic chip and HDMI connection. But there are all sort of problems, including the one you mentioned.

Now I have 8600GT silent, motion blurr is gone. The cpu load dropped from 50-60% on TV3 to under 20% due to hardware acceleration, which I understand you cannot get with the 780G chip. Why? I don't know... something to do with the ATI being incapable to process interlaced signal... we all hope a future driver will fix this. Until then, nVidia fills the PCI-E slot on many mobos like you and I have. I tried 8.6 drivers, no change.

One more thing: the northbridge get VERY hot. If you are overclocking the graphics, think they are located inside the NB! It gets hot anyway, so more heat will do no good without good cooling. I put a piece of cardboard to divert some of the airflow coming from the cpu heatsink downwards, to the NB heatsink. And it helps, now I can touch it! What mobo do you have? rev 1.0 or 1.1? The 1.1 has a bigger NB heatsink and a header for a dedicated NB fan !! This shows the manufacturer is concerned about the heating of the NB in rev 1.0, right? Are they going to do anything about the ones they already sold? nobody thinks so...

my signature still shows "on board graphics", I just didn't find how to edit my sig... that's all.

mobo Intel DH55PJ, RAM: 4GB RAM, Nova-T 500 HD + Avermedia Trinity tuner card, Geforce 520 video, 120GB SSD Sandisk + 640 WD + 1000SG, Win7 Home Prem 64-bit, Media Portal 1.15.0; BTC 9019URF Cordless Keyboard, Panasonic 55" (HDMI cable), HTPC Case Silverstone Grandia GD05B.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

kiwijunglist

2983 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 135

ID Verified

#140491 25-Jun-2008 16:22

I find that i can still play videos and watch all channels without any blur, however cpu useage is around 80% for live tv.
Hmm maybe i will get the 8600 then as well. It pissed me off that i should have to do that.

1. So does your graphics card have both DVI and HDMI output or Dual DVI
(I have a DVI detective to fool the Vista into thinking the monitor is always attached and I prefer to run the signal to my 1080P LCD via a different port as occasionally the DVI detective puts a little flicker in the signal)

2. What cooling are you using for your case? / How quiet is your PC?
I use the silverstone LC16-M case with an enermax power supply fan, stock cpu fan (with cool n quiet controller) and 1x case fan, but find it a bit noisy sometimes.

3. What steps did you take to get hardware decoding working in Vista with ur 8600 card?
Did you need to enable EVR in mediaportal?

Cheers

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

pmt82

29 posts

Geek

#140493 25-Jun-2008 16:28

I will have a play around over the next week or two and see what I can come up. Im confident a work around can be reached without purchasing even more hardware. Though I could be eating my words in two weeks time :)
Its not actually to bad at all, CSI last night was fine, I was very impressed.

Haven't really noticed the temperature on the northbridge, and yes I have version 1.0. I will give it some man handling tonight though and let you know what I get.
Be sure to keep you posted on what I find. This is the only issue I have run into apart from a small one with HDMI which I see is noted as fixed in the 8.6 ati drivers.

kiwijunglist

2983 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 135

ID Verified

#140495 25-Jun-2008 16:43

which HDMI issue did you fix with the 8.6 drivers?

i had heating issues. my brother (i dont know why) installed the power supply so it would suck air from outside the case rather than from inside my case, and assured me that that the system wouldnt require any case fans since the Silverstone LC16-M case is so roomy, well the computer started crashing and in bios i noticed the cpu temp was around 76. so i turned the psu around and plugged in one of the case fans. anyway computer has stopped crashing, and i turned off UAC in the control panel which also made things more stable.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

Psilan

860 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 94

#140519 25-Jun-2008 17:46

Going to have a sibling fight here!

I gave you the case with a 90mm intake and 2x80mm exhausts. You wanted to take them out. I said it should be okay. I'm not there to monitor the heat.
But, in all fairness to you and myself, I was never running HD content on it, just standard freeview with no heat issues at all. I put the additional fans in before I sent the setup your way. I just had the 90mm intake.

Voyager referral - https://refer.voyager.nz/68QKJ8XKK

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#140559 25-Jun-2008 19:24

kiwijunglist:

1] my card is Asus EN8600GT 512/DDR3 silent, 2x DVI. I use adapter to HDMI and HDMI cable to tv. Plus RCAs for sound, of course. I am sure that only the HDMI on the mobo needs the DVI detective or simmilar, the connection on the 8600GT does not go away. I switch to other inputs without any problem now. When used the mobo HDMI, it got switched off when changing to another input.

2]I built the htpc using an old case from a Pentium2 800Mhz. Only to see if I can make it work. I will move to a decent (read "nicer") case later. I leave a side panel off as I tried to run it with the 8600 and without, sharing a dvd drive with the other computer, etc... The power supply is quiet by my standards, Enermax EV465 and some other letters. *600GT is silent. The cpu fan (stock) is quite noisy in my oppinion. I played around with EZ Tune Pro, included with the board and I got it running as low as 800rpm on idle. Too bad this application generates an error at startup and I had it removed (something about "Mark_Fun_...."). I tried Speedfan but I do not know how exactly to configure it. However, after playing relatively randomly with it, the speed went from 1800-2000 down to 1200. Sometimes comes up for 10 sec, so it's working. CPU temp shows only 30-38C, anyway. Cool'n'Quiet enabled in Bios but I did not find other controls in the system.

3] I do not use MP, I use Powercinema supplied with the tv card. I followed the instructions in this forum and it worked from the first attempt. I cannot find it now, the subject line was "we finally got the bugger working" or simmilar. Just make sure you enable "show hidden files" otherwise you will not find all the files you need to modify.

Hope this helps.

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

pmt82

29 posts

Geek

#142436 3-Jul-2008 09:17

Good news. Last night I had a quick play around and installed Arcsoft Total Media Center (Trial) to test its h.264 codec. Downloaded DVB Viewer and quickly set it up. Picture is perfect, DVB viewer was using only 1-5% CPU (used to be 80%) even on Channel 3 and the HD test channel. I only had a short time to play around and there was no sound except for channel 3 AAC. But im sure this just requires a quick change in settings.
I also installed media portal in a rush, funny thing is I got sound and no picture. I'm really struggling for time to get this working 100%, but I now know I don't need to buy an Nvidia card for h.264 for hardware decoding.
Fingers crossed for some time on Sunday, hopefully hangover free...

So just to clarify the HD3200 onboard video does Freeview HD just fine!

System Specs again
780G with onboard 3200HD video, sound.
AMD 2350 BE CPU
2GB corsair
Avermedia Hybrid duo TV Tuner.

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#142442 3-Jul-2008 09:37

pmt82,

please post your results with Media Portal and onboard graphics as I am very interested. If you get results with Media Portal as well, no motion blur on Tv3, I will go back to the "onboard" configuration and hopefuly will not take a big loss by buying the 8600GT.

On the other hand, too many people said on this forum that the new 780G chip cannot handle DVB-T in NZ... The codecs you are using now with DVB Viewer are from a trial version. Do you have to pay for them at the end of the trial period or they are just going to remain active in the system and create no problems as long as you do not launch the application which installed them?

I have Cyberlink codecs. Do you have them as well? can you run a test and see if Media Portal / Cyberlink codecs / 780G is a winning combination, please? Even if you get good results with the codecs you already have, I will download that trial version and install it provided Media Portal / 780G combination works well. I changed from powercinema to Media Portal already, I would like to avoid spending days and days setting another interface right now (DVB Viewer).

One more thing: if you use onboard HDMI connection, you will loose signal when switching TV to another input. Need to restart computer or install other software to re-activate the HDMI (assign a key on the remote control for this?). I would use dvi/HDMI adapter. It appears the DVI output is not shut off when tv is switched to another input.

kiwijunglist

2983 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 135

ID Verified

#142611 3-Jul-2008 16:39

Aucklander,

I found that i lost signal even when using DVI-HDMI adapter when i changed channels on my TV. This shouldn't be too much of a problem because you should always leave the TV switched Computer source, because there is no need to use regular crappy TV when you have a good HTPC. Someone posted a link on this forum to a computer program that constantly sent EDID data to Vista to fool Vista into thinking the monitor is always on. I think the program is called "EDID...". The other solutions i have read are 1. Turn the computer to sleep and wake it up 2. Make a shortcut to change the screen resolution on the remote control to wake up the display 3. Buy DVI-Detective / DVI-Doctor from ebay for about $130. 4. Apparently you can hack a VGA cable by crossing a few pins and fool the Vista into thinking you have an always on VGA display.

Would be very interested to know how you get on with HW Acceleration in mediaportal.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

pmt82

29 posts

Geek

#143574 7-Jul-2008 09:09

Did a bit of testing in the weekend...

With Media Portal the Arcsoft codec didn't display the picture, just sound. I heard trying an older version might work (or maybe a beta of media portal as I used 1.0 RC of Media Portal). I also have Cyberlink and this worked, however CPU went up to 50% in Media portal, and I did experience some issues with display image.

However DVB works mostly fine (Odd time the channel dosen't appear, have to change channel then go back). Both Cyberlink and Arcsoft codec seem the same at about 5% CPU usage. No issue with image, Arcsoft seems to be a bit sharper. Have also heard few people say that these codecs keep working after trial aswell, will find out though in 10 days. Note I also tried PIP and CPU went up to about 40% and it seemed a little sluggish, though I am not sure which to put this down to as I think DVB viewer has a few bugs.

And to final point, I am using DVI to HDMI cable as sound is going to amp seperatly. So I don't experince issue when changing input, only when booting up. It must be on the hdmi input during bootup or I get no picture.

So I guess that means the 8600 is still useful if you want to stick to media portal. Im going to script DVB viewer into Media Center so this will be fine. Still alot of experimenting and tunning to do. Hope this helps someone, any questions/suggestions let me know :)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4