HTPC

This will be the page where I'm going to chronicle my progress on building my HTPC.  I will list my equipment possiblilties, pricing if I can, pictures of the system during the different stages of development etc.

 First off, what I want the system to do.  Basically the system has to be an all-in-one entertainment center.  This means that it must be able to timeshift/record TV, play games, display photos and pictures, play DVD, play music and karaoke, show weather information, rip DVD's and music CD's, output to HDTV capable rear projection TV either by component or DVI/HDMI cable...and only controlled mainly with a simple remote that is used to control the TV and rest the system.  It also has to be capable of future expansion such as HD capable via Blu-ray and internet downloads.

CURRENT HARDWARE:

Current Software:

HTPC LOG:

*12/2/08*

As stated I started collecting parts for a HTPC build.  Actually I started collecting parts over a year ago.  Below are some pics of the parts acquired so far:

Some additional install pics:

 Other than the main issue, which is the CPU cooler taking out the RAM slots, so far the install has been relative easy.  I've also started some cable management which once done, I'll take some additional photos.

 *11/3/08*

Well I found out that if I wanted to use my memory in a Dual Channel setup, I would have to use memory slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4.  Memory slot 1 was totally covered by the Zalman heatpipes, but slot 2, even though the heatpipes went over the plastic socket portion, they did not cover the actual socket.  So I was able to move a RAM stick into that location.  I used some Kapton tape to cover the actual IC on the board as a couple of the copper pipes actually rested against them.  I also tie-wrapped the Zalman cooler control module to the back of the case.  See the latest pics below:

 *19/3/08*

The power adapter came in today.  Quickly added that and took a photo:

*21/3/08* 

What a sad...sad day.  I just got the video card, and was very excited to install it.  I don't currently have a large SATA drive, so I connect a small IDE drive to get myself going and try out the hardware.  I powered on and nothing...no fans, no LED...nothing.  I quickly turned off the power, and rechecked all connections...everything seemed fine.  Thinking the supply did not have enough juice, I disconnected the video card, Nexus fan, and hardrive and DVD drive....still nothing.  Thinking still it was the power supply I swapped it with a generic version.  CPU fan powered on.  Tried a Theraltake supply from the MediaPVR, and it did nothing.  I then disconnected the 4-pin molex Aux connector from the board and the system worked.  So the problem was with the 4 pin connector that supplies additional 12V to the board...which I found out powers the graphics card "cooling system" .  Taking out my trusted DMM, I found that there was only ~9 ohms between 12V rail to ground through that connector.

So, now thinking it was a motherboard problem, I disconnected everything to package it up to take back to the store.  I decided to take one last measurement, and found that there was now an open circuit between the 12V rail to ground.  I then found out that the short occurs when the CPU is inserted in the motherboard socket and the locking lever is just starting to lock down the CPU.

So now I'm still taking the motherboard back to the store, and hoping to replace it with a similar board...been looking at an Asus M2N-X.  It is mainly the same as the MSI...and is $10 cheaper.

The CPU will also have to be replaced as it has most likely been stressed.

I just hope that nothing else has been damaged due to this issue...I don't think so.

I've put together many computers in the past...two are chronicled right here on my googlepages...except for the music-server, this one I was really anticipating to get going...so I was pretty disheartened to put it bluntly.

 *22/3/08* 

I went and checked out the CPU at the store where it was bought.  Because it was a Christmas gift and I did not have a receit, they were pretty reluctant at taking it back...understandable.  But in the very least, they checked it out with one of their test motherboards, and the CPU started up and went through its POST.  That is further than what I got.  So the problem was with the motherboard and not the CPU.

So I ended up taking the motherboard back and exchanged it for the Asus M2N-X.  It was $10 cheaper.  It doesn't have GigLAN, and it only has 2 memory slots, but all I have is 2 memory sticks anyways.  Though it would be nice to have GigLAN for future HD transfer across my network, well either I will replace the board with something better, or just add a LAN card in the future.  Other than that, I shouldn't have a problem this time around with the CPU cooler over-hanging the memory slots, so that is a good thing.  I read some customer reviews of the board, and overall, pretty much everyone has said the same thing: "not a gamer board " (who cares), "not good for over-clocking" (again doesn't matter to me), "good board for HTPC use" (good to hear).  Also poeple have commented that it is stable and runs without hassles.  So hopefully by tomorrow, I will be posting something more positive.

*25/3/08* 

I have now powered the system up.  I had to do some re-configuring of the equipment as the IDE cable was too short to go from the board to the other side of the case to attach to both the DVD drive and the temp IDE drive.  So now the IDE drive is sitting sideways about 1/2 way between the motherboard connection and the DVD drive.

 The system powered up, I installed XP Pro on it without any problems, it recongnized my RPTV and the ATI Catalyst driver set the 2600Pro card's output to 1920x1080.  My Xlobby Mirage was loaded on, and some futher configuring was required (expected) before I was happy with the skin.  Had to redo some of the events that use the xSend command, as they were setup with the wrong IP address.

Last night I followed a tutorial on setting up ffdshow to upscale DVD video, and now that even looks amazing.

I'm going to start playing around with EventGhost and see if I can get a HID device to work.  Then use EG to send commands to control Mirage.  This will get me around from purchasing a USB-UIRT for the next little while.

*26/3/08*

A couple of screenshots taken during the movie "300".  Both were taken around the same time frame for comparision purposes.  The first is untouched by any filtering/processing of ffdshow.  The second image goes through ffdshow and is upscaled to 1920x1080.  Where to look is at the extra detail in the helmet.  The top image the features of the helmet seem to blend and are "softened".  The helmet's pits are really detailed and are more defined in the upscaled image. 

Some additional captures:

 *27/3/08*

I installed Xlobby's Xremote and Girder last night, along with a WinLIRC module I built a while back, I've been able to incorporate remote control using my Panny TV remote.  Working out the flow of how it should all work still, but I'm able to navigate around Mirage with it.  This should get me by until the day I decide to splurge and purchase a USB-UIRT.

*31/3/08*

Well, I had more bumps over the weekend.  The minor one was I could not get Girder to work properly.  I tried two versions and each crashed when receiving IR signals.  They were versions 3.31 and 3.34.  Maybe I will have more success with version 4, or I may just wait to purchase a USB-UIRT and be done with it.

The major hurdle was that I attempted to install the Twinhan card.  I could not get many channels to scan after my initial install.  The next day I could not even power on the computer while the card was installed.  I ended up taking the card out and re-trying it in my test rig, where everything worked fine.  I think the problem is that I am running the power supply at its max.  When the additional sat card was installed....where it also has to power the LNB, it is too much for the supply and it shuts down.  Gees and I figure 480W would do.  So now the card is back in the test rig, until I pick up a larger supply.  I'm going to have to go through all the components and re-calculate the amount of power I'm going to need. 

The final bump, was that one of the soundcard jacks don't work too well anymore.  Most likely I will go to Digi-key and pickup an equivalent part to use and just solder it in.

*1/4/08*

I've solved the satellite card issue.  I calculated the expected power output for all I had and I should have been able to get by with a 350W supply just fine.  I ended up pulling all the extra peripherals from the system, then installed the Twinhan.  The system powered up fine.  After I powered back down, I routed power to the extra peripherals, paying close attention to what was plugging into what rail (the Enermax has dual +12V rails, each about 15A).  The system again powered up fine.  The problem I had was that it was only scanning in a limited number of channels from horizontal transponders.  I then went into the settings of DVBDream and changed the LNB type...Voila, I had very good results indeed.  Now I need to integrate DVBDream into Mirage somehow.  I still may use the TV plugin that utilizes the TV engine from MediaPortal that an Xlobby member put together a while back.  We'll see.  I'm just happy to get it working...and it is only using <10% of the CPU.

The other issue with the soundcard...the jack, though faulty, right now is working fine.  Both channels are being broadcast no problems.  If I need to change the jack, the quick and dirty way it so salvage one from an old IDA sound card sitting around collecting dust...provided the jack has the same footprint.

Girder issue still exits, and I'm not too sure what I'm going to do to solve that problem right now.

*3/4/08*

I have started to work on the TV/Sat integration into Mirage.  I redid the TV screen, moved buttons around and the sort.  I created more buttons to toggle record now, pause live TV, Mute, channel up/down, and created a database for the more watched channels (Treehouse, Disney, CNN, TSN and the sort).  I would like to figure out now how to integrate xlobby's EPG into the mix now, but that will be an undertaking.  The other thing I have to do is create a fullscreen effect.  Once I get to a point of the completion with the TV portion (minus the schedule recording/EPG), and finish off my updates to the PPC screens, I will then release a new rev.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks. 

*6/4/08*

I've now almost completed the TV/Sat integration.  I'm now able to change channels, start/stop recording, mute, select specific channels.  To finish off, I've setup a full screen view as well.  I'm using DVB Dream to playback the satellite.  Though I can download and view an EPG using zap2xml, I've yet to be able to utilize this in channel selection.  Though I will be looking into this more.  The only thing that I don't think I will be able to do is to setup a schedule recording.

I also made a modification to my WinLIRC circuit to match the Igor Plugin that is currently available to XP.  After updating the .dll and performing the circuit mods, Girder is running alot better.  It is not crashing nearly as much as it was before.  

Downloaded some HD clips off the internet, so I'll be looking forward to trying the system out with those.

*7/4/08*

I had an opportunity to view the HD clips through both PowerDVD Ultra and Media Player Classic.  I want to be able to use MPC as there is a plugin that already exists to use it within xlobby.  The clips downloaded were HD-WMV files from Microsoft's website.  I only used PDVD to figure out why MPC was skipping and stuttering.  I found out that I had to stop ffdshow from processing the video.  I was using ffdshow for processing/upscaling DVD video, but it is not required for HD.  As soon as I blocked ffdshow's merit, everything ran smooth in MPC.  The picture looks really good.  Not sure if I'm convinced on spending the money on a HD Sat receiver, or an internal B-Ray drive right now, but later on, when BR prices finally fall...we'll see. 

*8/4/08*

Received some 3.5mm to RCA splitter adapters.  Installed and working fine.  Decided to take a break for building and tweaking and just relax and enjoy so far what I have done. 

*24/4/08*

I haven't reported too much here in the last little while as I've just been sitting back and enjoying everything.  One thing I have done, is I started to use the xltv plugin for xlobby, this forced me to switch over to ProgDVB.  Currently I'm using version 4.56, as version 5 is not supported by xltv, and the later versions of 4 seem to crash when loading.  Been defining more WinLIRC functions as well.  At this point I'm thinking of dropping the UIRT...the only deciding factor here is that I can't bring the system out of sleep with the LIRC receiver.  Other than that minor drawback, it's been running really good.  I also started in the completion of the new PPC screens, so once that is done, I will be packaging it all up for distribution.

*19/5/08*

It has been a while since my last update.  I've been working on exaclty what TV module I was going to install in the system.  I first started out trying xlobby's xltv plugin.  Though it worked well enough, I didn't like using ProgDVB.  Instead of expanding SD content to fullscreen, it would zoom in...making an already sub-par picture look even worse.  To top it off, it would cut the top and bottom of the picture off...this was a no-no for sporting events as the score board would get chopped off.  I also tried the MediaPortal plugin for xlobby.  Though most of it installed, the portion that didn't was the portion that has always given me problems in the past.  That's MediaPortal itself.  Not only is it bloated, but I've never been successful at getting it running.  So now I'm trying and older plugin called xschedular.  It alows to setup recordings from xlobby's EPG.  I'm back using DVB Dream as well, as I have been very successful with using it in the past.  It allows greater selection of codecs, and instead of zooming the image full screen, it does a proper stretch.  I've had help from the developer of a program called dabdig.  Dabdig is a inbetween program which interfaces the xschedular plugin with DVB Dream.  I'm now able to select and EPG item and record it via DVB Dream, with a couple of bugs still to work out.  I then have to integrate this into Mirage.

*28/5/08*

Well, I have finally found my TV solution.  As of last night, I was successful at setting up a recording schedule using the xschedule/dabdig/DVB Dream setup.  The past week was interesting as the EPG scrapper went on the fritz for a few days, and then alot of trial and error with the developers of dabdig and xschedule.  The developer of xschedule doesn't really support this plugin anymore, so I am very grateful that he took the time into looking over my request.  The big problem was that xschedule would wait for the recording request to pass from Dabdig, then it would pop up an overlay saying that the request has been passed...only dabdig wouldn't pass the request until the time to record.  Until this happened, xlobby would appear to be frozen (crashed/locked up).  So now a mock plugin was created that doesn't wait for dabdig, and it would appear to be working very well in the early going.  Now I just have to work on the logic of how DVB Dream opens, both in window mode and fullscreen (and how to swap between the two).  Also how to exit DVB after a recording.

*7/6/08*

Since my last update, the one big change that occured was the addition of a new plugin.  An individual on the xlobby website who goes by the name "tswhite" created a script a while back that allowed to download movie house information and showtimes.  He recently created a plugin in its place.  So I transfered this into Mirage.  The software section on xlobby plugins above has been updated to reflect the changes has been updated.

*12/6/08*

I've worked out the IR using winLIRC to control Zoomplayer.  It was rather easy as I configured the Zoom Player controls within Girder.  So now when Zoom takes over focus from Xlobby, the remote controls automatically control the Zoom player.

*14/6/08*

Right from the beginning I've had this problem that I couldn't wake the system from S3 using a USB device (keyboard or mouse).  I could, no problems if the system used S1 (basic standby, supply still powering, fans running etc.).  Up until now I had to wake the system via power button.  I found a post on the avsforum website, where somebody mentioned using a tool called MCE Standby Tool.  Well I decided to try it out, and it works great.  All that is requirec is a simple mouse movement and the system turns on.  Thanks to the poster on the avs site thread.

*4/9/08*

Since I started resuming the HTPC from sleep, I always had to press a button on the remote to start xMenu.  Recently one of the great coders on the xlobby site wrote a plugin to perform xlobby tasks when the system wakes from sleep mode.  So now after some tweaking, when the system wakes and resumes in xlobby, xMenu is started automatically.  This was a real useful plugin.

 I'm also looking at this solution to wake/turn-on the HTPC.  This way I can continue to use the LIRC circuit to control the system, but this will enable to wake the system and not use the keyboard/mouse or front panel power button.  Supposedly it is capable of actually turning the system on from a power-off state, but I'm not convinced of that.  It will be nice to have it run off the same IR code as the TV, so when I turn the TV on, it will wake the HTPC as well.  Will decide on what I'm going to do in the next short while.

*8/9/08*

For my weather plugin, I've been a long standing user of xaopweather.  I went with xoap because the origional xweather plugin wasn't working right, and when it was working, I just never bothered about using it as I've been generally pleased with xoap.  The problem with xoap, in my case was that when I bring the computer out of sleep mode, I never get updates anymore until I restarted Xlobby.  This has been a growing frustration, so last night, I donwloaded the most recent xweather plug-in, installed/set it up, and I'm now running with xweather.  I will be updating my music server to use xweather in the coming days as well, since that has the same issues. 

*26/9/08*

added the MayIR to the system.  After some initial setup issues, the IR switch works great.  Install pics are coming, as I want to show both the MayIR and the WinLIRC install together.

*27/9/08*

Below are some pics of the MayIR and WinLIRC installs, as well as some more screen captures.  Excuse the wiring, once I get a final harddrive, I will clean up the harnessing.

 Additional screen captures:

*27/9/08*

Test Successful!  Tested the MayIR circuit to verify that it will turn on the HTPC from an off state, and it worked...cool.

*7/10/08*

Finally purchased the last piece of the puzzle, the hard drive.  Picked up a WD6400AAKS and already notice a difference from the old 6.4Gig I was temporarily using.  This new drive is so quite.  Before resting with XP, I'm trying out LinuxMCE just to see what it is like.................well.....installing XP now.  It will most likely be a couple of days before I get everything setup to what it was before....and then some.

*8/10/08*

Actually things went more smoothly than I could have ever thought.  Within a couple of hours I had a majority of the system setup and was copying ripped movies/recorded TV shows and arcade games that I had stored on the music-server.  So now the final tweaking of Mirage can take place, and this project is pretty much completed.

*10/10/08*

Spent the day transferring/ripping movies onto the HTPC.  I have a majority of the non-child movies done.  Only now I'm working on the movies that I split into two discs.  After this is done, then I will concentrate on the children cartoons and movies.

*11/10/08*

Still ripping movies.  Today got more involved with ripping movies that I had split across multiple disks.  I ended up having to re-rip the movies then use DVD2One to seamlessly merge them back together.  Also found out that using movie only ripping from DVD Decryptor didn't make a valid title, which Zoomplayer can't play.  So I ended up not ripping within Xlobby and using Fab DVD HD Decryptor to do it properly.  I also been messing around with the EPG module in DVB Dream.  Got the basics working within xlobby, and using a remote, so that was pretty cool.

*12/10/08*

Well, I completed in ripping the main movies over to the hard drive.  To think that I contemplated in getting the 320Gig drive...I'm glad I didn't.  I took the WD6400 and partitioned it into an 80 gig OS drive and the rest into media storage.  After ripping the movies, I only have about 100Gigs left.  Might sound like alot, but I still have to transfer my arcade games across different platforms, kareoke songs and still have enough space for recording TV.  Overall, I am very please with the WD6400AAKS.  It is a very silent drive, and proving to be extremely fast...considering I had an anceint 6.4Gig drive that this replaced...anything would be an improvement.  I have a few more things to complete...screens to update etc., but the major work on this project is pretty much completed.

*28/10/08*

I completed an additional GigLAN cable to the familyroom that the HTPC will connect to.  The system is now connected to that terminal and I'm able to access the network so it was a successful install.

*26/1/09*

I took some time and decided to go into the service menu of the PT-47X54 RPTV, and tweak some of the settings with convergence and positioning.  The 1080i input (HDMI) I noticed a small difference.  Where I noticed a huge difference was the 480i input, which is used for the Wii gaming console.  I found the Wii games to be far more sharper and detailed then before.  Once I feel a little more comfortable with going around the service menu, I may make further modes to the convergence "Course" settings, but right now, I'm quite please with the PQ. 

*8/2/09*

Last night I made a hardware change with the PSU.  I removed the Enermax PS from the system and replaced it with the OCZ supply I just bought.  After installing it, I powered up the system, and first impressions....I'm very impressed.  The system is even more quite now.  The only fan sounds I hear now is the GPU fan on the ATI 2600 Pro card.  I also still have to check the supplies regulation stability, but as its an OCZ product, I'm suspecting that its rails are going to be very stable.  Especially with the amount I'm drawing on it.  My Hardware section has been updated to reflect.  The Enermax ended up being installed in BES.

*18/2/09*

I finally got around to adding game emulation to the system.  I use MAME, SNES, Sega, and N64 emulators, and have a few ROMS.  So far, all the games open in their respected emulator, I just have to define the parameters to actually properly play them, and then exit them from the remote (currently it requires a key press on the keyboard).  Haven't used the program Rom2Xlobby in a while, but it was nice to see that it still actually works.  Now I just have to configure the Kareoke player, and this system will be almost completely integrated.  Then it will be time for a re-distribute.

*19/2/09*

Started to port over kareoke mp3+g files.  I also go the CD+G winamp plugin up and running.  Tonight, I will build up the database, and it should be good to go...too bad the USB microphones I have for the Wii will only work if recording sounds, and don't work at playback...or maybe I'm just setting them up wrong?

*9/8/09* 

It has been a long while since I've updated this page.  Been busy with alot of different things concerning this project.  I've been working on a new skin for starts.  Not that I didn't like the Mirage skin, I just wanted something that reflected the AppleTV type skins I was using on the MediaPVR and the now halted "BES" box.  So I'm now using a skin called "Glass".  It isn't complete, but it behaves very similar to Mirage in that the main menu is a rotating menu based on xMenu.  I've got fanart up and running for DVD's and HD content.  I also have some ambient background images when rotating in the main menu...to help in some special effects.  Hopefully I will have it completed enough to actually distribute to the Xlobby audience.

The other thing I have feverishly worked on has been to get HD content to play properly.  A while back I downloaded a bunch of HD video clips, and in using Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, I've been able to get them to play back, though it was very tedious.  In the end I had to make sure that ffdshow was blocked from running in the background, or else the video and audio would run choppy and stutter.

I also worked at getting MPC-HC to playback flash video files (.FLV), but in doing so, I had to unblock ffdshow, so this screwed up the HD playback.

I then downloaded different Big Buck Bunny files to try.  It is a pretty funny short film.  I downloaded an .AVI, and an .MPG version of that film that played back fine.  I then also downloaded a h.264 encoded .MOV version of the film, and that wouldn't playback at all.  To follow up, I downloaded a HD movie Reign of Fire, that was a h.264 encoded .MKV file with 3 different audio streams.  It to wouldn't playback right away.  I mucked with all sorts of different setting in MPC-HC, but the best I could do was the video and audio would stutter, and the video would lag the audio.  Doing lot's of reading, I figured that the .MKV file should be DXVA (Direct X Video Accelerated)...but was it?  I doubled checked my video card, and it is supposed to support DXVA, but the video was not capable of doing it.  So after more reading, the alternative for movies that are not capable of DXVA is to use the codec CoreAVC.  I got that installed, and followed all the tutorials on setting up MPC-HC, and finally got it to playback smoothly.  I played the movie from the local drive.  I then tried to play it back across the network from the UnRAID server, and though for the most part it worked.  One scene gave it problems and the video/audio stuttered during playback.

So most likely in the future, I will use the local drive of the HTPC for HD content storage for video that has problems playing over the network, and only use the server to backup the content...until I get a GigLAN service totally up and running (LAN card in RAID server, and GigLAN switch).

Pretty happy with getting the HD stuff to actually work now...also on a side note,  with using CoreAVC, my .FLV files still work as well, and I think they run even more smooth.

The final thing I have done is to combine all movies to one ANT file, and setup the xANT plugin for Xlobby to create all the separate databases from that one file.  This way it is easier to maintain and enter new movies as I get them.  The file is kept on the server so any machine can access it, and it just makes life more simple.

So lot's have happened, and still more to come, as I finalize the skin, and continue down the HD route...just now waiting for Blu-ray prices to come down to sub $100 levels, so I can purchase one of them.

*10/9/09* 

I've continued to test HD movie content.  Currently have played The Watchmen, Doomsday, Eagle Eye and Earth successfully.  Though Earth gave the system a good test.  Even playing on the local drive, one scene made the system come to a stutter as it showed thousand of birds flying, panning across the screen.  This is all using the CoreAVC codec.  I am going to try and get DXVA to work, in the very least for this .mkv file.  So the tweaking of MPC-HC continues.

Also started to look at OTA, and have started construction (and appropriate page link off this page) to building a DIY Gray-Hoverman.  Will be looking at a Hauppauge HVR-1250 ATSC tuner card to pick up the OTA signals.  Hopefully it all works out.

*2/10/09* 

Just tonight, I picked up a Hauppauge HVR-1250 ATSC tuener card.  I connected it into the computer and attached the Grey-Hoverman to it.  With the antenna leaned up against a wall in the living room, I was able to get CHCH-DT without issue, and WNLO-DT...but that had signal quality issues.  I was using both WinTV 7 and WatchHDTV software.  WinTV did the initial scan, then I was able to enter the channels into WatchHDTV...which I actually prefer more.  More experimentation is required...then I have to run coax from the attic to the basement for the final install of the GH in the attic.  More to come.

*6/10/09* 

Starting to cleanup the Glass skin for final distribution.  The most outstanding thing now is integrating either WatchHDTV or WinTV 7 into the skin and setup Girder control.  I also need to cleanup the different setting screens for modifying Winamp, Zoomplayer, MPC-HC, or the HDTV viewer of choice.  Finally I have to sit down and finish of the documentation.

*7/10/09* 

Added a new screen to the Glass skin that will show a database of recorded TV shows that were transferred over from the MediaPVR to the UnRAID server.  These files are played back by MPC-HC, and can be deleted from the server if required.

*29/10/09* 

Swapped out the Asus EAH2600 Pro card for a new EAH4350.  It is silent (no fan), and is 512Mb of on-board memory.  It is a very basic video card totally geared towards the HTPC, and media playback.  Card installed without any issues, and I will store the 2600 Pro for a future build.

Other things going on with this system:

- Still working on a TV solution.  Currently using WatchHDTV for an OTA solution, though I'm having issues with getting it working properly from remote control.

- Added voice recognition when flowing through the main menu system.  A voice will announce "Rotate", "Main Menu" and "Selected".  These replace the "Beeps", "Boops" and "Dings" that were originally used with XMenu.

- Still working towards releasing the skin - one day. 

*13/11/09* 

I've been busy deciding on what OTA software I wanted to use.  It was a toss between WinTV7, WatchHDTV, and Blaze.  I settled on WinTV7, as I was able to integrate control of the software with Girder, so now I can control the main functions of the program from my remote.  The issue with Blaze was that it would default load when I placed a DVD in the player to watch...which I could't figure out how to turn off.  I hadn't worked on control for that software, but the nice feature of that software was the ability to read the PSIP data stream in the OTA signal.  WatchHDTV was really considered, as it was light and quick in channel changing, but I could not gain control of it via Girder.  I still use it for quickly tuning on individual channels.

*30/03/10* 

A couple of days ago, I swapped out the 4350 video card back to the 2600 Pro.  Reasons being that I noticed that the 4350 had some unusual video tearing in Zoom Player (DVD viewing), Media Player Classic (HD viewing), and WinTV (OTA HD viewing), which no matter what I tried, I could not get rid of.  I never experienced this with the 2600 Pro card.  Could the difference be that the 4350 would run warmer with the passive heatsink.  Without enough airflow, the card was heating up too much causing this tearing issue.  Don't know, but I decided to swap it out and place the original 2600 Pro back in.  I will keep this 4350 for later use and make sure it has adequate cooling.

*12/04/10* 

Over the weekend, I've started to play around with MediaPortal on the HTPC.  I've tried MP many times in the past, but it has always failed me in some way.  Well, I installed MP RC1.10, along with MySQL, StreamerMP skin, Moving Pictures plugin, and the TV Series plugin.  I configured MP to play standard DVD's via Zoom Player so I can take advantage of ffdshow's scaling capabilites.  MP plays back the HD rips without issue.  The TV section scanned all the OTA channels that WinTV could scan on a regular basis.  So far the only things that aren't working is a solution for using my TV remote control, and the EPG.  But overall, except for some initial growing pains, it has been a pretty decent experience and the StreamerMP skin is a pretty eye candy skin, but with alot of functionality.

On a side, I also had to do some Windows updates to get MP to run properly.  One of the updates was to some bugs with DirectX causing video tearing.  These updates may have solved the tearing issue I witnessed with the HD4350 card that I noted of swapping out in my entry above.  So I may re-install this card again, and see if the tearing issues are still there.  Hopefully not, as I want to use the 2600 for a new MediaPVR build I'm going to start, and I need a card with a simple TV output, which the 4350 doesn't offer.

*14/04/10* 

Well, in continuing my testing of MediaPortal, I've pretty much got everything running last night.  I've changed some of the background images to ones I would rather look at.  TV is working good, as I did my first quick recording of Lost.  I've been able to figure out the EPG, and now that is working using mc2xml.  I just have to configure an automated schedule update, and test the schedule recording feature.  I've been successful at adding channel logos to the EPG.  I've even been able to get the TV remote to work and control the MediaPortal screens by using the MCE/Girder to MediaPortal plugin, and configuring the Girder .gml file to recognize the Panny remote codes.

Finally on the positives, since I've updated the system with all the requirements to get MediaPortal to run, I re-installed the 4350 with the hopes that the updates would also take care of any tearing issues that I had with it previously.  Well at first, it still teared the video.  I then went into the ATI Catalyst Drivers, and made a couple of changes...and now it seems that it is officially tear free.

Now for the negatives.  After re-installing the 4350, my MPEG2 codec seems to be messed up for TV viewing.  It is scrambling the picture.  Funny thing is that I use the same codec for DVD's and all other MPEG2 decoding without issue.  So for TV viewing I had to change the codec to a lesser quality one...but at least now I have subtitles (though I don't know how to turn them off in MP yet).

The other negative is that I am using Zoom Player for DVD video viewing.  I'm doing this so I can use ffdshow to upscale the content to 1920x1080.  It all works fine except when I close Zoom Player, it also crashed MP.  I only tried this once last night, so I have to investigate as to whether it was a fluke or an actual bug.

Once everything is done, I will update with some screen captures.  

*15/04/10* 

I've been working so hard on a TV solution, and getting the EPG working, that I didn't take the time to look at, what should be, the minor things of a HTPC...mainly running a DVD.  Well, I inserted a DVD into the drive, a box popped up stating a DVD has been inserted, do you want to play it Yes/No.  I chose yes, but then MP considered the DVD an audio disk, and went to a "Now Playing" screen...eventually realizing that it wasn't an audio disk, and then crap out to Windows desktop...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I've got all this working to find that MP can't even recognize a DVD inserted?  After fumbling around with the settings to figure this issue out, I realized that the DVD drive is defined in the Video section of the configuration, and an Icon is displayed if I goto the video screen.  Well with the DVD disk in the drive, I can select this icon, and it will play the DVD.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but works.  So in the configuration, I disabled the Automatic DVD recognition option.

Also I noticed that after installing the 4350 card, my TV codec got screwed up.  I was using the Gabest MPC MPEG2 codec, but it now scrambles the picture (don't know why), so I ended up using the Elecard MPEG2 codec...which I don't really like its ability in motion control. I also can't get ffdshow post processing to work on DVD's and DVD rips when using MP's internal player.  They work fine if using an external player like Zoom, but I get the issue that I mentioned in my post above.

So now I've downloaded the SAF codec pack that they talk about on the MP forums and I'm going to try them out tonight.

*16/04/10* 

After installing the SAF codecs (un-installing all my original ones first), I managed to make a total mess of the system.  So after numerous crashes, un-installs/re-installs, I couldn't play any video, or even watch a DVD from the DVD drive, or even bring up the TV stuff.  All just because I wanted to try and upscale my DVD's.  It even totally wrecked my previous setup with Zoom Player to the point that ffdshow no longer resized, even in Zoom.

So early this morning, I wiped the entire MP install, and started yet again.  So now I've got all the basics running.  HD mkv's play, DVD rips play (though not upscaling right now), I can get the DVD player to work again from the Video screen (turning off the Autoplay DVD feature in the MP configure), and TV opens and plays, though I have lost my channel icons when I did my most recent re-install.  Man if I didn't want TV to work so bad (with a working EPG), then I would have trashed this a long time ago...but I'm this far...if it means not resizing DVD's...I might be able to live with it.

*27/04/10* 

Been running MP now for a couple of weeks, and things have been running pretty good.  Aside for the upscaling problem, the only issues have been a) bringing the system out of standby one day, the screen remained black.  I had to do a task manager to close MP and start again, and b) sometimes while fast-forwarding HD video (so far), it seems to lock up, causing me to do a task manager to kill the current MP and start up again.  Both not deal breakers, but hope that these bugs are addressed in the future.  Have to get some screen captures of the current system.

*29/04/10* 

I almost forgot...there is a c) to the above.  c) when recording a schedule program from the EPG, the wrong channel is actually recorded, even though the description/channel seletion etc are all proper.  I haven't been able to put my finger down on this one, as if I select the channel from the EPG to watch, it tunes to the proper channel fine.  Mucking around trying to figure this out also caused the MP TV Server to crash badly...which led to another outstanding issue that I've been having the last little while.  When restarting the computer, or turning on from an off state, WinXP would "loose" the drivers for the tuner card.  I would have to go into Control Panel/Hardware and re-install the drivers.  Well I got some updated drivers from a moderator on the Hauppague forum site and installed these into the system.  We will see if this issues is resolved, as when it does happen, it wrecks havoc on the TV Server/MySQL server setup.  I have to un-install everything and start from scratch again.

If I keep on getting these hiccups...I may just go back to Xlobby, and design a new skin, since I never had these sorts of software issues. 

*31/05/10* 

Well, rather unfortunate, I seemed to have suffered another motherboard failure.  For the past week, I was noticing that the system would reboot when bringing it out of S3 Standby.  Then once Windows loaded, the system would randomly reboot a second to third time.  Over the week, it was rebooting more and more often.  I was also getting some BSOD occurrences as well.  I started to yank the cards out, and even re-installed WinXP.  Even during the installation, WinXP crashed (BSOD) and I had to restart where it left off.  Since I had the motherboard for the upgraded MediaPVR sitting around, I decided to try it out.  It seems to be working, but I have run into a few hardware installation issues of its own.  The first was that the board couldn't "see" any card in the PCIEx16 slot.  I thought there was a problem with the slot, but after a BIOS upgrade, the video card outputted fine, and the BIOS turned off the on-board video.  Now after installing WinXP, it seems to not be able to load the 1394 drivers correctly, nor is it installing and audio device on the HD Audio Bus.  It also isn't installing a PCI device, but I have no clue as to what device it is except for maybe a SATA controller driver.  I think I found a fix for the firewire problem, not to sure what to do about the HD Audio bus issue, nor the PCI missing device issue.  Also the Zalman CPU cooler is hanging over the first memory slot too much, so I can't use the memory in Dual Channel mode.  I'm not sure how much of a performance hit I'm taking for that.  I have also noticed that the system is running very sluggishly.  I'm not sure as to why, except that the hard drive may not be configured properly for the controller, meaning I'll have to perform some more BIOS changes, and also maybe the system is running in single memory mode.  I have to pickup a different CPU cooler anyways, so I may as well try it out here.

As to what happened to the M2N-X board?  I'm speculating here, but I think the on-board LAN controller went on the BLITZ.  Why?  I don't know.  How did I come to that conclusion?  Well, I noticed that during the Windows install attempt, that when the install got to configuring the LAN/network environment, well, that's when it crashed, and subsequently didn't ask for any network setup thereafter.  I also noticed this more when installing the new motherboard, when I got to that same point, I was asked to perform some network configurations to setup the IP, DHCP, network group etc.  So the old board may not be a complete right-off.  All it may need is to turn off the on-board network via BIOS settings (maybe update the BIOS at the same time), then use an external LAN plugin card.  I will have to see if I have a spare laying around the house to use.

So needless to say, it has been a pretty frustrating weekend.  I also realized just how important the HTPC is to me, and how much pride I have put into that machine.  I miss my HD (TV and movies), and DVD viewing on the big screen, and I've been working into the wee hours to get the system back up again.  Luckily it has been nice out, and we've been busy with "family" things, or the family would be generally pretty frustrated with me as well.

*1/06/10* 

I decided to do some further testing of the M2N-X board, with the hopes of recovering it so I can keep on using it.  I was hoping that the on-board LAN was faulted, to which I'd just use an external LAN adapter.  I turned off the on-board LAN in the BIOS, and started to install WinXP again.  The install seemed to go smooth, but after, I continued to have crashes, BSOD's and the sort.  So I decided to drop troubleshooting that board, and officially get the M2A board working right.  So the first order will be to get a better matched CPU cooler...one that won't inhibit the use of the RAM slots, and won't interfere with the chipset heatsink, or some tall electrolytic caps.  I was thinking the OCZ Gladiator, but it will be too high for the case, so I think I'm going to settle on either the Cooler Master Hyper 101A or TX3.  The 101A is small form, cheap, and should be adequate for cooling, but the TX3 would be better, especially when pushing the CPU a little while watching HD content.  Also it will depend on what is in stock when I get to the store as well.

This whole mess is still very disturbing as I don't have a clue as to why the mother board would act up in the first place.  I keep everything at stock speed...I have never been one to over-clock anything.  I haven't opened the box in a while, so there was no static discharge by myself. There was no electrical storm, or any extravagant surges that could have blown the motherboard.  It just seems that there is some major conflict between hardware and the Windows drivers, but I can't figure out what it could be.  Down the road, I may try and perform a flash upgrade to see if that fixes issues, but at this point, I'm not expecting much.

*4/06/10* 

Well, I tried the old M2N-X board again and disabled the on-board LAN, and audio, but still got these crashes.  So I ended up going back to using the M2A-VM board.  I picked up a Cooler Master TX3 cooler for the CPU, so I was able to retain the first two slots of memory to take advantage of the Dual Channel support.  Upon getting it all back together, I went into the BIOS to find that it reported 0 memory external, and 127meg internal.  This was reflected over to WinXP System Properties window.  CPU-ID would report the full 2 Gigs, but only running in Single Channel mode.  So even though programs and windows were opening with blinding speed (as they had 2 Gigs to work with in reality), Windows would fault when running any application of considerable size (MediaPortal or even Xlobby, HD media, WinTV7...basically anything on the HTPC) and report not enough memory.

Since I noticed this in the BIOS, I decided to give it another update to the most recent BIOS, even though it was listed as Beta.  I was using the built in EZ BIOS updater which is built into the CMOS...which was supposed to make updating a piece of cake.  And while it did make things easier, I found out after searching the ASUS forums, that it would also break parts of the BIOS files.  I found a user on the forum sites that had the exact same problem as I was experiencing, and he found a way to fix it all.  It required make a DOS bootable USB flash drive, and putting the flash software and .bin file on the drive and run it from there.  Well, I followed his instructions, used the most recent stable BIOS release, and viola, the BIOS is now reporting 2Gig, and all application are running great, and CPU-ID is reporting the memory in Dual Channel mode now.  It is nice to have the system up and running again.  Only needs some cleaning up but I finally had a good sleep.

*7/07/10* 

I have started to integrate my new Xlobby xStreamed skin with the system.  Well I started this a while back, but I've been using it on the HTPC and adding more.  Currently finished is the Main Menu engine, and the Movie Module add-on.  I have been working on a TV solution for the MediaPVR, though it is using GBPVR for the TV functionality.  For the HTPC, I want to utilize MediaPortal's TVServer for TV integration with Xlobby.  So now I will be starting on that feature.  Also in the midst is the Settings Module, Video Module and TV Episode Module.

*5/1/11* 

I haven't updated this page in a while, but I finally got my hands on the Blu-Ray drive for Christmas.  I installed it in the system and will most likely use Arcsoft's TMT software for Blu-Ray playback.  I just need to get my hands on a Blu-Ray disk to help in configuring everything and integrate it all into the Xlobby skin.  More on this later.

*20/2/12* 

Over the last few days I started to swap the HTPC frontend software over from Xlobby to MediaPortal.  A few reasons for this.  Mainly I think my library was getting too large for the Xlobby engine to handle.  I get part way through my movie database, and the system would error out.  The destroyed any WAF that I had.

A second reason for the switch over was that I was getting tired of constantly manually updating all the databases.  I had to manually update each media machine TV series database, and also because the library was getting large, it would take a while to update the movie database.  This too ruined the WAF.  MediaPortal does updates on the fly with the Moving Pictures plugin, and TV Series updates are very quick

The third reason was that MediaPortal has a cool plugin called aMPDroid.  This allows for an Android phone to connect to the MediaPortal machine and act as a remote control to control it.

So overall for the three media machines, it took about 5 days for the switch over, but everything seems to be working good right now.  Hopefully this 1.2.2 version doesn't crash on me like all the previous version of MP.  Time will tell.

*23/02/13* 

As I have indicated in both the MediaPVR and BES entries.  I have installed the Kylo browser on all the media machines.  This browser works very well for 10' GUI systems, and can be controlled via remote.  For it to work with the HTPC, I had to make some adjustments to Girder, but it works great now, and I've been able to stick with the same Panasonic remote.  So all three media machines can be used for Netflix streaming, or other net applications.

*30/05/13* 

After upgrading MP to version 1.3.0 Final, I had persistent playback issues on the HTPC.  When starting video, it would eventually crash MP.  After diligently troubleshooting, which included re-installing MP, I came to realize that this machines hardware/software has issues with the LAV codec.  Even though I limited myself in even using it, the mere fact that the codec is installed on the machine seems to have isses n the path.

I ended up removing all LAV codecs from the system.  I even uninstalled SAF6 and resorted back to the SAF4 codec patch.  Now video seems to playback without issues.  The other media machines don't seem to have this issue.

*11/06/13* 

Added the recently acquired memory into the system, and started to perform the upgrade to Win7.  Took the lessons learned from the MediaPVR upgrade, and things went very smooth during this install.  Had the basics up and running in a mere 2 hours...enough to watch some video.  Will finish off by tweaking the setup more, and create the EPG and finalize databases etc.

The only outstanding issue is that I had problems with the KX drivers.  The ones that I had did not work for a 64bit OS.  I ended up downloading v3550, and they installed fine, but noticed that the audio would pop.  Researching discovered that it could be the buffer size needs to increase (now the task to find this buffer setting).  I also turned off the motherboards audio in the BIOS, and will have to test more to figure out if this makes a difference.

The other thing that may help is that I'm using the LAV codecs included in the MP install.  I may un-install them, and use SAF6, as I also noticed that video having a few hiccups.  The SAF6 codecs (mainly the ffdshow DXVA codecs) performed remarkably well in the past, and are doing great on the MediaPVR after its upgrade.

*13/06/13* 

The rest of the system has been configured.  Concerning the audio, I ended up turning off the motherboard audio in the BIOS, and un-installed the LAV codecs, not just because of the audio issue, but also because the video appeared to stutter occasionally.  I went with the tried and tested SAF6 codecs.  The audio popping continued though, so I found a forum post about adjusting the buffer settings.  To get to those settings, one must open the  KX Mixer, and then right click.  A slew of options are presented, and in that list is the option to adjust system buffers.  I basically followed what one poster used for his settings.  Mainly the following:

512KB

9600 bytes (~10.0 ms)

20480 bytes

8 buffers

512 samples

When exiting, you have to remember to save the settings, as I found out the hard way, they just don't save upon closing the Mixer.  They reset on me after I did a system reboot.  So far though, after the changes, I haven't heard anymore popping sounds...so this looks like the solution.

Overall, when compared to WinXP, this solution using Win7 appears to be more stable for MP, and the Hauppauge drivers.  Before I was having issues with the drivers, especially on the MediaPVR system.  Now, everything seems to be meshed pretty good.  And I've future proofed the systems for another few years.

*30/12/13* 

Using Christmas gift cards, I updated the video card in this machine from a Radeon 4350 to a Radeon HD 6450 Silent 1G board.  There was nothing wrong with the 4350, but decided to use that older card in my workstation to accomplish a triple monitor display...which works and more on that can be found here.  New 6450 installed without issues...only had to update the AMD Catalyst Drivers to accommodate.

*13/09/15* 

I have been an avid user of MediaPortal for some time now.  The largest reason was MediaPortal offered a full PVR system which I used extensively with my TV antennas.  Since moving, the location we are now, I can't get any reception via OTA...so I had to resort to getting a cable distription.  To that end, I don't use MediaPortal's TV server...and the use of MediaPortal dwindled and fell to the most recent XBMC, or now known as Kodi, with the TVADDONs plugin.  It is very easily downloaded and pre-configured with the best streaming addons, and users can easily add more.  There is also a Pi version, and an Android version so it is very easy to get multi-system cross platforms, and all easily controlled.

*16/10/15* 

The other day we suffered from some unstable weather.  Well, I don't know if it was the actual weather system that went through and cut power briefly, or mother time caught up (or a combo of both), but all good things must come to an end.  Meaning the OCZ power supply ending up crapping out.  The supply has been in use for the past 6.5 years (looked back above at a post around February 2009), so I guess it was bound to happen.  No warning, just crapped out after some bad weather.  Since the MeiaPVR hasn't been running for a while, I swapped out the Antec Earthwatts 650W supply into the HTPC system.  Shortly after, the system was running full up again.  The OCZ supply was really good, and if I can get my hands on another (or equivalent), it was very much worth while.  Very good supply. 

*22/08/17* 

The last little while, I've been trying to take advantage of Kodi 17, but couldn't load it properly on the system due to a broken Windows install.  I decided it was time to revisit using Linux.  I picked out that I would try Linux Mint.  I tried two versions of Linux Mint, as well as Lubuntu, and Ubuntu 17.  But every Linux flavor led to the same thing.  Running from the USB, it was quick and snappy.  But when I did a full install, especially when trying Ubuntu, it took over 10 minutes to boot the machine to when a desktop would be shown.  After a week of frustration, I decided to correct my version of Win 7.  Had it re-installed with ease, and now am running Kodi 18 nightly builds, which is supposed to take advantage of 64-bit systems.  I also stripped out some software that was on the system left over from my MediaPortal days, which I'm not using anymore.

It is running so good right now, I may actually do the same thing to the BES machine.

*4/10/17* 

Power supply issues continue.  The Antec supply that I had put in the system in 2015 just decided to quit working.  No rhyme or reason...just stopped.  I still had the original Enermax Coolergiant supply that was sitting, collecting dust, so I dusted it off, and it is now running the system.  I'd like to say it was bad weather that zapped the Antec, but I can't even say that.  Regardless, system is running again, and seems to be very quiet...even more so than when the Antec supply was in use.

*23/01/23*

Major boost with the system and updated from Win7 (which was loosing support from a variety of vendors), to Win10 Pro.  I also finally felt comfortable enough to update Kodi from 18 Leia to 20 Nexus. 

*30/01/23*

Ran into issues with Kodi 20 and some of the addons (namely PKC), so I went back to Kodi Matrix 19.5, and everything appears to be running fine again.

*26/10/23*

So after running the system with WIN10 OS, I felt that the hardware was too old for this operating system so I went back to Win7.  I remain keeping Kodi at version 19 for now as not because of the PKC addon.  I read issues of Boblight not running right on Kodi Nexus.  So now I have the system running smooth again with Win7/Kodi 19.  I'm going to keep it for the next while.