Aaron Ledger

[Aaron Ledger]

You could check your display manual to see what formats are supported. You could also check your display properties on your HTPC to see if the 23Hz and 24Hz options are available. They generally are not if the display doesn’t support those formats.

I haven’t played with the most recent iteration of TMT5, but there may be a configuration value that tells you whether the 24p capability is enabled. Your display may also tell you what input format it is receiving. You could also try checking the current display properties while content is playing back to see what the PC is configured for.

[Aaron Ledger]

Do you know if TMT5 is automatically switching to 24p? This is a fairly new feature for TMT5 and some versions were switching the refresh rate to 24Hz (24.000 Hz) instead of 23Hz (23.976 Hz) which will cause a dropped frame to occur around the interval you suggest. If that’s not enough, Intel boards also require a BIOS update to correctly use the 23Hz setting with UAC enabled (and some boards needed the update to occur via the recovery method).

[Aaron Ledger]

While you will be able to utilize the TV’s DLNA capabilities, the user interface may not be friendly or appealing (make sure to try it out before you purchase with the intent that it will be your primary experience). Building an an HTPC can result in a richer, more usable and integrated experience than what you have set forth. You will have the capability of adding OTA and/or cable tuners for DVR capability in addition to accessing photos, music, movies and video from a single interface. Why not utilize one of your existing PCs to get a feel for it before building a system?

[Aaron Ledger]

The simple answer is that wireless is not as easy to stream as wired. It can be possible to have success with wireless depending on the exact requirements and circumstances, but it’s not sure-fire.

An alternative wired connection technology using coaxial cable (stuff you may already have in your walls for CATV/Cable modem) is MoCA. I have been using some Netgear MoCA bridges successfully in my apartment that was not wired with twisted pair. It can handle the full bit rate of Blu-ray without issue.

[Aaron Ledger]

You could potentially set up your NIC to wake up for directed traffic, but you may find your PC waking up for a lot more than when you want. WOL is more specific and the best thing to use, but it does require something to send the WOL packet. One program you could use to provide this function in an automated way on the PC is DVRMSToolbox.

While the Xbox acting as a WMC extender does send WOL packets; IIRC, some of the other manufacturers’ extenders may not have performed this function.

[Aaron Ledger]

You will need a single TA with the InfiniTV 4. The analog channels are most likely all simulcast digitally.

[Aaron Ledger]

Andrew’s suggestions are also good. The quickest sure fix is to add a fan to generate local airflow over the card. If you’re willing to experiment, you could also try installing both of the case fans such that they exhaust and then remove an expansion slot cover next to the InfiniTV. The idea here is that you are drawing cool air in from outside the case through the expansion area which then gets exhausted out by the fans after passing over the InfiniTV.

I’ve attached your picture with the potential fan locations. As Andrew said, cardboard, double-sided foam tape or velcro, etc. will come in handy for mounting the fan.

[Aaron Ledger]

All you need to do is make the Recorded TV folder shared so that your other PCs have access and then in WMC on each PC you want to see it on, add it as a library.

[Aaron Ledger]

At a glance, it appears you might be able to stick a 40 or 60mm fan on the side of the drive cage to push air onto the InfiniTV. It looks like the expansion card area is a bit of a dead zone with respect to airflow and the chassis configuration, but it should be easily rectified with the added fan.

[Aaron Ledger]

Well, you can’t turn your PC into a Windows Media Center extender. The only current available extender on the market is the Xbox 360 and it has somewhat limited support with respect to container and codec support. If you can play by its rules, you can have a good experience, otherwise, it will be limiting.

There are some discontinued extenders from D-link, Linksys, HP, etc.

Ceton announced at CES that they will be bringing an extender named “Echo” to the market. You can read more about it here. Fair warning, I am employed by Ceton.

With that being said, I guess the decision you need to make is whether you want to invest in the extender architecture or keep the multi-PC architecture you have.

[Aaron Ledger]

If your needs are strictly TV, the extender model will work better than using multiple PCs because all of the tuners, guides, recording schedules and stored content are unified on the PC. The extender simply accesses those resources. The extender can become more limiting if your sources of video content begin straying from TV to something such as ripped BDs.

[Aaron Ledger]

Yep, the Clear-fi software is actually made by CyberLink for Acer (at least in part).

[Aaron Ledger]

That is strange. A quick search for DMRengine.exe reveals that this is part of a CyberLink product. Perhaps you should try uninstalling that (at least temporarily) as part of the troubleshooting process.

[Aaron Ledger]

Have you filed a support ticket with SiliconDust?

[Aaron Ledger]

You can play the problem files in VLC now without issue just by installing Shark007 codec pack?

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