MediaPortal TV: HD channels

I have solved viewing of HD channels using MP! After trying a few things, including un-installing PDVD8 and installing PDVD9, it did not work, I had a read on the MP forums.

No such luck on solving my problem specifically, but did find this SAF codec bundle. This did help me though. I downloaded the beta and started installing it... First of all it recommend that I unistall codec packs - so I removed CCC codec pack on my system - and then it detected I had an old version of DX. The nice thing was that it pointed me to where I can download the newer version which I did so. Unfortunately it errored out at the HD codec... saying that it could not find the PDVD HD DLL - even thought PDVD9 was installed!

Well this prompted me to install PDVD8 at the same time as PDVD9. I then pointed the HD decoding to the PDVD8 codec via MP configuration, and magically it worked. Now I can view BBC HD and ITV HD via the TV plugin... Weird!

Star Wars: A New Hope - ITV HD

Here's some screenies of what I did manage to record with a manual timer!

Setting a manual timer to record!

Well, I think I've lost the skill of setting a manual timer to record a programme - like we all would have done once upon a time on our VCRs... It was an experience a bit like writing a letter with a pen... The skill was long forgotten, as I am so used to using an EPG to schedule a record timer, and hence I got it all wrong! :(

Well, with Star Wars: A New Hope showing on ITV HD over the weekend, I decided to get my HTPC to record it... I had a paper guide with me and looked up when it was on and set a manual timer in MediaPortal accordingly... I managed to put the HTPC in S1 sleep mode, set WinOff to turn off accordingly and went out for the evening...

I returned and looked at the HTPC to see if it had recorded, and fair enough it had. However, I checked the recording and it turned out the programme had started late and the recording end midway through! I was puzzled to why it ended so early, and checked the guide again, and noticed Star Wars was in two parts! If I had used my Humax FOXSAT-HDR it would have setup the 'split event' recording and recorded both parts without trouble - and also would have coped with the late running of the film - both features are part of the Freesat+ specs.

There's more to this sad tale... As I have recently returned to Windows XP as my prefer choice of OS for a HTPC, I have not managed to set up the TV viewing and recording properly. For some unknown reason, I am unable to view BBC or ITV HD (using PDVD8 or 9). This is with the new install of MediaPortal 1.0.2. I am able to record the HD channels (as above) and view the recordings in PDVD9, but I can not view the live channel in MP! MP just freezes, and on BBC HD, I just have sound... I think another re-install of MP is needed!

TV Server

What was the reason I removed the 7010iX tuner card from the HTCP, you wonder... Well, I wasn't using it much to watch TV or record from... so I had the bright idea of building an energy efficient PC as a dedicated TV Server...

I was worried about the power consumption of my HTPC - averaging 150W at times - and leaving it on to record programmes late at night. The idea was that if I could build an energy efficient box - using 50W when running - I would sleep better at night ;) and use it more to record TV...

Just today, I see this Acer PC for sale on eBuyer: Acer Aspire X1300 SFF Desktop PC.

It has the energy efficient AMD processor in it: the 5050e and according to the guy on Coding Horror, he's built a energy efficient PC using it.

But after a quick calculation of the components making up that PC, I think it can be built for less. Using near-equivalent bits from Scan, I can make a box cheaper than the asking price of £250:

CPU: AMB Althlon 64 X2 5000+ @ £43
Mobo: Asus M3N78-VM @ £48
RAM: 2 x 1Gb Hynix 667 @ £33
HDD: 320Gb Hitachi £31
DVD: Samsung SH @ £18
Case: mATX case @ £31

Total: £204

Admittedly, there's no OS or warranty costs, but still a saving of about £45... Well I think I'm going to wait for the AMD X2 240e processor (as I don't seem able to get the 5050e anymore) to be released to start building this box...

Another reason to pull of the 7010iX card is to reduce the energy consumption of the HTPC, and speed up the boot process. Uninstalling TV Server or configuring it so it does not start up the service on boot or on MediaPortal start, means that MP loads faster for Movie watching...

Back on the blog!

Hello! Sorry, I've not been blogging of late - did anyone miss me? No..? Oh well...

A lot has happened to my Freesat/Freeview HTPC since my last post... so here's they are itemised!

1. Windows Vista HTPC
So I tried moving to Vista on my P4 based machine, and found it quite slow. I upgraded the memory to a full 4Gb - to find that the bios can't deal with more than 3.4Gb. I bought a Readyboost USB stick to improve performance, but that did not help too much. The machine was still a pain to use... so I tried...

2. Windows 7 HTPC
Windows 7, initially gave the impression of being speedier, but after a while I found it was pretty much like Vista in terms of performance. I also found Windows 7 to be lacking drivers and codecs that I needed to play some media files.

I was so un-impressed with both VMC and 7MC that I had no time for it. I suppose I could have made an effort and installed some mods or skins but found the V/7MC experience so poor compared to MediaPortal that I didn't...

3. Windows XP HTPC
So after all the faffing about with Vista and Windows7, I had to return to Windows XP. What a great version of Windows this is... really. A brand new install, and tweaked immediately to give a faster boot up.

Now it boots up so fast that if I put MediaPortal in the startup menu item, it starts up way before the other applications (such as anti-virus) starts that it no longer becomes the foreground application - and the remote does not control it!

4. MediaPortal 1.0.2 and 1.1.0
5. Removal of 7010ix tuner!
6. Dreambox plug-in
7. Dead PSU!

MP: Scheduled a recording...

With ITV HD testing upscaling of their SD material on their HD stream and with the fact that in MP 1.0.2 there a recording timer facility under the TV section, I performed an experiment...

I turned on my HTPC, went into the TV section, turned on the TV and tuned into a blank channel. I then setup a timer to record The Matrix Reloaded on the ITV HD channel, and left it. Before I went to bed, I setup WinOFF to turn off the HTPC 5 mins after the timer ends.

The next morning, I checked the HTPC to see that it was off, and booted it up to check to see if the timer had recorded. All was successful - it was off and the timer had recorded ITV HD!

Here's some screen grabs upscaled of The Matrix Reloaded! (It took me a while to fine where the 14Gb ts file was, as MP had not put the recording to where my settings was pointing to...)


And for those who want to compare the PQ look at this screengrab from Blu-Ray.com and my screen grab:


Spot the difference! :) (open both in new windows...)

Upgrade to Windows 7

After experiencing the sluggish behaviour of Vista, I decided to upgrade it to Windows 7!

The beta version of Windows 7 (which is still available to download, running out in July next year) allows you to upgrade from Vista. The upgrade took a while to perform on my P4, but went without a hitch. Someone informed me that VMC is not upgraded in the process but it seems to have done so. Although I had not configured VMC too much, it certainly seems to have upgraded, rather than forcing me to start from a fresh set up.

But it looks like the 'upgrade' has only upgraded the OS. It has certainly not transferred the VMC settings to 7MC - I had to perform a retune to get back my TV channels. In fact, I had to do this with MediaPortal too... I guess it didn't want to keep any TV channel settings!!

More memory woes...

So I bought 2 x 1Gb memory sticks to replace my 2 x 512Mb sticks that made up my 3Gb of RAM in the P4 HTPC, only to find out that the BIOS could only handle 3Gb. Initially I thought the memory was faulty but the constant 3Gb value that appeared each time I moved the sticks about in different configurations... was a good indication that there was a limit of some sort.

I had to perform a BIOS upgrade to see if I could get more than 3Gb of memory to appear, so I has to find out how to perform a BIOS upgrade... After much, much fiddling about - I could not get a floppy disk and drive to work - I burnt a bootable CD and performed a successful flash with that. Now the PC can see 3.4Gb of memory! It wasn't worth the effort, man! All I am hoping for is that the some of the 3.4Gb is not being used by the GPU - that the GPU memory is addressed separately and that is why only 3.4Gb can be addressed for the rest of the system... I don't even know where the rest is being used...

The two USB flash drives have also arrived and I am using one as the Readyboost drive. I'm not to sure that it has speeded anything up or not - too early for me to tell.. The other USB flash drive has not been used to buffer MediaPortal TVServer yet. I am having a problem with decoding TV with the codecs on the HTPC at the moment, having only installed PDVD9, CCC codec pack, and TMT3. I haven't experimented with all the codecs but PDVD9 for TV gives jerky pictures...

Running total:

• Antec Veris Remote Max HTPC case @ £133
• Pinnacle 7010iX Dual Analog + DTT + Dsat tuner card @ £23
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• Pentium 4 CPU fan @ £15
• SATA DVD rewriter @ £15
  
• HD 2600 Pro GPU @ £23
• Zalman GPU heatsink @ £10
  
• Liteon BD-ROM @ 45
  
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• 2 x 4Gb flash drives @ £10

Total: £314

Recall, recall, recall...

Well, it is not a problem with the memory - I ran MemTest for 4 hours and not one error resulted. So what can it be that is causing my PC to freeze and on reboot give me the access violation blue screen of death? I have to do more investigating... But, I've managed to boot up into Vista without the bluescreen and reboot, so that's something...

In the meantime, I've been reading up on speeding up Vista and all the googles return talk about Readyboost, so I've ordered two 4Gb USB sticks off Play.com which are Readyboost ready! One to use as the Readyboost memory cache, and the other as a buffer for MediaPortal's TVServer (for it to buffer TV to, instead of writting to the HDD). We will see how this goes...

I've also ordered two 1Gb memory sticks to raise the memory in the HTPC from 3Gb to 4Gb. I am also thinking about getting a controllable 120mm case fan (or a 120 to 80mm adaptor), as I think it might be the heat that is causing my PC problems. Currently I do not have the case's two fans plugged in due to the noise they make!

Working Blu-ray but not Vista!!

So I sent away the BD-ROM drive back to Scan to get a replacement. It cost me £6.70 to post it to be signed for and insured, and within a couple of days I got a new drive back.

I fitted this back into my HTPC (now with Vista Ultimate installed) and TMT3 could play the Blu-ray movies I (eventually) got from Amazon! This was an unexpected result - it looks like the previous drive was dodgy - refusing to play the discs and wanting to update the AAC keys which did not succeed. Well, I wasn't going to declare success with Blu-ray playback until I had a chance to test it with PowerDVD. This weekend I had the chance, and installed PowerDVD 9, and low and be hold... it worked. PDVD9 could playback the Blu-ray discs it had complained about before. Great!

Unfortunately, not so great on the Vista front. I've now solved my display blanking out half way through watching a video - I had to turn off alsorts of power saving features in Vista, and the clincher was disabling the GPU's power saving mode. I thought all my problems were solved until, while watching a movie, the HTPC froze! On reboot, I get a bluescreen 'access violation' of death and the machine reboots again... :( (Now I have to solve this problem!)

Vista Media Center

So with all the Blu-ray shenanigans I took the chance to scrub the HDD and installed Vista Ultimate and try out Vista Media Center.


The first problem is that it could not play some of my AVI files properly - it could play the sound but did not show the picture! After much messing around with installing codec packs (Vista Codec Pack and CCCP) and changing the settings - with the help of Media Player and MPC I did manage it in the end (having solved jerky playback in Media Player and MPC first).

The first impression of VMC is that it is slow (on this P4 machine)! And some actions lead to a blank screen or freeze (of the HTPC!) so not very good. I installed the iMON software and controlling VMC by the remote, and it works but I have to learn how to control it properly. The good thing about VMC and the iMON display is that it seems to work (unlike with MediaPortal).

But an odd thing about the Vista and VMC is the power saving features... you would think that when playing a video in VMC that the power saving routines would be disabled - but no! I've had this a few times now, first with Media Player and then with VMC - after a period of watching a movie - the screen blanks but the sound keeps going - then a lot of fuss to get the picture back, as you can't just wake the PC!

Say no to Blu-ray on your HTPC!

So with the past month's experiences of getting Blu-ray on my HTPC, the conclusion is that it is not worth it!

I've spent the weekend trying to get the playback of Blu-ray movies on my HTPC and not succeeding. I question this facility at the start of the build and I wish some had advised me against it. Since the price of Blu-ray players have dropped significantly, it is simpler to buy a CE device and place it under the TV than configure a PC for Blu-ray playback. The main problem being the copy protection - without a working version of AnyDVD - playback simply does not work! (I've tried various software that claims Blu-ray support and playback, PowerDVD, WinDVD, and TotalMedia Theatre, and none of them can deal with the AAC protection, producing errors of some sort...

Whereas, a CE Blu-ray player will simply play the discs without a hitch! I even installed my recent purchase of Vista Ultimate, which recognise Blu-ray media, but still presents the copy protection problems. I have decided to return my superficially damaged BD-ROM drive and keep to one side or put it on eBay, and return to Blu-ray playback on the HTPC when the has completely product matured.

Meanwhile, the playback of 2001 and Bladerunner on my Blu-ray player was superb. Although these two transfer did beat broadcast HD, it all depends on which movie you purchase on Blu-ray to be wowed. Unless you are a real film enthusiast and one who likes picking specify titles to buy and watch, you are not missing out on HD on Blu-ray if you only have broadcast HD to watch.

Blu-ray Player

So after contacting Amazon again to query about my disc not arriving, they have actually sent me them now. I have the two Blu-ray discs sitting on my desk now!

In the meantime I contacted Scan about return my BD-ROM drive, which unfortunately turns out that I am unable to for a refund. Since it arrived damaged, I could return it on that basis, but unfortunately, they only give 48hrs for you to contact them. The only thing I can do now is to return it under my Scansure insurance, which will replace the superficially damaged drive and not for a refund.

I still have to decide whether it is worth returning, as the damage is superficial and the drive works with the fascia off inside the HTPC case. The only problem is that the eject button does not work, as the external case button can not touch the internal ROM drive button. I will have to pay postage for the return to Scan for a replacement - effectively paying £5 for a new fascia...

I've been having problems with playing Blu-ray disc on the HTPC, but I when I've got it to play, I wasn't very 'overwhelmed' by the PQ of Blu-ray. Admittedly the Amadeus transfer to Blu-ray is not the best but I had expected it to be of better quality than broadcast HD pictures on Freesat.

So thinking maybe it was my GPU/HTPC and PowerDVD that could pump out the PQ of the Blu-ray movie, I went and spent £100 on an end of line Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player. I watched Amadeus from start to finish on this device (had not done this on the HTPC) and noticed that certain scenes were good, I concluded that the PQ was as good as the HTPC, but was still not overwhelmed by the PQ over broadcast HD.

Admittedly, the Samsung BDP isn't the top of the range device, and that the Amadeus movie PQ is top notch, I will try out Bladerunner and 2001 on both the player and the HTPC and then tell you whether it is worth getting Blu-ray or not...

EDIT: I have found a Blu-ray plug-in for MediaPortal: ArcSoft Player

Manual recording with MP

I made my first recording last night with MP. I started a manual record of Torchwood on BBC HD at 9:02pm and left it to record. I set WinOFF (an auto shutdown program) to turn off at 10:05pm and left my HTPC recording...

In the morning I checked to see if it had recorded OK. I booted the HTPC and started MP, and found it was still recording! Well it seemed to have kicked off recording where it left off, so I made a manual stop, and yes, it only recorded a minute. I looked in my recordings list to find two recordings:

The times indicating the length of the newest recording was fine, but the Torchwood recording showed 21:02-21:02! I quickly checked to see if it had made the full recording... and fast forwarded to the end - and it seemed fine and complete.

So I posted on the MediaPortal forum, to find out that this how it behaves if the recording was cut short (like if WinOFF has turned off the HTPC), and the only way of fixing this is to edit the database entry for this recording! (read this post). So the lesson is to learn how to schedule timers within MP, or use ForTheRecord to make my recordings...

Anyway back to the Blu-ray playback. Well I uninstalled AnyDVD, and tested PowerDVD8 on the Blu-ray disc check - and unfortunately this fails. There is still this bug in PDVD and so its use for playing Blu-ray must be inconjunction with AnyDVD. I also noticed that the BD-ROM drive seems to be whirling all the time now (whereas with PDVD9 it would stop after a while).

My other Blu-ray movies still have not arrived! It's been over 7 (working) days since the 3 were posted. I contacted Amazon and ask them where the other two were and got a reply saying to wait for another week incase it is slow in the post! Well, I can't see why one would arrive and not the other two, so I am suspicious that two of them are lost...

Nein Danke!

No thanks to PowerDVD 9! I think this is the cause of all my HTPC problems - the freezing and non-working of BBC HD... So I uninstalled PDVD9 and re-installed PowerDVD8 and upgraded it to the Ultra edition.

I made a quick test and it can play the (one) Blu-ray movie I have, and I think it might work without AnyDVD as well, as it managed to update itself 'now and again' to obtain the code to play the disc... I will uninstall AnyDVD and test this theory out...

I tuned into BBC HD, after reconfiguring MediaPortal to use the PDVD8 codecs for SD and HD decoding, and this works just fine.

I hope this stops my PC from freezing; this happened again last night after watching a DivX movie, and I had to powercycle - only to get the blue screen freeze again.

Power Freeze with PowerDVD9 Ultra

Last night I had another play of Amadeus, now that the PC seems to be OK, and it was doing just fine - I left the movie to play while I watched a recording using my Humax HDR... Near to about 2 hours later I checked out the PC and it seems fine - not frozen... so all well and good.

Unfortunately, I right-clicked on the movie playback and tried some options in PowerDVD9 and then it froze! :( The application froze and the PC froze too - just indicating that it must have been PowerDVD9 that froze the PC the first time (and not anything else).

Well as for tonight's happenings... I downloaded the SteamedMP skin and installed it. When I started MP after this install and tuned into the TV, a pop-up appeared complaining about CoreAVC trial missing a serial number! I couldn't dismiss the pop-up and then MP froze! So spent all afternood, finding out how to remove coreAVCdecoder.ax...

Using GraphStudio I tracked down the codec and deleted it and unregistered it using GraphStudio... I had hoped this did the trick - which has stopped MP from freezing but now I can't get BBC HD to work using PowerDVD9's H.264/AVC codec - getting a black screen and then freezing MP! What is going on?!!

It seems like the new PowerDVD9 Ultra edition's codec is affecting the playback of BBC HD.

Blu-ray: Amadeus

So one of my Blu-ray movie orders came through yesterday: Amadeus. I could not wait to see the PQ and have the Blu-ray experience on my HTPC... so I duly put the disc in the new Liteon BD-ROM drive... and disappointedly, found PowerDVD9 Deluxe edition could not play the disc!

PowerDVD wanted me to upgrade to the Ultra edition, which support Blu-ray playback! Well what a pain. So instead of this, I downloaded a trial version of PowerDVD9 to try out the Blu-ray playback. Unfortunately, more problems as the software complained about needing to update now and again to be able to play Blu-ray movies! You then accept this and allow PowerDVD to update, but nothing happens and you are returned to the same prompt of updating when you press play again! Arggghhh!!

A Google revealled that this is a known bug in PowerDVD, and a solution can be found using AnyDVD. Fortunately, you are able to download a trial version of AnyDVD, and I so did. Trying it out seems to work - but then after 10 mins or so of Amadeus playback froze my HTPC!!! Arrrrrgggghhhh! Worst still, after a hard powercycle of the PC, it refused to come back, freezing on boot after the Windows logo on a blue screen! Oh no! I tried several hard powercycle and this occured each time... I then had enough and switch everything off and went to bed!

Today, I got up and powered on the HTPC, and it seems OK, getting passed the frozen blue screen achieved yesterday, and it booted into Windows OK. I did not try to do anything else on the PC before heading off to work - hopefully everything is OK with the box.

Conclusion: first Blu-ray experience: very poor. I was not too impressed with the PQ of Amadeus - what little of it I saw, either... :(

Disaster's MP Install

So I've done a complete uninstall of MediaPortal, downloaded 1.0.2 and Disaster's version of this and installed MP and Disaster's over the top... It seems to have gone all OK. Brought up MP portal and the interface looks quite basic compared to the StreamedMP skin - so will have to install this next.

There were some slight problems... the fact that the CoreAVC codec expired made pop-ups occur in the TVServer configuration that caused it to freeze. After removing the expired CoreAVC and using a reg cleaner, and rebooting, and re-installing... did it start to behave.

But not sure what happened here... was using PowerDVD 9 to watch a DVD (unfortunately no BD movies have arrived yet) and just a quarter of the way through the movie, the HTPC turned off - without any warning!! The movie went a bit stuttery, and then just disappeared. Not sure what happened, but a power up of the HTPC, froze when Windows XP reached the taskbar stage... It then took a few hard powercycles before the PC would boot properly... Weird!

Liteon BD-ROM Drive

So this came yesterday from scan.co.uk, which was unfortunately superficially damaged - a scratch on the front fascia, and there was a rattle coming from the drive when I moved it about.

Anyway, got it home and opened up the HTPC and replaced the existing DVD-RW drive, and found out the way the tray opens on the Liteon BD-ROM drive meant it would not work - the tray fascia was too large for the HTPC case's flip down opening... So I had to pull the drive back out and remove all the fascia on the drive - good it was damaged anyway. This now works, but the front button on the HTPC case does not reach the button for the tray eject. I might have to do something about this or just use the eject button on the remote only.

I tested the drive with a DVD; I have no Blu-ray disc to test the drive as my Amazon order has not come through. Looking forward to testing this out...

While I had the case opened, I took picture of the Zalman heat sink I had put on the GPU - replacing its fan:



This cost me £10 on eBay, so the running total so far is:

• Antec Veris Remote Max HTPC case @ £133
• Pinnacle 7010iX Dual Analog + DTT + Dsat tuner card @ £23
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• Pentium 4 CPU fan @ £15
• SATA DVD rewriter @ £15
  
• HD 2600 Pro GPU @ £23
• Zalman GPU heatsink @ £10
  
• Liteon BD-ROM @ 45
  

Total: £284

MediaPortal 1.0.2 and 1.1.0 Alpha

It looks like I'm going to be busy, not only with my Blu-ray movies, but also with installing the latest MediaPortal version running...

The 1.0.2 version has been out a while, but I had not time to install and use it, and now before I know it, an alpha release of 1.1 is released!

What this spot for updates on MP!

Also I've recently gotten a copy of Vista Ultimate, and would like to test the VMC out, so watch this space for this too!

Blu-ray!

Hello,

I'm back! Sorry about the break, but as I had nothing to report about my HTPC setup... Nothing had changed on the system, and I was using mainly for media playback, and not TV viewing or recording.

But I've decided to purchase a BD-ROM drive for Blu-ray movie playback. I had thought about doing this for a while and making this post asking for opinions to whether it was worth it, finally this convinced me to make the purchase.

The question was asked in the early days of this setup - whether I should include Blu-ray playback facilities or not - stood unanswered. The question in my mind nowadays is whether Blu-ray PQ was better than broadcast HD. There was an answer which convinced me to at least have a try... The Blu-ray experience is better overall than broadcast HD as it has a large pixel resolution and frame-rate, better sound, and if a good quality movie disc is purchase, then a better experience could be had over broadcast HD.

So I have ordered a Liteon HD-401S-06C BD-ROM internal SATA drive for £45 from scan.co.uk, and 3 Blu-ray movies from Amazon 3 for 2 offer: Bladerunner, 2001 and Amadeus. We will see how better the experience with Blu-ray over broadcast HD TV is, when the item arrive.

My spending on this HTPC project so far:

• Antec Veris Remote Max HTPC case @ £133
• Pinnacle 7010iX Dual Analog + DTT + Dsat tuner card @ £23
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• Pentium 4 CPU fan @ £15
• SATA DVD rewriter @ £15
  
• HD 2600 Pro GPU @ £23
• Liteon BD-ROM @ 45
  

Total: £274

A Media PC with MediaPortal

OK, I admit it, I've ignored the Freesat/Freeview part of this project so far, and have been concentrating on the HTPC side. Well, I can't be blamed as my modded XBox (which acted as the media player) was removed from under the TV, and the fact that the two Humax PVRs were left in place, then I was in no hurry to get the Freesat/view side working. I promise to make an effort soon (with getting 4 the Record installed and working.)

In the great thing about MediaPortal working as a Media PC is the plugins that can grab on-line content, such as fan art, and series and movie info/synopsis. The StreamedMP skin installer also installs/upgrades and supports the Moving Pictures and My TV Series plugins, and makes the PC look and feel like a wonderful Media Player, together with the My Trailers plugin, the PC really feels like a HTPC.

The HTPC, combined with my two Humax PVRs (with which I can pull recordings off quite easily), means I can use the PVRs to record a whole series or movies, transfer them onto the HTPC to be watched at anytime that's convenient.

Configure WebEPG in MP

As promised, here's the guide to getting WebEPG in MediaPortal to work - it is on my MediaPortal wiki pages: Setting up WebEPG.

I will expand it more as I go along... especially with SVN versions of MP.

MediaPortal: The re-installing trick

My answer to many MediaPortal configuration problems is, to re-install! This seems to work for me, time and time again. The only problem in doing this is that you lose your 'settings' information... so if you are willing to re-configure MP and its many plug-ins that you have setup, then take my advice and re-install!

A re-install, certainly did the trick for my new GPU and BBC HD problem. Now receiving HD via satellite works a treat! The problem, as I suspected, was the fact that MP would not 'apply' my configuration change of the location of the 'timeshift buffer'. Previously, I had configured MP to buffer onto a USB stick. Later I realised this might not be a good idea for HD processing... so changed it back to the HDD, but had not realised that it was still buffering to the USB stick, until I looked at the back of the case, where the stick was plugged into, to see that is was still merilly flashing away!

A fresh-from-scratch re-install did the trick and now buffering is on the local HDD, and receiption and decoding of BBC HD is perfect. (I still have to try recording at the same time as watching BBC HD to test the new GPU.)

I had an experiment with creating a RAM disk for the location of the timeshift buffer, but I could only create a 32MB RAMdisk! This has to be bigger for the buffer I suspect. I need to find a free piece of software to create at least a 256MB RAM disk...

Another re-install?

To solve several problems with MediaPortal, I decided to upgrade to an SVN version (untested development snapshots). I had been waiting for version 1.0.1 of MediaPortal to be released, but the deadline of 15th March has been postponed with no ETA...

The version I upgraded my MP 1.0.0.0 was this one 02-10-2009 Rev:21688. This version fixed:
(a) the unsupported skin message at MP start-up, and (b) I can ESCape out of the Recorded TV screen. Unfortunately, when I installed this SVN version, I did not perform a complete uninstall of MP. And last night's installation of my new GPU (more below) there were problem not being able to make certain configuration changes that would 'stick'. I think I will have to wipe MP 1.0.0.0 completely off the system, then install the latest SVN version: 03-22-2009 Rev:22029.

I spent a few hours last night installing and configuring my new HiS 2600 HD GPU, to see if I could get BBC HD/ITV HD broadcasts decoding properly on my P4 HTPC within MP. I had varying success, the card certainly produced good enough pictures to watch, but they were not smooth enough. I also had problems with MP crashing out and freezing up after a while of watching BBC HD, but I haven't be able to isolate the problem. I am considering a re-install of XP to get a clean system install to see if this helps... but this does mean investing more time and effort.

A new GPU for BBC HD/ITV HD

Another day, and another dollar to spend! This time, it looks like I need a new GPU to decode BBC HD and ITV HD...

So I posted this question: "Can I get BBC HD with my setup", on the Media Portal forums. The answer turns out to be "yes" but "not watchable"! So after messing around installing various HD codecs, Power DVD 9, MPC, and Core AVC, the last one worked but I get slow/stuttering/juddery picture and sound with BBC HD and ITV HD broadcasts. My machine also gets itself in a twist when tuned into these channels - refusing to change away!

So the conclusion in the thread is that my NVIDIA GeForce 6600LE is not adequate for HD decoding... so I've just spent £23 on the HiS HD 2600 Pro from Scan. We will see how this goes - won't we?

Anyway to recap of my spending on this HTPC project so far:

• Antec Veris Remote Max HTPC case @ £133
• Pinnacle 7010iX Dual Analog + DTT + Dsat tuner card @ £23
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• Pentium 4 CPU fan @ £15
• SATA DVD rewriter @ £15
  
• HD 2600 Pro GPU @ £23

Total: £229

HTPC Software: Moving Pictures: an MP plug-in

Once you have MediaPortal installed, messed about with changing a few skins, only when you've installed the Moving Pictures plug-in does the PC feel like a Media Center box.

This MediaPortal plug-in organises your 'movies' media files, downloading covers, movie info, and fan art to create an 'atmospheric' movie library:


Forum and download available here.

Media Center setup issues

I've been running my Media Center PC as a HTPC for a few weeks now, and here are some issues I have noted:

1. Antec Veris Remote Max case
(a) I found that the case has two jumper connectors that allow the remote to power the box on OR the front power button to. I can not have both connected so that I can do both - it's either or... (b) The case was quite noise in place under the TV, but I did not know whether it was the hard disk(s), CPU fan or case fans. Futher investigation reveal it to be the case fans (of which I only had one on)... so I think I need to replace at least on for a silent fan... (c) The locations of the DVD/CD-ROM drive and the hard disks are so far apart that it made it impossible to connect both and IDE DVD/CD-ROM drive and a hard disk under the same IDE channel. To solve this I purchased a SATA DVD/CD-ROM AND removed the IDE 160Gb CE drive. (d) I have to look at the iMON software and tweak it a bit more. The volume button on the case seems pretty useless at the moment...

2. Pentium 4, 4Gb RAM, GeForce 6600LE GPU, Abit AA8-3rd Eye mobo
Currently, this setup is working fine for a Media Center. I had it recording a programme could do other things without too much problems. But I have not fully stress-tested it, so it might proved not so adequate. My current problem with is this setup is the power consumption - up to 160W at max usage... not to good. My FOXSAT-HDR will consume upto 50W at max usage. See above for the comments on the £130 case, but having seenthe good looking Opera Media Center ATX case for just £35, I wonder if this could be an alternative, if bought with a basic iMON remote and sensor?

3. MediaPortal software
This seems to provide what is required, but the problem seems to be the setup - needed a lot of time and effort to get it working properly and doing what you want. The good things is that it seems to have all the plug-ins you want, and there's a support forum where you can get help. There are some major quirks to get used too or overcome with MediaPortal and its plug-ins... but could be worth it in the end. I am currently trying my MP configuration to work properly with WebEPG, Streamed-MP skin, Moving Pictures plug-in... next will be the TV Series and For the Record plug-ins...

A Working MP EPG

I've done it! I've got the WebEPG populating with info for most of the channels. With help from the MP forum of course. See my post here for the new webepg.exe that is needed to get this working. Follow my two links and follow the instructions in there, then download this webepg version to populate the EPG.


Above is a screenshot of the EPG with the Monochrome skin. This skin is easy to install, as it comes with full instructions on how to install it. This is a good skin to start with, but I have found the Streamed-MP skin (ported from XBMC) which looks a lot better, and will be installing that...

MediaPortal: EPG

Yes, I think I've just been able to get the (web) EPG on MediaPortal working! After making this post on the MP forums, I clicked on a couple of buttons (Load/Refresh in the Mappings tab of the XmlTV plugin of TV Server configuration) and the data appeared!



This was done on my work PC using a Pinnacle USB 60e tuner (which can only pick up 5 channels!), so I will have to confirm it on my Media PC at home. Once I've done this I will post the exact steps, but the link above is what I did (over and over!)

Here a screenshot with the monochrome skin:

PC Media Center

Now that I have the P4 PC bits installed in the Antec Veris Max case, and have managed to get MediaPortal and XMBC running (although not quite fully, yet). It is running well enough to replace my modded Xbox.

So out goes the PC under the TV and the Xbox:

And in goes the Antec Media Center:


EDIT:
The power consumption of this Media PC is 6W in standby, and upto 160W in usage! Yikes! I will have to be thinking about a new motherboard and CPU to reduce the power consumption (like this Media PC). I have two hard disk in this box: Seagate PipelineHD 320GB and a Seagate 160Gb CE drive. Now that it is in place, it is quite noisy when it runs, but I am not sure where the noise is coming from. I will have to find out whether the noise is from the CPU fan, the power supply (fan) or the case fans. It could also be the hard disks inside making the virbrations...

MediaPortal: configuring

I've been messing around with MediaPortal on my XP machine and it hasn't been without trouble - let me tell you. Problems so far are:

• Aspect ratio (wrong for 4:3 channels)
• Channel changing (slow, and causing timeshift)
• EPG setup and configuration (how?)
• Decoding BBC HD (can I?)

But the good news is that it is getting there. I've managed to solve some of the above with fidding and constant uninstalling MP and re-installing... Very strange thing to do, but it seems to work! I will post the reasons when I find why things fix themselves!

MP Tip: The secret about MediaPortal is all about the PLUG-INs! To make MP really work, you need to download, configure and install the plug-ins!

Software: XBMC

I have a modded original Xbox in my AV stack. This box runs XBMC at boot up and is my 'media player'. Once I have my HTPC in situ under the TV, this will become the media player box, so I tried out the Windows version of XBMC. It works quite well and can autoplay DVDs with MP3s on them upon insertion in the drive.



Read more about XBMC here: http://xbmc.org/

I will have explore MP a bit more to see what it is capable of, to decide whether to run XBMC on start up instead of it.

I have not gotten very far with MP recently, due to the 'timeshifting when changing channels' problem, but I think I have solved it now (see MP forum thread here). I was afraid that this problem and the fact that it caused changing of channel to be extremely slow, was due to the lack of performance of the P4 CPU + mobo.

iMon Remote and MediaPortal

I spent the whole weekend setting up Windows XP and MediaPortal on my P4 Antec Remote PC.

The Antec iMON remote works quite well with XP. It is able to power on the box (without XP) with the remote power toggle and turn off the box (with XP). I can move the mouse cursor about with the direction button, which is like an IBM Thinkpad 'nipple' (for controlling the mouse).



With MediaPortal setup, I followed some instructions (here and here) to get the application working with the remote and this worked quite well.

I am happy that the Antec case with the remote and iMon software works like a CE device. I measured the power consumption of the Media PC when 'in standby' i.e. OFF, and it consumed 5/6W, which I suppose is not bad and acceptable (but not as good as under 1W some CE devices consume in standby). The PC running XP, in its current configuration (Pinnacle 7010iX, and GeForce 6600LE GPU), consumes about 120W.

I am currently having issues with slow channel changing in MediaPortal, which I have to investigate and solve...

Antec Veris Max

The case arrived and I moved the motherboard and other bits from my P4 PC over. Even though it has been designed for clean installation, I still managed to have wires and cables going everywhere. I must try harder and get some longer and neater cables for the job. Here is a picture of the TiVo sitting on top of the beast of the case:



I have not powered on the PC yet, and have not played with the remote.

BTW way, the price for this box on Play.com has now gone up - to £155! The case can be found at the old price at Lambdatek @ £140 plus delivery. I problem with Play.com was the delivery - they have to delivery it to your Credit card address, but can't tell you when (even a date, let alone an afternoon or morning time!)

The next generation PVR

The main reason for building a Freesat and Freeview PVR is to combine both sets of broadcast channels onto one box. Of course I would rather purchase a CE box to do this, but at the moment there is none on the market.

This has lead me to think about the next generation PVR, and its features. Hopefully, this HTPC will turn out to be able to fulfill all of the specification, but to see and produce some kind of checklist, I am going to put down some below.

Specification for next generation PVR
1. Quad tuner (two DVB-S2 and two DVB-T2).
2. HDMI, optical, CI, DiSEqC, and low power consumption.
3. At least 1Tb of internal storage. Blu-ray recordable media.
4. Networking, wireless, and USB connections.
5. Unified EPG; data from Freesat+, Freeview+, and internet.
6. Enhanced autopadding functions (works with AR/AT).
7. Enhanced and smart viewing and recording confict resolutions (using +1 and regional channels across both Freeview + Freesat channels).
8. EPG browsing and timer scheduling from the internet.
9. TV/Radio streaming over LAN and wireless.
10. Recording and archiving to Blu-ray discs.
11. Full editing, transcoding functions.
12. Smart storage management, with auto-deletion rules, and space saving channel choices (part of 7).
13. Video on demand facilities, such as iPlayer, and other paid services.
14. TiVo suggestions and of course Series recording, etc.

Any others?

A good case

Well, it is not as though I've made major progress on this project, but just small ones that will affect it.

Firstly, I have been upgrading my P4 PC with working memory, and a CPU fan to make it quieter. I've also being installing and re-installing MediaPortal and having a play with that - finding out about how it handles aspect ratios, etc.

Secondly, I've been trying to get the TiVo box going. After finding out about what it can do (for me), I finally had time to plug it in for a mess about. Unfortunately, first thing that happened was an error screen! (See this screenshot.) Apparenty, this error is due to an old TiVo OS, so it means I have to get the latest image and install it to get the TiVo box working. I will keep on at this, although, I think it might be a waste of time since the box does not have a lifetime EPG subscription and I'm not going to pay £10 a month to get the EPG data.

Finally, I've ordered my HTPC case: the Antec Veris Max case. I had been waiting for the right time, and was going to order from eBuyer, but the price had gone up. It was £140, but now it eBuyer is retailing it at £175! Fortunately, I found Play.com stocks this case, and it was still at £140. It is ordered now and should be on its way. I hope it turns out to be a good investment...

TiVo: an alternative?

Well, I just got a Series 1 UK TiVo box off a colleague. After having an idea that a TiVo might fullfil my Freesat and Freeview recording combo needs, I began looking more into this.

The idea is to connect a Freeview and a Freesat STB to the TiVo and by upgrading the hard disk to something a bit bigger, say 1TB, then it might just be able to satisfy my needs. First of all, I needed some questions answered:

1. Does TiVo provide a Freesat EPG as well as a Freeview EPG?
2. Can TiVo use a mixture of EPGs?
3. Can it control more than one STB? Can it control specific STB for specific programme/series recording?
4. Can the HDD be upgraded to one with a 1TB in size?
5. Can I use the EPG facilities if I don't have a life-time subscription? Can I use an alternative EPG source, if not?

Some questions were posted here on AVForums, and I am about to post on the TiVo forums to ask for more help. You can read this thread here. Or maybe I ought to go ahead, build my HTPC and wait for Nero 9 LiquidTV | TiVo PC media center software to come out in the UK?

What do you all think..? Is it possible to use 9 year old TiVo box to solve a 2009 problem? I can see the immediate downside already - that is, recordings will be analogue. But the immediate upside, is the great TiVo facilities that I'll be gaining...

Links to forums

Well, I just thought I'd post - just to say I'm not making any progress due to lack of 'play time', but I havent given up on this project yet. I've ordered a new CPU fan for my P4, however, and am waiting for that to arrive. The current fan is a little noisy and since the P4 PC is sitting on my desk next to my ear - something has to be done!

<- I would like to point out the side menu and especially the links to the forums. If you have any other suggestions of forums to add to the list, please leave a comment.

I'm going to link online component shops where you can buy parts for such a HTPC build.

Software: MediaPortal

As you know, after putting Mythbuntu to one side (because it couldn't install drivers for my Realtek NIC), I am using MediaPortal to test the P4 PC setup. So far this media software has performed very well with regards to detecting my devices (and especially the Pinnacle 7010iX TV tuner).

Have a read of this post on the MediaPortal forums, of one guy's experience with VMC and MediaPortal. Again MediaPortal wins on the grounds that the devices simply, are detected and work...

Software

Which HTPC or Media Center software? Candidates are:

• MythTV: website here
  
• MCE: website here
  
• VMC: website here
  
• MediaPortal: website here
  
• LinuxMCE: website here
  
• DVBViever: website here
  
• GB-PVR: website here
  
• Sage TV: website here
  

Can you suggest any other? Am I going to use just free software, or pay Micro$oft, et al? Which application will support my hardware? Which is best?

Take Three Cases

So my current P4 PC is in a crappy tower case and to get it looking like a HTPC, I need a good looking media case. This would help the PC perform better too ;)

So I have 3 options (jzee, of DS, has provided links to the reviews):

1. Cheap Aplus case @ £50: Aplus Black Media Center Case (no review but specs & pics)
2. Popular Antec Max case @ £130: Antec Fusion MAX VERIS Black Case (review here)
3. Premium Silverstone case @ £140: Silverstone LC16B-MR Black Case (review here)

Which one shall I get?

No thanks for the memory!

Well after much faffing about because of memory problems, I've managed to install MediaPortal and got some Freeview channels going...

As you can recall, I am just trying to get my old P4 PC setup for a quick and dirty test... I went out and stupidly bought a 2Gb memory upgrade from eBay which caused all the trouble. Read this post (and thread) I made on the computer section of the DS forums to see what I had to cope with!

So after downloading MemTest, and running it with one stick at a time in place, it identified that one of the 2Gb was faulty! This has taught me a lesson not to get RAM second hand off eBay, for sure! Well, I suppose the good thing is that 1Gb was OK and with that added to my existing 1Gb, the PC was in a better shape to run MediaPortal.

Another piece of good news was that I found my NVIDIA GeForce 6600LE GPU had not decided to give up the ghost on me after all - the faulty memory must have screwed up its function - as at one stage it died on me, and I thought it had gone for good!

So tonight, I managed to get the memory, GPU and a re-installed MediaPortal to work with the Pinnacle 7010iX tuner card, but only with Freeview channels. I could not get my newly cabled satellite feed to work (I could not perform a scan - no channels detected) and I suspect that the feed is borked (as it sits on the end of a DiSEqC switch). I will have to try the card on my currently working Freesat feeds tomorrow...

Pinnacle 7010iX card

Well, it's arrived, a second hand one off eBay for £23, installed into my old P4 PC with drivers downloaded from the Pinnacle site for 32-bit Windows XP. This bit seem to go well - the PC shows the device under the hardware section.

Another piece of good news is that, after messing around with match DIMM slots for my memory stick, the fresh install of XP seems to now show 3Gb of RAM.

I shall now have a go at getting a few TV channels (start with Freeview, as I need to cable the sat feed). Now what software shall I use to do this? Maybe Pinnacle's own that I got with the USB TV tuner...

Update: Well, I'm not having much luck with my old P4 PC at the moment! So after installing the Pinnacle TVCEnter software (v3.4A) and it didn't work - complains that it could not see a tuner... I attempted to update XP using Windows Update. Well during the process, the update kept rebooting my PC. After the third reboot, it didn't recover - complaining of a missing NTLDR file! Arrrrgggghhhh!!!! Does anyone know what is causing this?

I am now making a recovery install! :(

Software: Mythbuntu

So, my 2Gb of RAM came today, and installed it on my old P4 PC, which already had 1Gb. Now I have 2.75Gb - where did the 250MB of RAM disappear to? The wonders of PCs and Windows!

Anyway I'm downloading Mythbuntu from here, and trying it out. I will try MediaPort, etc. later. I might be forced to us Vista Media Center (which now only comes as part of Vista Home Premium or Ultimate version) and eBuyer have a special on Vista Ultimate and a 1TB HDD for £140 (bargain!) But I think I will stick to free Media Center software for my HTPC.

BTW, I have a Pinnacle PCTV 60e (USB Freeview receiver) that I could try to get working while waiting for the 7010ix to arrive...

Update: I haven't been able to get on an have a look at Mythbuntu yet. I got one spare 40Gb disk drive which I had problems with - turns out to be a broken drive - I couldn't even install XP on it. Then When I managed to get Mythbuntu installed, it failed to recognise my network card. So I ave up on that and proceed with the XP install.

I had various problems with my old P4 PC, and now my GPU (the GeForce 6600) has died for some reason! So now I'm using a Radeon 7000 PCI card in the old P4, which I know is probably not up for anything... Well, one good news: the Pinnacle 7010ix quad card has arrived...

GPU & Mobo reviews

While I'm waiting for my first bits to arrive, I've found some interesting reads:

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 4000 series group test
Mobos: Integrated graphics shoot-out

Ordered some hardware

Well, yesterday I ordered some hardware... I have decided to approach this project in stages, in case it goes all pear shaped!

I have my old PC and some spare HDDs to play about with, so I will use this as a base. My PC is a Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz. It has just 1Gb of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 6600LE graphics card.

I know the old PC is not going to be suitable for the HTPC purpose, but it will give me a bit of a start... Anyway this is what I've ordered:

1. 20M of co-ax cable (to run a Freesat feed into my 'office' where I have a play; I have a Freeview feed already there) @ £9
2. Pinnacle 7010ix quad tuner card (got it 'used' off eBay) @ £21
3. 2Gb of DDR2-533 (to put some more RAM into the old PC) @ £13

Running total: £43

Revised hardware

Tuner: Pinnacle 7010iX PCTV Dual Satellite TV Tuner ~ £33

Running Total 0: £33
(Put it in currently available PC, try out with OS/Media software.)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H AMD 780G ~ £80
CPU: AMD Athlon 4850e - 45W - AM2 - 2.5GHz X2 ~ £50
RAM: OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 Reaper HPC (2x2GB) ~ £46

Running Total 1: £209
(Put them in old PC case, fit small HDD and receiver card, install OS/Media software.)

Antec Fusion Remote Media Center Case - Black ~ £132
PC Power & Cooling SILENCER 470 ~ £43

Running Total 2: £384
(Build Media Center PC with all above component, set up remote control, add wireless keyboard/mouse?)

Disk: Seagate Pipeline HD ST3320310CS x 2 ~ £102

Running Total 3: £486
(Do I have available HDDs kicking around - from HDR or 9200T? Pay £102 for 1TB WD instead?)

Blu-ray: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Disc Rewriter & HD DVD ROM ~ £143

Running Total 4: £629
(Think about media burning and playing of HD material off disc - do I need this?)

Other builds hardware specs

22 June 2008 - From HTPC Build:
- Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard
- AMD Athlon64 X2 4450e
- 2×1Gb DDR2-800
- Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb
- LG GGC-H20L
- EV Shiny Piano Black case
- 400W PSU
- WinTV Nova-S2 HD PCI

4 August 2008 - Salazar on Hexus
- Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H AMD 780G (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ 2.80GHz
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache
- OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)
- LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
- 500W PSU and ThermalTake M9 VI1000BWS midtower case from previous system

12 Dec 2008 - bushbrother on AVForums:
- Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Socket AM2+ onboard VGA
- OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 DUAL CHANNEL
- LG Electronics Blu-Ray & HD-DVD-Rom Combo 16x DVDRW Black SATA
- Antec EarthWatts 380W 80%+ Efficiency PSU - 80mm Fan 4x SATA PCI-E
- Antec Fusion Remote Veris Silver MATX Media Center Case - No PSU
- KeySonic 2.4Ghz Wireless Compact Keyboard with Integrated TouchPad
- Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache*
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC
- AMD Athlon X2 5050e Socket AM2 45W Energy Efficient
- Pinnacle 7010ix Dual DVB-S Dual DVB-T PCIe Card (Freesat + Freeview)

Hardware breakdown

Motherboard: The Gigabyte GA-EG43M-S2H G43 has on board graphics; the Intel G43 chipset has the Intel GMA X4500 graphics processor supporting HD, DX10 and the board has HDMI out. This looks suitable for satellite HD decoding and connecting to an HDTV, methinks.

CPU: The motherboard support LGA775 socket, so it can support an Intel Core 2 Duo, and this E7300 2.66GHz will prove fast enough to record 4 programmes simultaneously, and burn a DVD, etc... (Might have to purchase a big but quiet cooling fan for this CPU.)

RAM: 2 lots of 2GB of memory is more than enough and cheap at £40...

Disk: Best to use dedicated PVR HDDs in this machine. Two of these 320Gb for 'buffering' and later and some slower - but 'greener' 1TB WD10EADS drives for normal 'archiving' and media storage...

Case: The Antec Micro Fusion Remote 350 is good looking enough to sit under the TV next to other CE boxes, but it only has a 350W power supply, which might prove inadequate, when more tuners are added. Might need to consider an uglier case but more powerful supply... Update: it's been pointed out to me that the case only takes 1/2 height cards (see link for case details). This might cause an issue with what tuner, graphics, expansion cards we can get...

Tuner: The Pinnacle 7010iX PCTV Dual Satellite TV Tuner is a quad tuner (two DVB-S and two DVB-T) suitable for Freesat and Freeview decoding, and is cheap on eBay at the moment. But it is not DVB-S2, so if this is purchased, another tuner card might be needed for S2 decoding...

Remote: Who knows if the Cyberlink Infrared Media Centre Remote Control is any good and suitable for this purpose, but it is cheap!

DVD/Blu-ray: Yeah, need one of these! £20 or £75, or both. Might need to burn to disc, and playback of HD from Blu-ray might be nice :)

Hardware

A brief look at various PC component sites, Aria.co.uk, Insight.co.uk, eBay.co.uk. They seem to have these for me:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EG43M-S2H G43 Socket 775 @ £86.19
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz (Retail 775) £97.69
RAM: 2Gb Samsung Original DDR2 800 (PC2-6400) SDRAM x 2 @ £38.98
Disk: Seagate Pipeline HD ST3320310CS x 2 @ £96.58
Case: Antec Micro Fusion Remote 350 @ £120.69
Tuner: Pinnacle 7010iX PCTV Dual Satellite TV Tuner @ £29.99
Remote: Cyberlink Infrared Media Centre Remote Control @ £5.74

Total: £475.86

Over budget already! What can I reduce the cost of... the case..?
Do I need to add a Blu-ray drive? Do I need a DVB-S2 card?

Cost / Budget

Well, my initial budget is £400. I am sure I won't be able to keep to budget at all, as I am starting from scratch - having no base PC I can use...

Considering the PVR - the Dreambox DM8000 HD - is £600, I think my realistic budget will be somewhere around this mark... but maybe I can cut some corners, somewhere - utilise the many spare HDDs I have lying around ;)

Where to start...

Right, to build a HTPC we need to look into 5 things:

1. Cost: How much am I willing to spend on this project?
2. Hardware: What specification of CPU/GFX/HDD will it need?
3. Software: MythTV, Media Portal, GB-PVR, etc. - which is best?
4. Receivers: Which DTT and DSAT tuner cards (supported by 3)?
5. Other: Remote? Blu-ray? HDMI? etc., etc.

A good day to...

1. Decide to build a hybrid Freesat/Freeview HTPC...
2. Start a blog to document the task...
3. Learn something along the way...