Scott Spradlin

So, I’ve been using this Windows Media Center setup for a year now.  Here are some random thoughts about it.

The two TV Tuner Cards had to be placed side-by-side on the motherboard since that was the only configuration it allowed.  They get very hot.  I purchased an additional internal fan to help keep them cool.  Every now and then if it needs to reboot while hot, I get a bluescreen during the boot process.  I can only attribute it to heat since it boots fine if I let it cool off a while.  (Very annoying when my wife is wanting to watch a TV show!)

Speaking of fans, they said this was a quiet box, but let me tell you, the droning of those fans is incredibly loud in an otherwise quiet bedroom.

On the positive side, the HD signal has been great.  The 28” monitor is plenty big for our little room.  The DVR features have been just fine.

On the other upside, I’ve seen little market activity around Windows Media Center.  Hardly any media extenders available.  I did buy a used one from ebay and my wireless network is not sufficient to move video quick enough.  I’ve bought a G router but haven’t upgraded all the machines yet.  The menuing interface on the extender seemed slow and clunky compared to the PC.  I’m sure it won’t go over well to other TV viewers in my home.  (My wife.)

Would I do it again?  Not sure.  The AT&T Uverse looks pretty nice but it’s still not available in my area.  If local over-the-air channels are sufficient for you, then this is a great way to do it.

On July 21st I received a tweet on Twitter from Engadget pointing to an article entitled “Build a Blu-ray / TV Tuner-equipped HTPC for under $1,000”  That day I essentially used the shopping list from that article to load my shopping cart on Newegg.com.  I slept on it and finally completed the order the next day – July 22nd.  No fancy shipping.  (As a matter of fact most of the items had free shipping.)  My boxes arrived on my doorstep last night – July 23rd.

• nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Steel HTPC 2000B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
• OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
• Asus P5Q PRO Turbo Core 2 Quad/ Intel P45/ DDR2-1300/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
• OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
• GIGABYTE GV-R467D3-512I Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
• Seagate ST3500641AS-RK 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
• SAMSUNG F1 RAID Class HE103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
• SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE 22X DVD±R DVD Burner
• Hanns·G HG-281DPB Black 27.5" 3ms Widescreen LCD HDMI Monitor
• ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100/NAQ/FM/AV/RC TV Tuner Card PCI Interface
• Microsoft Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition ( ZV1-00004 )
• Win Vista Premium Ultimate Mce Remote Control By Mediagate

Almost everything came from Newegg.com.  The motherboard was backordered so I ordered that and the keyboard and the remote from Amazon.com instead.

Disclaimer…actually all of this happened a year ago.  I wrote the blog post then but I just now decided to publish it.

For a long time we haven’t had any kind of paid television service at home.  No cable, no satellite, nothing.  We live in the St. Louis metro area so we get all the basic stuff over the air for free – all the major channels including PBS.  That also means we don’t have any of the fancy gadgets – no HD receivers or monitors – and especially the DVR.  One of those would be really handy around our house.

When the digital transition happened, I just got one of the cheap boxes and put on the TV in the bedroom and put a new antenna on the roof.  We get a fair number of digital channels now – but only in the one room.  It’s only my wife and I at home so we don’t need a lot of simultaneous feeds, but sometimes two would be nice!

My requirements were simple:

• Needed to be able to watch two different feeds simultaneously
• DVR functionality
• Multiple “viewing stations” throughout the house
• Ability to start viewing in one room and finish in another
• 1080p

So, do I just get some HD TV receivers and subscribe to a service?  Regular over the air HD?  Buying a nice integrated package looks like the easy choice.

I’ve been contemplating getting a Windows Media PC and a few extenders for quite a while.  Combining OTA (over the air) signals with a nice DVR seems like a nice “free” option.

Disclaimer…actually all of this happened a year ago.  I wrote the blog post then but I just now decided to publish it.