UKC

Hello all,

I'm currently thinking about the possibility of building myself a media centre PC to conect to my tv.

However I am not the most technically minded of people! I've had a bit of a read around, but I'd be interested in hearing the views of those o you in the know!

What I'd like is something that I can play:

Music (downloaded or streamed (e.g with spotify))
Radio (live most important)
Downloaded video files
Streamed videos
Live TV (with the option to record it to hard disk)

If I put a TV tuner card in - will this be able to get anything that my TV currently gets (more chanels etc)?

OpenELEC on a self built PC seems to be the way forward, but any suggestions or comments would be gratefully received.

Ta,

H

In reply to sweenyt:

If you're in Bristol, pop into Richer Sounds on Whiteladies Road and discuss it with them.
They really know their stuff, but from my limited experience, it sounds like that it's an 'AV Receiver' that you are looking for.

In reply to FactorXXX:

OK thanks.

In reply to sweenyt:
My Media centre is my desktop computer with a dual channel TV card inside it, something like this one.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kworld-PlusTV-PE355-2T-Express-Remote/dp/B00368CT34...

Mine is a few years old and has never failed me yet.

I simply plug a TV cable, from the roof, into the computer and then plug my computer into my TV with a HDMI cable. This means that either your computer has a HDMI port or you buy a cheap Graphics's card with a HDMI port.

My computer runs Window's 7 and I use the bog standard Window's Media Centre for everything. I let it automatically tune all the available TV and Radio stations that I can receive in my area and let the automatic programmer tell me what is available over the next two weeks.

With a dual channel TV card I can record two shows together, or record one show and record another or any combination that takes my fancy. I can choose to record one show or set the Media Centre to record an entire series.

I can pause Live TV or Live radio and come back to it when the interruption has been told to fek off.

The Media Centre can also play music, movies or show photos. Personally I use the Window's Media Centre for TV and Radio 2. I use either VLC or Window's Media Player, not to be confused with Media Centre, to watch my downloaded movies and TV shows.

The only down side to using my desktop is the drone of the computer fans but you could build a fan-less, or almost fan-less silent computer. The drone of the fans is drowned out by movies anyway and I've had this set-up for years so I have tuned out the fan noise.

Any computer will work as a media centre provided you have a TV card and a graphics card with HDMI ports. You'll need a big hard drive to record the TV and collect movies.


Rather than trying to control my media centre from the sofa with a wireless mouse I use either my Tablet or smart-phone to control everything as touch-pad mouse and keyboard. It takes all of 5 minutes to set up and works perfectly every time.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gmote.client.android

Another option, which is totally silent and can be made on a shoestring is, what I have at work. I have a Raspberry Pi duct-taped to an external hard drive which is full of movies and TV shows. This is then plugged into the HDMI slot of the TV. This is then controlled with a wireless mouse. I would use gmote but there is no wifi access at work, and the mouse works perfectly well.

Raspberry Pi £32-80
http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?sku=SC12831

SD Card (Must be Class 10 for best results) £7-45

Wifi Dongle £8-39
http://cpc.farnell.com/element14/wipi/dongle-wifi-usb-for-raspberry-pi/dp/S...

External hard drive, either going spare or your choice of cost

Wireless mouse, either going spare or your choice

HDMI full-size cable scrounged

Micro USB phone charger scrounged

Raspberry Pi XBMC software
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi

In reply to The Lemming:

Blimey... a comprehensive reply!! Many thanks!

In reply to sweenyt:


I try to do stuff on the cheap with what is around me.

There are other options like Google Chromecast, Roku, miracast, apple TV and many other options.

At the Moment Chromecast mainly works with a web browser but that will slowly change when more companies unlock any possible potential

Miracast is another wireless streaming technology which cuts out the HDMI cable, but as yet its not quite up to scratch and if it does solve the delay and screen freezing issues then this could be the killer app of the future. As it is there is no overall winner in wireless media streaming.

I can also plug my phone and tablet directly into the TV, again as silent and capable media centres. They are also cheap as I only have to buy cables to plug into the TV.

You have a shed load of options. Only 10 years ago I was restricted to VGI and s-video cables.

In reply to The Lemming:

I think the thing that is confusing me the most is which software to go with. I love the idea of a nice all in one (like XBMC) but that seems to have all sorts of live tv issues.

Windows media center on the other hand is fine with live tv, but apparently isnt as ice to use, and you have to pay for it...

The number of options may well be my biggest problem!!

Thanks for your help though!!

In reply to sweenyt:

Window's Media Centre is free on Window's 7 and its fine and dandy to use. It may not be free in Window's 8 but you would be in one of a very small group of people to use this new operating system, no matter how Microsoft spins the statistics.

XBMC is excellent to use on a Window's computer and can be more powerful in its features.

In reply to sweenyt:

Excellent post.
Thanks for the info, Lemming.

In reply to sweenyt:

I have gone down the more straightlaced route of getting an Apple tv and then rather than just use the chanels availabel on that, I use my Ipad to stream 4od, bbc chanels etc, this combined with Amazon player (comes with Amazon Prime) is more than enough Tv for most people. You tube has come into its own especialy for music (all hooked up to sound system)

In reply to sweenyt:

You don't need very much for a media centre these days since even the most noddy PCs will stream high definition video. We have a couple of these at work

http://www.zotac.com/

They only cost a couple of hundred quid and are small, cool looking and pretty powerful considering their size. I would highly recommend.

Failing that, I quite fancy having an investigate into a Google Chromecast. At £30 you can't loose. Did you also know that you can upload 20,000 tracks to your own Google Music account... for free!

In reply to ByEek:

I resisted this for a while but relented and realised that its a cracking feature. Its like SONOS but cheaper with the Bluetooth speaker of your choice.

In reply to The Lemming:


Agreed. The problem I have is my home PC is filling up with huge amounts of rather valuable personal data like photos and music (spent hours ripping hundreds of CDs). The idea that a simple hard disk failure could wipe it all scares me to death.

In reply to ByEek:



Please tell me that you have a plan/set-up to survive this, and that everything that you have is not on one, and only one, hard drive.

In reply to The Lemming:

Oh yes. I have a couple of backups. But if our house burned down or it all got knicked, I would be screwed. Sadly the cost of storing 100GB (and growing) off site is a bit prohibitive and putting 10GB here and 10GB there (as per free offerings) would just become a nightmare to administer. I know I am not alone with this.

In reply to ByEek:

One way would be to buy an external hard drive and give it to a mate or relative to store in a sock drawer. It would be off-site and cheaper than the unsafe cloud. I do not trust The Cloud and only store the odd thing that I need to pass to a friend that is too big for email attachments.

As for the risk of fire, I put an external hard drive + DVD's + important documents up to A4 size into one of these £25 jobbies

http://www.thesafeshop.co.uk/products/1100-fire-chest.html?ACODE=googlebase...

In reply to The Lemming: Thanks for all this Lemming, potentially very helpful indeed!

T.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:



And the absolute cheapest way to have a media centre which is as quiet as the grave, is to buy a 10 metre HDMI cable from Amazon for £3-20.

You install gmote on your phone and computer and you are good to go with complete control of everything from the palm of your hand.

One instant Smart TV for three quid.