|
Allen Fiverson posted:I'm going to ask the same question here that I've asked at HTPCNews and Green Button and a couple other places. I have a large and well-organized collection of avi movies. Some are on a server, most are archived on DVD. Meedio + PlayMee + TagManipulation Importer + Video player of your choice = solution to your problem. What you're asking for doesn't have a couch-friendly out of the box solution, so you're gonna have to spend some elbow grease to get it done. It will work something like this: you'll create a library of your online files first, since they're the easiest. You can use a basic tag mask importer to pull these files in, assuming they are all named in a logical and consistent fashion. After that, you'll use the TagManip Importer to run a script that will add your offline media; you'll configure it with the tag mask (probably similar to the one you used for your online files) and the drive to look at, and it will import the files and prompt you for a DiscID. At that point, you'll need to configure PlayMee to prompt you for the discID whenever an offline file is played. There are lots of plugins available to grab covers/data/etc. Check out MovieNight, which is cool as all hell. I never liked GameEX that much, but really, really like myGames, which is still kicking around. Juriko posted:Pretty how? I guess module integration was a big thing for me. I could always make Meedio look fairly consistent across the board, with little to no tweaking files manually. Most, if not all, of the popular plugins have screens that work with the two biggest themes, HDeeTV and MenagerieSE. The interface was always easy to use, fast, and nice to look out, even without animations and DX support. That said, it is/was a pain in the rear end to make really nice Meedio screens/themes. The theme designer never worked correctly, and often choked on advanced screen files and such.
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2007 15:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 04:35 |
|
|
Allen Fiverson posted:I'm going to ask the same question here that I've asked at HTPCNews and Green Button and a couple other places. I have a large and well-organized collection of avi movies. I'm in the exact same position, and use Mediaportal with the MyDVD's plugin. It took maybe an hour total to setup this portion of it, and it works wonderfully. I have a section in Mediaportal for all my movies, that is powered by the My DVDs addon. I use my remote to browse through the movies, which can be sorted and viewed by pretty much any field possible (director, year, IMDB rating, genre, etc). When I select a movie, I can click Play and either it starts playing (it will play AVI's or automount DVD's), or am told which disc to insert. All of this is powered by a 3rd party (free) program, Ant Movie Catalog. This is an excellent program on its own. It was able to bring in a text file of all 300 of my movies, and in about 20 minutes downloaded all the movie information and cover art. Then all I had to tell the My DVD's plugin was where my Ant Movie Catalog was located, and which field to use for the movie's location (on my hard drive or on CD). I was then able to browse through and play all my movies in Mediaportal. It really all works quite well. If you go this route and have any questions let me know.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2007 17:50
|
|
|
EC posted:I guess module integration was a big thing for me. I could always make Meedio look fairly consistent across the board, with little to no tweaking files manually. Most, if not all, of the popular plugins have screens that work with the two biggest themes, HDeeTV and MenagerieSE. The interface was always easy to use, fast, and nice to look out, even without animations and DX support. I think the advantage here is that if you want to you can easily make a new screen for whatever skin you need in Media portal. The skinning system is really simple to play with for anyone that knows basic xml concepts. You should be able to edit the skin tio match up fairly quickly. Mediaportal now is actually way flashier too then it was even 8 months ago. HDeeTV and MenagerieSE were simply beasts that Meedio was lucky to have. HDeeTV in particular was extreamly advanced, well thought out and just great. I actually feel bad for the guy that meedio went under after all that work.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2007 20:40
|
|
|
Mythdora is the key to the mythtv woes. Setup it up and done. So long as you are going to use a supported capture card and NOT use TV out, things are simple. Not use TV OUT?? Oh noes! Yep, that's right, but it's not as bad as one would think. You should have a TV with a PC hookup already  If you need to TV OUT, well, hope you are a linux guru, and if you are, then mythdora's non standard setup (tons of expected folders moved to other places) is probably not for you anyways. already is fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Mar 26, 2007 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2007 21:26
|
|
|
I have been using SageTV on my HTPC for about 2 years now and love it.. I don't do HD (since I'm too poor for a HDTV+Service). Celeron 3.02 768 RAM 2x 80GB HDD Striped + 64k clusters for video storage 3x Hauppauge PVR150 Tuners NVIDA PureVideo NVIDIA GeforceFX5200 I keep the server at my only input jack and use an amplified splitter to go to the three tuners. They get great reception. I then have 2 Hauppauge MediaMVPs which are in my office and bedroom that perfectly interface with the SageTV software (since the hauppauge software blows rear end). The extenders are basically little embedded systems with no heat, fans, or noise and do pretty much everything sage can throw at them for <$100. Being a Mac/Linux guy, choosing XP for an OS hurt, but the time and effort saved on configuration has been a life saver, plus sage has been the best of all the other breeds of software I have used (Myth, BeyondTV, MCE etc.) If XP is tuned perfectly and does nothing but the HTPC operations it will run perfectly. Months on end without a crash or reboot. We also have a pretty good development community writing plugins constantly that have added DVD burning, Web Radio playback, and alot more. I also setup fantastic commercial detection/skipping. The web interface plugin is awesome and lets me set up recordings and such from work. The overall HTPC experience has been awesome and I love never having to worry about taping a show again. Especially with multiple tuners. For those who have not, look into Sage. Def. My favorite (though not freeware)
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2007 21:20
|
|
|
I have spent a lot of time over the past year working with setting up a proper HTPC, and still haven't foound a great front end. I'm currently using TVedia, and am quite impressed with it, but am very interested in trying this LMCE system. My system is kind of overkill, but it's what I have. - Thermaltake Tenor ATX case - Generic 400w power supply - Intel Celeron D 352 3.2 ghz - MSI PM8M3-V mobo - 1 gig corsair XMS PC3200 - Nvidia FX5200 You need a pretty decent system to run that program, as the interface is very big on transitions. It has a ton of great features, and I like it a lot, but the company seems like it is run by one guy, and he isn't that great on the development side. Also, it isn't free, but it is worth a try if nothing else.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2007 22:36
|
|
|
Anyone have any luck using a Mac as a HTPC? Here's is the situation. I've got a C2D Macbook hooked up to my Mitsubishi WD-52628 52" DLP HDTV. It goes mini-DVI to DVI to HDMI on the back of the TV. Right now I have the displays set to mirroring. The TV is 1080p, but supposedly it doesn't accept a 1080p input. The back of the TV says to set it to 1280x720 @ 60Hz. So I do it like that and the screen is pretty goddamn small. I try to use the TV to auto-position to no avail. So a goon who owns the same exact TV says this 1 input will accept 1080p, but it just bitches about it and to click through the errors to ignore them. So I did that and he's right. Now the problem is that the Macbook recognizes the monitor, but the TV displays it kind of lovely. When I compensate for overscan, the picture is too narrow and too tall, so I lose the Apple menu bar up top as well as some of the bottom while having black bars on the left and right. In addition, the text looks kind of lovely, too. When I turn off overscan compensation, text is a lot cleaner, I see the whole screen, but I have black bars on all sides. I've messed around with SwitchResX and it doesn't seem to play well with my monitor. I tried to create 1 custom resolution and it freaked my TV the gently caress out. Any ideas?
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2007 16:33
|
|
|
have you tried it without mirroring turned on incase thats causing an issue? Also everything im reading says while its 1080p nothing but the atsc tuner and firewire supports 1080p input. Your best bet is to try to set the mac to 1080i and letting the tv do the rest. Though since its a dlp there will be a bit of overscan meaning your dock and apple menu will be cutoff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2007 21:33
|
|
|
I've read this thread, and I'm honestly utterly lost. Can anyone recommend a site somewhere that could take me through the basics of building an HTPC as well as the different options when it comes to software etc?
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2007 12:55
|
|
|
HVD posted:I've read this thread, and I'm honestly utterly lost. Can anyone recommend a site somewhere that could take me through the basics of building an HTPC as well as the different options when it comes to software etc? The first thing we need to know is what you would want your HTPC to do. and HTPC is just a computer with a few specialized parts and software, and recommendations will vary based on how you want it to function.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2007 13:24
|
|
|
HVD posted:I've read this thread, and I'm honestly utterly lost. Can anyone recommend a site somewhere that could take me through the basics of building an HTPC as well as the different options when it comes to software etc? As the above user said, building your HTPC depends entirely on what you want it to do. HTPCs can be playback devices for your entire CD/MP3 library, DVD upscalers, PVRs/DVRs, and more (or all of the above). I knew of a good guide that was more linux-centric at one point, but I didn't bookmark it. This is a pretty reasonable guide: http://www.geardigest.com/2005/10/03/building_the_ultimate_home_theater_pc/ Another guide I liked: http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/HTPC.html Great Linux HTPC guide, and a good thing to read to give any potential HTPC builder a good idea of scope: http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/determining_your_needs.html Odoyle fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Mar 29, 2007 |
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2007 16:13
|
|
|
I guess I am kind of borrowing HVD's question, but I can be a little more specific. I am considering building a HTPC, but ALL I really want/need it to do is to play High Def (at least 720P) x264/avi files over HDMI/DVI with minimum 5.1 sound. I don't need to use it to watch tv, play DVD's, or do anything fancy. Can anyone point me in the least expensive direction? I would prefer it to have a decent sized hard drive, but that is not essential. EDITED to remove HD confusion. BrutusBeefcake fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Mar 29, 2007 |
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2007 18:09
|
|
|
BrutusBeefcake posted:I guess I am kind of borrowing HVD's question, but I can be a little more specific. I am considering building a HTPC, but ALL I really want/need it to do is to play High Def (at least 720P) x264/avi files over HDMI/DVI with minimum 5.1 sound. I don't need to use it to watch tv, play DVD's, or do anything fancy. Can anyone point me in the least expensive direction? I would prefer it to have a decent sized hard drive, but that is not essential. edit: perhaps the first post should be edited to list some of the better online stores and resources. http://www.htpcnews.com and http://www.thegreenbutton.com are two of the better forums out there, and I've found http://www.pcalchemy.com to have decent prices and reliable service. rivetz fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Mar 31, 2007 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2007 23:40
|
|
|
BrutusBeefcake posted:I guess I am kind of borrowing HVD's question, but I can be a little more specific. I am considering building a HTPC, but ALL I really want/need it to do is to play High Def (at least 720P) x264/avi files over HDMI/DVI with minimum 5.1 sound. I don't need to use it to watch tv, play DVD's, or do anything fancy. Can anyone point me in the least expensive direction? I would prefer it to have a decent sized hard drive, but that is not essential. Agreed with the above poster. And your build goals are essentially how I started out with my target HTPC, but I ended up wanting to add PVR functionality and stuff. I think for x264/avi 720p playback you're looking at getting a good codec (CoreAVC), a minimum 3.0 GHz processor, and about a gig of ram. I don't know what the current deal is on the video card market, but anything with DVI out should be good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2007 03:19
|
|
|
Is there any reason to keep using my Denon DVD player with the Faroudja progressive-scan chipset over a software DVD-player in my HTPC? That said, is a certain playback chain for DVDs on a PC superior? I am soon to get a 37" 720p LCD set, just so you know the screen.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2007 06:36
|
|
|
Can anyone reccomend a sound card that has good Vista support? My system isn't being used as a full fledged HTPC, but I have component and toslink cables running to my receiver for movie viewing. What I want is a soundcard that can do DD 5.1 via SPDIF, as well as have good 5.1 support via my computer speakers for gaming. The driver situation for my current onboard Audigy is somewhat lacking.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2007 20:34
|
|
|
Goldmund posted:Can anyone reccomend a sound card that has good Vista support? My system isn't being used as a full fledged HTPC, but I have component and toslink cables running to my receiver for movie viewing. What I want is a soundcard that can do DD 5.1 via SPDIF, as well as have good 5.1 support via my computer speakers for gaming. The driver situation for my current onboard Audigy is somewhat lacking. I've never been a big fan of Creative; Turtle Beach has such a good track record of decent, durable, well-supported products, I always recommend them. When I upgraded to the Barracuda I took out my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and realized with a pang that it's easily the oldest peripheral I was still using. About five years on that card, used on maybe four different PCs, and nary a hiccup or hardware conflict or anything. Can't argue with that. rivetz fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 31, 2007 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2007 21:02
|
|
|
Has anyone used a hiper system? I like the idea of the superslim line case, but how possible would it be to use one for HD recording / playback? Since you only get one expansion slot which has to be used for a tuner. Would the onboard GeForce 6150 be up to the task?
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2007 23:12
|
|
|
Finally upgrading my HTPC after many years. Got this case: Also got: PC CHIPS P23G LGA 775 VIA P4M800 PRO Micro ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Celeron D 356 Cedar Mill 3.33GHz Everything else is spare parts...
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2007 18:37
|
|
|
I just picked up a hauppauge pvr-150 MCE and am hoping to use it on my (really) old (really lovely) PC (p4 1.6, 512ram, geforce4) with sagetv. Using svideo out from the nvidia, I have noticed that the picture...well...it ain't so hot. I am doing some research and found a couple of modifications/reghacks that I can do to make it run smoother- just wondering if anyone has any suggestions, or is it a complete waste of time with this hardware?
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2007 19:45
|
|
|
I've read through this whole thread, and I'm still confused as to what the best software would be for my needs. I have my desktop pc, which is great, 1TB with tons of CD's and movies in .avi format saved. Using windows explorer is fine when I'm watching a movie on my second monitor by myself, no complaints there. The problem I'm having is that when I go home to my parents, I want to watch my movies and listen to my music on their 5.1 HD setup. What I would like to do is take my sisters old p4 celeron 2.6 box and hook it up downstairs to the tv and be able to play files over the network. Only .mp3's and .avi's, dvd's and the like can be handled by the standard dvd player. My only question is what software I will need to stream the media and organize it. Thanks
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2007 21:55
|
|
|
Cellwind929 posted:My only question is what software I will need to stream the media and organize it. Thanks Media Portal or Meedio is your answer. MP is still being developed, Meedio as a software product isn't being improved, but there is still an active community developing plugins. Try both out and go with what you like. In my opinion, MP is more geared for watching/recording TV, and Meedio is the best media collection front-end in the business. It's pretty simple to get up and running with a nice looking theme and easy access to the media.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2007 22:10
|
|
|
I messed around all evening with Meedio and its great so far. It imported all my music fine, the problem is it wont find my .avi movies. I tried every dang import option in the Meedio config, but it didn't work. So I'll look at Media Portal tomorrow if I can't figure out Meedio. I hope I can get it working because I was impressed with what I saw so far. If anyone has any ideas of how to fix it let me know.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2007 03:58
|
|
|
You may want to ask at the meedios forums. https://www.meedios.com I haven't messed with it in over a year, but If I recall, you have to make sure you have .avi listed as a filetype to read, and make sure you have the screen set as a media screen, browse wont do it. I'm not going to lie, that part of Meedio was hard to use, but stick with it for a bit. Once you get how to do things in it its actually is a pretty powerful program.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2007 05:23
|
|
|
To import avi files, make sure you are using the Tag Mask Importer, and have the file extensions set correctly ("*.mpg, *.avi, *.mkv"). Then create a Media Module, point it to the library, and change the screen to movie. If it's TV shows, I would really suggest reading through and understanding how to use the TVNight importer. Same goes with MovieNight, which is a great interface for watching movies. Info on both can be found in the plugins subforum of MeediOS. Screenshot of TVNight: 
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2007 05:39
|
|
|
I installed Meedio and am having issues playing back videos, in that many videos have audio but black screens. I usually can diagnose this to a codec issue, but they play fine in Media Player Classic. I only seem to be able to select "Default", "Overlay", "VMR7", and "VMR9". If I select WMV9 my framerate goes to poo poo. I don't know what's happening when I select that, but more videos appear to work in Meedio. I only have an athlon 2000 running at 200x10, so it's not exactly blazing fast. Any ideas?
ShaneB fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Apr 3, 2007 |
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2007 17:03
|
|
|
Strict 9 posted:I'm in the exact same position, and use Mediaportal with the MyDVD's plugin. It took maybe an hour total to setup this portion of it, and it works wonderfully.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2007 20:55
|
|
|
ShaneB posted:I installed Meedio and am having issues playing back videos, in that many videos have audio but black screens. I usually can diagnose this to a codec issue, but they play fine in Media Player Classic. I only seem to be able to select "Default", "Overlay", "VMR7", and "VMR9". If I select WMV9 my framerate goes to poo poo. I don't know what's happening when I select that, but more videos appear to work in Meedio. I only have an athlon 2000 running at 200x10, so it's not exactly blazing fast. Any ideas? Look for your video log file in C:\Docs and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Meedio. If that doesn't send you in the right direction, post over on MeediOS and someone will help you out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2007 05:16
|
|
|
Here's what I want to do. I have 350 DVDs and I want to move them to a sort of movie server. That's pretty much all I want to use it for. What's the best options for doing this? Load a basic MCE machine up with 2TB of drives and use DVD Decrypter or similar to rip all the movies? Is there another decent interface or better way to do this that I'm not aware of? WhatUpShutUp fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Apr 5, 2007 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2007 07:18
|
|
|
ShaneB posted:I installed Meedio and am having issues playing back videos, in that many videos have audio but black screens. I usually can diagnose this to a codec issue, but they play fine in Media Player Classic. I only seem to be able to select "Default", "Overlay", "VMR7", and "VMR9". If I select WMV9 my framerate goes to poo poo. I don't know what's happening when I select that, but more videos appear to work in Meedio. I only have an athlon 2000 running at 200x10, so it's not exactly blazing fast. Any ideas? The Overlay, VMR9 etc options are video overlay settings. VMR9 is a dx9 based overlay that, if you have the right hardware, will run best. I don't know about codec compatibility in overlay mode in meedio though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2007 20:16
|
|
|
I want to setup an HTPC with a newly purchased box. Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 1gb ram 250gb sata drive on-board video Vista (IT CAME INSTALLED, I SWEAR) Anyways, I'm just a little confused on how to go about it to get the best signal possible for my PPV furry porn and such. On my sharp lcd tv, I have a spare HDMI input and digital audio output (and some RCA's). I run components from my digital cable box to the TV (because the cables came with the box). I'd like to be able to record when I'm not home (so I don't care about watching one channel and recording another) and stream it back when I am home. Quality is somewhat important. I'd like to record the HD channels I get and rewatch them at the same quality. I like sound too. I don't have money coming out of my rear end (wouldn't that be a neat trick though), but I'm willing to spend a bit to ensure a decent setup. I know I need a tv tuner card and a video card (eat me on-board video). I'm somewhat clueless, so any suggestions are quite welcome! I'm going to go  while I wait for responses.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2007 12:16
|
|
|
I have a Dell Dimension 8200 Quick Specs: 2.53 Ghhz processor, 533 FSB 1 Gb RDRAM PC 800 GeForece Ti 4600 I'd really like to do a home theater PC, so I have two options: -Upgrade my current PC -Build a new one. If I upgrade, I can pretty much only get a better chip (there's only one - a 2.8 Pentium 4. The motherboard won't support anything faster than a 533 FSB I believe) and upgrade the video card. Also another gig of PC800 ram is like $500 I can sort of play HD video now (h.264) It runs okay, but when there is any action it just can't handle it. I have core acc installed, but it only helps a little bit. Is there anything I could do short of building a new PC to get this older one up to snuff? What about getting a GeForce 7 series and using Nvidia Pure Video? Would that work? If I build a new one, it'd be about $1000-$1500, since I'd make it a combo HTPC and gaming PC. Ultimately I want a laptop for general use, and a PC for gaming or watching movies.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2007 14:46
|
|
|
WhatUpShutUp posted:Here's what I want to do. I have 350 DVDs and I want to move them to a sort of movie server. That's pretty much all I want to use it for. I'm waiting for a DVD spindle that includes a drive. Like this, but instead of just searching the disk contents, it rotates to the disc you request and reads the disc. The technology certainly exists, I don't know why it hasn't beed productized. Once they put out one of these I'm all over it. Throw all my archive DVDs with all the avis on em in there, it'll rule.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2007 18:07
|
|
|
Allen Fiverson posted:Not really. I use Fair Use for DVD conversion, which not everyone likes but works fine for me. Sony makes one and it works with MCE. It costs around 500 dollars I belive.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2007 22:46
|
|
|
I have to say, getting HD content to play smoothly with VLC has proven impossible. However, Zoom Player with the CoreAVC codec (and H.264 disabled in FFDshow), HD content is as smooth as butter and looks fantastic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2007 02:41
|
|
|
Does anybody have any HDD recommendations? What brands to stay away from, what's not worth the money, etc. I'll probably be using SATA, for what it's worth.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2007 13:16
|
|
|
Mister Biff posted:Does anybody have any HDD recommendations? What brands to stay away from, what's not worth the money, etc. I'll probably be using SATA, for what it's worth. I've been consistantly buying Seagates, mainly because they are reliable, and all of them come with a 5 year warranty (versus a typical drive having a 3 year warranty). You can check the decibel rating too, as it is something listed in the specs of a HDD.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2007 16:55
|
|
|
I think this is sort of in the right spot. I just got an HDTV and I hooked up my desktop computer to it (DVI>HDMI), and I'm outputting different HD things from my computer to the TV. It works pretty decently except maybe every couple minutes it will skip for a second, then go back to normal. Now I installed Vista on my desktop a little bit back to play around with it, and I was wondering how much that could affect my video performance, like if I installed XP again do you think the odd little skip would go away totally? Just for reference I'm using AMD 64-bit 3000+ 1 gb ram Nvidia 6600 GT Could it also be the drivers for the nvidia card? I hear theyre not that well developed, or is that the best playback I can expect with that setup?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2007 00:55
|
|
|
Binton posted:Just for reference I'm using Could be just just about anything, really. I'd make an image of your current install to make things easier later on and wipe the setup and install XP and see if that fixes anything. Before that, though, I'd see if there's anything like anti-virus or some background program that runs intermittently that's causing the stutter. I'd also try out some different drivers if you can find any. Also, I think 1gb of ram is a little weak for a Vista setup. Good luck!
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2007 01:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 04:35 |
|
|
Praesil posted:I have a Dell Dimension 8200 It seems like you are in new build territory if you want HD playback. As you noticed, you cannot get too much more out of your current setup if you upgrade. I put together a new build several months ago that only ended up being $625. That included: ECS C19-A SLI BFG Tech GeForce 7300GS 512MB 2 X CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 Intel Pentium D 930 Presler 3.0GHz LGA 775 Dual Core Antec SmartPower 500w PS It was a cheap build and runs media great including HD. I don't game much, but I have no problems running HL2, Doom 3, etc. Putting some more cash into a better video card would likely get you to where you want. This has been awhile, so you could likely get a few steps up on the Proc for the same price now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2007 05:53
|
|
