[sf-lug] HTPC How-Tos advice?

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:54 AM, John Lowry <johnlowry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Blake Haggerty wrote:
>>
>> I have built a few HTPCs Some with Ubuntu others with Windows.
>>  I know what I look for in a HTPC but everyones different:     My advice
>> would be don't use a "old pc"
>
> I second that, if you are planning on doing anything with encoding or
> decoding on the fly you will want as "beefy" as you can get.
>>
>>  Things I want in a HTPC:
>>  Whisper Quiet
>
> Do not forget heat either, I had my old MythTV machine that ran way too hot
> for my AV cabinet. It was actually putting out so much heat that my PS3,
> also a hot running device, was having issues. I eventually got a better form
> factor cabinet for getting rid of heat and better heat sinks for my CPU.
> Lots of copper to try to keep the fans from needing to kick in.
>

One way to deal with the heat issue is to use MythTV's
frontend-backend setup. The backend can sit in the garage or attic or
some favorite place where heat and noise aren't an issue and your
frontend machine (XBox classic?) can be in the AV cabinet and be nice
and quiet. Backend <-->Frontend over Wi-Fi can be a bit sputtery
(standard def TV, not for HD) but Ethernet is very reliable. Gigabit
Ethernet is terrific.

>
>>  But if your going to just be using it to record/watch TV - Ubuntu should
>> work just fine with MythTv.
>

Ubuntu spin for MythTV  http://www.mythbuntu.org/

cheers,
Sameer (also working for the State of CA, also taking forced vacations :-))


> So Hauppauge has a great product that you can use with either Cable or
> satellite TV that I go with now. It is an external USB device that takes
>  component video and converts for you. you still need a receiver from the
> cable or satellite people for it to work, but you can control your recording
> experience with it. MythTV supports it in SVN and as of 2.6.30 the  mainline
> kernel has a driver for it as well.
>
> http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
>
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Blake Haggerty
>> __
>>  -----Original Message-----
>> *From:*Taylor gray.race at gmail.com
>> *To:* "sf-lug at linuxmafia.com" ;
>> *Sent:* Oct 29, 2009 09:30:40 AM
>> *Subject:* [sf-lug] HTPC How-Tos advice?
>>
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>> First time poster here. Working for the state I now have a few forced
>> vacations. A project that I've been meaning to get started on is setting up
>> an old PC as a HTPC device. I already have an external NAS to hook into it
>> for storage. What I'm looking to do is set it up as a streaming server for
>> UPnP devices in my home and possibly also access it from off-site.
>
> MediaTomb, http://mediatomb.cc/, for DLNA streaming works pretty good for
> me. It takes a little tweeking to get it to work with certain devices.
>
> For remote playback Ampache has been pretty good to me. I even have an app
> that will play it on my G1. http://ampache.org/
>
>
>> In the future I might also look into cable capture. I know very little in
>> this area other than theoretically there are cable cards that enable this? I
>> use comcast so anyone who has advice here I'd be curious about as well.
>
> Again, I recommend the Hauppauge device I linked above, just because you are
> then not tied to one type of source for input. Also, more and more cable
> companies are encrypting their content over the wire and if you do not have
> a cable card capable device, non of which currently have linux support, you
> are SOL for that input. That being said if you want to do over there air or
> unencrypted cable you can use a card that supports it.  There is a lot of
> support in the Linux kernel for various cards, but you can choose to go with
> a vendor you KNOW supports linux.
>
> http://www.pchdtv.com/
>
>
>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Taylor
>>
>>
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