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[Chroner]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I’ll definitely miss that capability from SageTV.  It was especially nice during football season, heh. 

[Chroner]

Installed the new tuner I got from the RMA, still having the same problems. I’m not sure what to try next.

[Chroner]

I was having problems with the updated firmware.  Ceton decided to RMA my tuner and I received the new hardware yesterday.  I plan on installing tonight so hopefully, that will fix my issue.

[Chroner]

I ended up going with a 3570K for the HD4000 and an intel DH77EB.  I couldn’t wait on the next round of chips to hit retail.  Parts should be coming in this week and Im hoping to assemble this weekend.  I took advantage of the ceton deal at amazon over the weekend and grabbed an infiniTV4.

Thanks everyone for the tips.  It should be interesting getting used to windows media center, as I’ve been using sageTV for so long now heh.

[Chroner]

I’m ready to start putting together a hardware list and figured Id post here for suggestions.

I’m planning to grab an ivy bridge chip but haven’t figured if I’ll be using the built in graphics yet.  If I go with the built in graphics I’d probably grab a 3570K for the 4000 graphics.  My other option is to go with a less expensive chip and use a nvidia gts 450 i’ve got on the shelf.  The primary use of the machine will be TV record/watch, DVD/Bluray, and web browsing so I’m not anticipating a need for powerful graphics.  Any thoughts?

I’m also looking for sugestions on boards.  If I go with the 3570K and 4000 graphics, I’ll probably look for a microATX board since I won’t have to worry about any full height cards.  Perhaps something like GIGABYTE GA-Z77M-DH3.  If I use the gts 450, I’d probably go with a full size ATX build and grab something like GA-Z77-DH3.

The only cards I anticipate having are a ceton infiniTV 4 and potentially a graphics card.  I’ll use the mobo onboard sound and NIC.

Anything I am missing?

[Chroner]

I forgot to ask about commercial detection/skipping.  Are there WMC addons that allow use of tools like commercialskip?  Are there any problems implementing it with potentially DRM flagged content?

[Chroner]

[quote=umdivx]

Andy covered most of it but wanted to address this.

[quote=Chroner] I wasn’t sure what you meant by share the guide but not the tuner (what good is a guide if you cant tune anything).[/quote]

PC2 in MCE world is like a dumb extender you can run MCE UI, access non-copy protected content, but say you wanted to set a new recording on PC2 instead of getting up to access PC1. You can share the guide data, set recordings, and mange recordings from PC2 with plugins. 

 -Josh

[/quote]

it is my understanding that the ceton card has multiple tuners that can be ‘allocated’ to different machines since they act as network tuners.  would i be able to allocate 1 of the tuners to PC2 (with the remaining allocated to PC1) and then record or view live content on PC2?  So for example, i could be watching live content using PC1 (or content that was recorded on PC1) in 1 room, while my wife could be using PC2 to watch live content (or content recorded on PC 2). 

Is that correct?

 

[quote=babgvant]

[quote=Chroner]

Any suggestions on graphics? Are onboard graphics to the point where i wouldnt have to worry about a discrete card?

[/quote]

Yes, if you’re starting fresh onboard graphics is more than enough unless you are planning to play a lot of games. Both AMD’s Llano and Intel’s Sandy Bridge (SNB) IPGs are excellent choices. Personally I prefer SNB because it’s easier to configure and the drivers tend to be more stable. That said, because of the timing I’d say wait for Ivy Bridge (IVB); it will be better in every way compared to SNB (lower power, faster GPU, faster CPU, etc).

[/quote]

is there an expected timeframe on IVB?  I’m not in a particular rush to swap hardware at this point, but i was thinking of doing it prior to summer.  I’d probably try to keep the budget for the upgrade around $700 including the tuners.  I figure around $250-300 for tuners, $150-200 for cpu, $100-150 for mobo, $40-50 for memory.  I plan to use my existing HDD’s and case, but I’ll have to take a look at the PSU to see if it will be sufficient.

[Chroner]

 

thanks again for the great responses.  i want to make sure I have all the info before I talk to the wife about changing our current setup, hah.

[quote=umdivx]

[quote]Does WMC allow other PC’s to act as extenders?[/quote]

Again No. This has been one of the reasons many went to SageTV and elsewhere, but extenders are honestly just as good.

 

[quote]If I want to access media files on the recording PC from another PC on my network does WMC act as the GUI or do I have to use a typical file manager (like windows explorer) to access the content?[/quote]

You can share your recorded tv folder and load it up on another PC, using the Media Center UI, you just can’t share tuners, and the guide data from the “main” Media Center PC. There are apps out there that will share your guide data but they still will not share your tuners.

 [/quote]

I have extra PC’s, I don’t have any extenders like an xbox.

just a few more specific questions:

1)Assume I have PC1 with a cablecard tuner and PC2 is a laptop on my network, both running win7.  If PC1 records a show that is set to be DRM flagged can I then use WMC to watch that recorded show on PC2 at a later time or is it only accessible using PC1?

2)Can I use PC2 to initiate a recording using the tuners in PC1?

from your response it sounds like 1) would be possible, but i wanted to verify if DRM flag would prevent it.  I wasn’t sure what you meant by share the guide but not the tuner (what good is a guide if you cant tune anything).

 

3)Can existing recordings I have from Sage be easily imported into WMC (probably ~400 recordings)?

4)If I were to use something like “WMC Recording Storage Pooler” would all recordings be accessible or only the ones on the currently ‘active’ recording drive?

 

[Chroner]

thanks for the responses.  i am starting to lean more towards a WMC setup.  I have a couple of questions though:

if i do not go with a cablecard tuner, are IR blasters the only option for controlling an external STB with WMC or is there a firewire type solution similar to what I have working in SageTV?

Does WMC allow other PC’s to act as extenders?  If I want to access media files on the recording PC from another PC on my network does WMC act as the GUI or do I have to use a typical file manager (like windows explorer) to access the content?

Does WMC allow for integration with streamed content, like netflix?

Is there a way that I can check if my recordings would be flagged copy-once without actually getting everything up and running?  Would there be evidence of that flag in the STB diagnostics menus?

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