Another HTPC thread. Popcorn C-200. Bewilderment.

Just as I was about to hit BUY on a WD TV LIVE HD media player I noticed the
existance of the C-200. Has anyone been using this Popcorn device? Three
times the price of the WD but it has slots for HDD and Blu-Ray and I don't
care what it costs if it generally supports a lot more functionality. I have
a TB NAS anyhoo for storage.

Seems to me that building an HTPC with HD video/audio is an expensive
project compared to using a £100 'streamer (though it is another damn device
and handset lying around. An Asus Xonar sound card is £140 alone and the
current AMD 2700 processor isn't going to cut the mustard so that's a new
chip and motherboard.

 

Checked the PopCorn...
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productspec&item_id=12

At that price or lower you can get some mini-itx mobo+processor and a
case, HDMI video output and 5.1 audio included. Not sure, but you I
think should de able. Then power it with XBMC
http://xbmc.org/about/

Note that PopCorn uses a 667MHz processor that is below the specs of
my shite olde Via Epia 800 (running at 800MHz and being able to do
some video transcoding)

Sure Popcorn works out of the box, but a hand-made HTPC is a creature
you get to love, and as a winter project your living room is warmer
than the shed

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

Post corrected

I looked at getting the Popcorn, wes very very tempted but decided to go for
Squeezebox as I didn't need any video capability.

If I wanted something to do audio and video I'd get the C-200 without
hesitation.

 

Squeezebox Touch combined with a FreeNAS server or USB disks seems to be
what I was looking for, thanks!

http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/products/squeezebox-touch.html

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

Don't know if you're an iPhone user but if you are check out iPeng when you
get the SqueezeBox. Very nice control app.

 

Nice, but it isn't an HD video device.

For £100 delivered I'm going to order the WD HD Live box. WTF. It overcomes
the current HTPC limitation by playing ripped Blu-ray movies. Sadly my
Panasonic plasma display has only 2xHDMI ports and the HTPC and DVD/Surround
system use them up. There seem to be autosensing HDMI mini hubs available
though and the WD and DVD will never be in contention.

For no reason other than geekiness I want (ultimately) a large expensive
energy hungry PC based HTPC with a multi region Blu-ray RW drive, DTS-HD 7.1
sound and lots of flashy LED's. I hadn't realised the Asus Xonar does video
processing as well and has 2xHDMI outputs.

Mindewe I fancy one of those Xonar Essence STX cards for hi-fi audio

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

The HD is superfluous

When you get one of these let me know how it works.

I want something that'll take upto 5 HDMI inputs, has 2 HDMI outputs and can
also output the audio to a seperate digital socket to pipe to the amp.

I've got a lovely SD > HD scaler that can do all that, but because its main
purpose is to scale SD up it doesn't auto switch the output frequency to
match the input. (in spite of the manual saying it should do)

So I end up with 1080i/60Hz input, 1080i/50Hz output and the picture shifted
to the left by a third until I switch the output to 1080i/60Hz.

Don't forget it's go to go "Ping!" as well.

 

Habba Hubba Hubba
www.quietpc.com/ie-en-eur/products/watercooling/reserator1-v2

 

I suppose I'm mainly playing music and DVD from HDD. I'll go into the
rental shop, take 4 films for a night or whatever they have going, then
DVDFab them for future consumption. Or I might have the odd 1080P Blu-Ray
from <cough> Rapidshare. The WD box will allow me to play 1080P HD without
upgrading the PC. Looking around the new top end
case/motherboard/processor/psu etc is in the £600+ range.

But now you mention it, would be nice to have an intelligent PVR function
that can grab a program (or Series) and would pick up any changes in
transmission time (and skip blipverts). What does one need to add to
achieve that? Can it be fed from the TV tuner or perhaps I can guess you
need a TV card and aerial feed (and software).

I unwrapped XBMC on Monday and just started to look through it.

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

**** me, the radiator / reservoir is a bit OTT.

No fan on the CPU/GFX but it does have a water pump. I hope it's a quiet one.

I'd be tempted to plumb in the living room radiator.

 

Have you found anything to convert the recordings to AVI/MPEG or
anything else that works outside W7? That's the only thing pissing me
off with it at the moment. Well that & the lack of a decent interface
for organising channels.

 

I guess a new box will end up W7. What about the hardware for TV capture
etc?

 

Ooh ta, I'll try that.

You still only using it with a PVR-150 through your Sky box...? If so,
imagine what it's like when you've got 1000ish freesat & freeview
channels in no particular order to sort out.

 

What source(s)?

 

Interesting. Some of the Humax PVRs have been experiencing problems
that can be sorted by doing a manual channel search to ensure only one
transmitter is being used.

 

I'm doing that - slowly. And re-ordering, & building 'Favourites'
groups, & changing the tuner preference, because....

....of that. I've had the same problem on some channels, but they're
available on freesat too so I've just done the 'edit sources' thing &
switched off the freeview feed.

 

Just coax aerial and Freeview

 

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_novat500.html if you get
all the channels you want on Freeview. If you want to record analogue
too you'll need something like a Hauppauge PVR150 too. Don't be tempted
by one of the cards with software analogue decoders - they're shit.