jrandeck

[jrandeck]

Just to add my experiences:

I have a first gen Vertex 120GB in my work laptop that’s been going strong for 1.5 years so far.  SSDLife says I’ve used 70% of it’s life span at this point, though.  It gets used pretty heavily.

I bought 2 60 GB Agility 2 drives last December.  One is still running as the OS drive in my wife’s desktop, but the other recently quit being recognized by the system.  I ran it in a desktop PC for a few months, then it got moved into my HTPC when I rebuilt that a few months ago.   I’m still waiting on the replacement from OCZ.

I also have a 120 GB Vertex 2 that was giving me problems with an older motherboard.  I’d get frequent blue screens with the SSD, sometimes before Windows finished installing.  The computer was working fine without the drive so I RMA’ed it, but the replacement has the same issues on that motherboard.  I moved it into my server and am running a few VMs on it now which seems to be working fine.  I’ve also started seeing the same blue screen messages on the old PC without the SSD now (though much less frequently), so I’m thinking there’s something going bad on the motherboard that the SSD was more sensitive to.

 

 

[jrandeck]

I have my Ceton card in my main HTPC since I do all my recording there anyway.   I already have my HDHomerun using network bandwidth while recording and sometimes have glitches that might be attributable to networking issues, so why burden my cable card recordings with that as well?  Theoretically gigabit ethernet should be able to handle it, but in practice sometimes it doesn’t work like that, at least for me.

Now, if your cable drop happens to be next to your server rather than your HTPC then I can understand putting the tuner there 😉

[jrandeck]

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

Also, I never considered putting the Ceton in the NAS, so far away from the TV, but (as it happens) a lot closer to the router. I just assumed it had to be in my HTPC right by the TV. Any other considerations to account for there?

[/quote]

 

If you just have one HTPC I wouldn’t bother with trying to put  the InfiniTV in some other box.  The only reasons to do that (IMO) would be if it doesn’t fit in the HTPC or if for some reason you don’t have a cable outlet near your HTPC.   Even if the InfiniTV physically resides in another computer, such as a WHS, all the recording still happens on the HTPC, but now the data from the card needs to come over your network so there can be issues that you won’t have with a local tuner.

[jrandeck]

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

Phase 1: I need either a Colossus 1414 or a 1212 PVR (in case I want the PVR to be more mobile).  I was going to pull the trigger on the 1212, but everyone except Hauppauge is out of stock right now and the eBay market is getting pricier. So I’m thinking 1414 also due to price (even though the 1414 seems to get few, and sometimes convincingly bad, user reviews on Amazon & Newegg).

…

While Netflixing is a great idea that hadn’t hit me yet, my #1 is actually >1yr of cooking shows (in SD) my wife & I use for reference … not on Netflix.  DVR has done a great job of filling up with non-repeats. We used to collect them on 6hr VHS and catalog what was where, but obviously doing the same thing digitally makes it a whole lot easier, and then I can start collecting them slowly in HD (but I’d rather have them at all first).

And my #2 is actually home made movies on VHS-C from when my 14 & 11 yrs old were ~2yrs old (from a 1995 RCA “small wonder” CC612, which is larger than my DSLR and my Canon Vixia put together).  No choice there; the time on both will be worth it to me. But for anything Netflixable, I totally get it; thx for the idea.

[/quote]

 

One point that just occurred to me that should probably be made regarding your #1 & #2 use cases is that if the content is standard definition (VHS tapes and your cooking shows) then the Hauppauge 1212 or 1414 might be overkill.

  If you have a lot of HD shows on your current DVR that you want to move off, then great, go ahead with that, but if you have mostly SD and don’t need the HD stuff to remain in HD, then an SD capture card or analog (NTSC) TV tuner card with an S-Video input (or composite if that’s all your STB has) could get the job done for less money.  I’ve converted VHS Tapes by setting up a manual recording and using the S-Video input on my ATI tuner card in the past, but I’d imagine that a dedicated capture device would have software that’s a little easier to set up and use for that scenario.

Other than cost, the other thing to consider is that the 1212 or 1414 might give you smaller files for a given quality since they use a more advanced codec than the SD cards (at least the ones I’ve used which had mpeg-2 encoders.)

Hopefully, this won’t confuse the issue, but it might be a valid option. 

[jrandeck]

 

I agree with what’s been said about the Colossus and a cable card tuner being the best approach, but I thought I’d try to answer some of your other questions.

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

So, some device/s are necessary for this, but when I shop for which ones, I get confused about what actually does what in the real world in order to understand the selections.  So I don’t know which or how many but I want the fewest without sacrificing. My questions are (from another similar thread):

Is a Hauppauge Colossus 1414 the best internal answer? It sounds like it would handle 1 & 2, but what about 3 & 4? But with a STB, would it only record the channel I’m watching, or can it record something I’m not watching?

[/quote]

The Colossus uses the component video output from your set top box, so it can only record what the box is tuned to.  You can watch recordings from the HTPC form other channels while recording with the Colossus, but the only live channel you’ll be able to watch is the one that’s being recorded.

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

I’ve also read some about the different types of signals from channels (NTSC, ATSC, QAM) but I don’t know how to tell which channels are which or how that might limit the 1414.

Then there are similar cards with tuners, but not cablecards (e.g., Hauppauge 1129 WinTV-HVR-1850). How do they figure into my intended design? Is the “tuner” part necessary? Is there a difference between this and the 1414? What should I be looking for?

[/quote]

NTSC = the old analog broadcast standard.  I don’t think FIOS uses this at all, and even if it does, you’ll be happier with digital options.

ATSC = the new digital broadcast standard used for over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV.  You won’t get those over FIOS, you’d need an external antenna. This is also an option you don’t need to worry about because you get your local channels via FIOS.

QAM = digital cable.  Most QAM tuners such as the Hauppauge 1850 record only unencrypted QAM which generally limits you to your local channels.   I thought at at one point Verizon sent all of their channels in the clear, but that might have changed, or I might be mistaken, so there’s a risk for this type of tuner.  On the other hand, they’re inexpensive. 

DCT = Digital Cable Card Tuner.  This is the only type of tuner that can decrypt encrypted cable channels (encrypted QAM). 

Hope that helps.

 

[jrandeck]

[quote=mikinho]

I wouldn’t suggest using this RAM w/ 16GB.  I’ve tested it in 12 systems and at 16GB it is NOT stable.

[/quote]

 

Were you testing it at the rated speed or a step slower?   In every system I’ve ever tried to put 4 sticks of memory into over the last several years I’ve had to back the memory clock off one step to make the system stable. (Of course it hasn’t been that often, really.)

I’ve never tried buying a matched set of 4 sticks to get around that, but from what I’ve read, that’s the fix for the issue.

 

[jrandeck]

I built a system very much like that in the OP a couple of years ago.  I used a Zotac GF9300-D-E mini-ITX motherboard and a Celeron 450 Conroe-L CPU.

It worked pretty well for most HTPC tasks.  I don’t recall how well Netflix streaming did on it, but I know I had issues with Blu-Ray playback stuttering on several disks which disappointed me enough that the system saw little use.  Maybe the problem was the OEM version of Power DVD 8, but I expected decent hardware acceleration with the 9300 GPU.

If I had to do it again today, I would definitely go with something newer.  The Sandy Bridge system that was recommended will produce a much better experience for not much more money than the Celeron system.

 

[jrandeck]

[quote=santanan]

From what I’ve been reading, it sounds like the client HTPC looses connection the WHS if you aren’t watching anything or accessing anything from the WHS.  In a home network environment, this type of situation happens on a regular basis.

[/quote]

That might be the case, though I don’t know why it would be happening, I’m not using sleep mode on either the HTPC or the Home Server, and there’s just the one switch between them.

The other thing I’m seeing occasionally is that even when the shows show up in the Recorded TV list, I get the “cannot find file” error when I go to play them. 

I guess I’ll just chalk it up to Media Center’s Recorded TV library not liking network shares and use the TV Library plugin or the Videos library instead.

 

[jrandeck]

[quote=RehabMan]

Is the share the standard “Recorded TV” share provided by default in WHS 2011, or is it an additional share?

If additional share, are you sure it is being indexed?  You will need to RDP into the server and look at control panel Indexing Options.

Also, if you view the Recorded TV library properties from the HTPC client, does it show as indexed?  I forget what will show there, but if it is not indexing it will show something like “unresponsive” or something like that.

[/quote]

I just noticed that Media Center wasn’t showing the shared files again (it was previously) so I went and checked things out again.

The Recorded TV library looks fine and up-to-date from Windows explorer, all of the files show up in the directories where they should be.  They just don’t show up in the recorded TV list in Media Center.

The shares are additional shares, not Recorded TV from within WHS.  I checked them on the server and they are set up to be indexed (and appear to be fine when viewed from Windows Explorer on the client).

They show up consistently in the TV Library plugin, so I guess I’ll just tell everyone to go there to watch them 🙂 The UI is nicer there anyway.

 

 

[jrandeck]

Is it a problem if the Recorded TV library doesn’t show up under Favorites?   (Though right now Media Center is finding the shows on the share just fine, it’s an intermittent problem.)

[jrandeck]

The local Recorded TV folder works fine.  The share is set up as an additional folder, and that’s the one that keeps disappearing.

[jrandeck]

The share is being hosted by WHS 2011, so there shouldn’t be any Samba issues.  The server is running (no sleep mode) and there’s not much other network traffic going on.  

Both the Media Center PC and the WHS are connected to the same 24 port D-Link switch at 1Gbps.

 

[jrandeck]

OK, maybe I have a screwball setup.

Does anyone else put recorded TV on a network share and access it from within Media Center?   What kinds of issues have you run into?

 

[jrandeck]

I have a Firefly Mini which is what it sounds like you have (the regular Firefly is not exactly dinky.)   It works pretty well as is for Media Center, though the buttons might not all match up.  I haven’t used mine with Media Center for a while so I don’t remember specifics, but it seemed to work fine for basic control.

I haven’t tried using its receiver with a Harmony.  I just got a Harmony, though, so I’ll have to give that a try and see how it works.

The remote I use most is  a Gyration remote.  Unfortunately they’re discontinued but you can still find them if you hunt.  It has universal remote capabilities (and can learn codes from another remote) but doesn’t have a lot of the automatic features you get from a Harmony or some other universal remotes.  The Gyration also doubles as a mouse, though, which is very handy, especially if you’re not in Media Center all the time.   I don’t mind having to push extra buttons to control the receiver or TV when it means having the convenience of having a mouse always there.

BTW, the regular Firefly is an RF remote, so a Harmony won’t work with it.  I don’t think there are RF universal remotes that would work with the Firefly receiver.  I have the same issue with the Gyration since it’s PC control is RF.

 

[jrandeck]

That’s pretty cheap.  FYI, it looks like Microsoft has dropped the price so we may see prices in this range for a while:

Microsoft Slashes the Price of Windows Home Server 2011

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