Yep, yet another 'What to choose' thread - Newbie Wannbe

[Erich in Az]

Yep, tearing my hair out with this. I've been trying to figure out just what I want to do. I'm married with 3 kids so $ and the W.A.F. are major deals. We currently have a Directv/Tivo but are going to probably be moving to CATV with the possibility of the HD channels.

I've downloaded demos of the following, but I have some unsupported hardware so I'm having trouble testing them.

-Meedio pro
-SageTV 4
-BeyondTV 4(?)

My important hardware is:

AMD 1700+, or 2100+ (I have both to choose from)
640MB RAM
MX4000 video card or AIW Radeon 7500 (I have both)
Some ATA drive, probably a 160GB so I can upgrade my main box to SATA

I have been experimenting with an el-cheapo Norwood 'PRO' PCI capture card from CompUSA (Hey it was $29 on sale right? ) as I was hoping to get a feel for things. It's going back though. This card worked in BeyondTV as long as I had MPEG2 encoding off and DIVX/medium selected instead, otherwise processor was pegged at 100%. In SageTV I got the worst sort of echo (about a 2 second delay on top of live audio) so I heard everything twice. That's annoying, but didn't happen in BTV with the same setup. Meedio just wanted to send a report about an unsupported card. Bummer. This sort of limits my real world experience with these systems. Some things I noted are:

BTV = Pretty pricy once you add the Beyond Media package, but it worked - Total package with card = ~$200
SageTV = Appears to have bells and whistles with it for the price. Comes with an IR blaster. Decent looking too - Total package with card ~$150
Meedio = Appeals to the geek in me. Also seems like it does a lot! - Software ~$45

Meedio gives me that card dilema. Should I go with the PVR-150 MCE edition or not? I guess it boils down to whether or not the remote works with Meedio or not. CompUSA has MCE on sale for $99 w/instant rebate, which is the same as the non-MCE edition. I see that Newegg has the MCE kit for $10 less, but I'm not too worried about the $10 and would rather have it now.

So, I guess it boils down to Sage or Meedio. Meedio would end up costing more after I got an IR blaster which Sage includes, but it seems to offer a lot more stuff.

if I just get a card now, then pay for the software, it's quite a bit more than a bundle, so I hate to get a PVR-150 just to try. However... Anyone have experience with CompUSA's return policy?

I know this is covered a lot, but I'm at the point I'm overwhelmed with info here. The important things to me are as follows (in order):

-Ease of Use/WAF - If I blow $ on this, the wife better be able to use it easily. Lol!
-Tivo functionality - We record a lot of stuff with season passes, and if I miss an episode of lost, I will be a dead man, so it has to work well.
-Stability once setup - See above. I enjoy living
-Pause/timeshift - The wife likes to hear what was just said, so things get timeshifted alot. She also hates commercials
-Media functions - Looking at pics of the kids, home videos, FM radio (if available), CD's and DVD player are required

I'm not TOO afraid of configs, I'm a computer dude by trade and I'm not afraid of doing some configuration stuff as long as it's optional stuff (incorporating ffdshow, etc), but the base has to be solid

So, school me please. Help me decide! I'll probably run the other tuner by C-USA tonight or tomorrow, so I'll need to make up my mind to get the MCE bundle or not

Thanks again to everyone for even making this a possibility. I wouldn't have even considered this if it wasn't for this forum.

 

[IanG]

My setup is BeyondTV + meedio essentials which I got it before the TV/Pro versions were out. It's cheaper tham BTV + Beyond Media. BTV does TV & FM while Meedio handles the pics/movies/weather/everthing else. It's more work to set up, but I like it. AFAIK, BTV is the only option that does FM radio (there's a plugin for meedio, but it isn't very good.)

A lot of people use Sage around here, but it took me a while to get it set up just right, and my wife was already used to BTV and didn't like Sage. Even with Sage, I'd still use Meedio as it can do much more than Sage alone.

Compusa returns are usually easy as long as everything is in the box w/ a receipt. A few minutes at customer service is all it'll take.

Outpost has BTV for $20 this week (after a $30 rebate, you won't qualify for the extra $20 one) and Meedio Essentials is $30 - just another option for you.

PCalchemy.com will probably be cheaper than compusa, and you could bundle up a 150MCE+remote+software if you wanted. Meedio works with any (almost) remote, but definately with the MCE one.

 

[Erich in Az]

My setup is BeyondTV + meedio essentials which I got it before the TV/Pro versions were out. It's cheaper tham BTV + Beyond Media. BTV does TV & FM while Meedio handles the pics/movies/weather/everthing else. It's more work to set up, but I like it. AFAIK, BTV is the only option that does FM radio (there's a plugin for meedio, but it isn't very good.)

A lot of people use Sage around here, but it took me a while to get it set up just right, and my wife was already used to BTV and didn't like Sage. Even with Sage, I'd still use Meedio as it can do much more than Sage alone.

Compusa returns are usually easy as long as everything is in the box w/ a receipt. A few minutes at customer service is all it'll take.

Outpost has BTV for $20 this week (after a $30 rebate, you won't qualify for the extra $20 one) and Meedio Essentials is $30 - just another option for you.

PCalchemy.com will probably be cheaper than compusa, and you could bundle up a 150MCE+remote+software if you wanted. Meedio works with any (almost) remote, but definately with the MCE one.

Thanks. I wanted to check out pcalchemy, but their site is down right now

I guess I hadn't thought about using 2 apps for the simplicity sake. I know the wife is going to want to keep it as remote-only as possible.

Do you use an IR blaster, or do you tune with the onboard one and let BTV handle it?

 

[IanG]

I use both apps with the remote control. I have meedio set up to Launch BTV, and then when BTV exits focus is returned to Meedio. I tune with the onboard tuner (Only have basic cable) so can't help with the blaster stuff, sry.

 

[IDversusEGO]

I used to use a Sage-Meedio combo, but the recent releases of sage along with a new custom theme modeled after MCE have made me ditch Meedio. Meedio is very powerful, but sage is so simple. I use the client/server feature of sage to distribute the recordings to any TV/PC in the house. WAF is very high on and stability is good as long as you go by the motto of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I build a stable box and turn off all updates including windows, applications, and drivers. If I run into a problem or want a new feature I manually update. Keeps it stable. as far as the card, the hauppauge cards are the standard evyone judges tuner cards by.

 

[Erich in Az]

Well, I ended up getting the PVR150 Media Kit for $99 (I'm a sucker for instant gratification) which included a remote and IR blaster. Yeah! I also couldn't pass up the deal on a 200 Gig SATA drive with a card (this might be important later) for $129 plus a $30 eRebate.

The PVR-150 helped my CPU usage drop a ton and everything worked great. I'm still deciding between Meedio and Sage, but I'm leaning heavily toward Sage.

I am having one problem that is driving me nuts. I was limited to only 4GB of free spave on my test drive, so I took the new 200GB SATA drive and swapped it in to my primary PC in place of a 160GB PATA drive that was in there. I then loaded XP Pro on the formatted 160GB drive and installed SP2, etc. just like on the 10GB I had in there to test things with. I reloaded STV and Meedio, but when I record or even view Live TV, it's really choppy and unwatchable. Plug in the 10GB, and it's fine, but the 160 is bad. Both are clean installs and even from the same XP Pro CD. The only hardware change is the drive and the fact that I don't have the remote control drivers loaded on the 10GB drive. I had a newer version on PVR 150 drivers loaded on the 160GB, but I rolled back to the same version as the 10GB install. This happens in both SAGE and Meedio.

Any thoughts on this? I'm thinking of trying to drive image the 10GB image to the 160 and see what happens I was also thinking of trying the drive on the SATA card included with the new drive (it has a PATA port also) just incase the MB is not playing well with the large drive. It is a little older.

My hardware is:

XP 2000+
ASUS A7-V133
640MB RAM (PC133)
NVIDIA MX4000 Video Card
Sound Blaster PCI card
PVR-150

Any thoughts?

 

[IDversusEGO]

personally I would keep the 10gb as the OS drive and dedicate the full 160 to TV. I prefer to run with dual drives myself. but your problem probably lies in soemthing like the directx 9 versions, java versions, decoder settings, or something like that. Are you using VMR9 or overlay? with that card you going to want to use overlay.

 

[Erich in Az]

personally I would keep the 10gb as the OS drive and dedicate the full 160 to TV. I prefer to run with dual drives myself. but your problem probably lies in soemthing like the directx 9 versions, java versions, decoder settings, or something like that. Are you using VMR9 or overlay? with that card you going to want to use overlay.

I was hoping to keep it to 1 drive due to noise/heat, but that's probably what I'll do. The thing that bugs me is that they were both built the same way. I'll see if I have performance issues when I switch it to record to the big drive tonight. Stuff like this just drives me nuts. I want to know why! Lol!

 

[IDversusEGO]

well, if you want the best noise/heat, build a file server and do it that way. It's what all the cool kids are doing

 

[valve1138]

well, if you want the best noise/heat, build a file server and do it that way. It's what all the cool kids are doing

I'm a cool kid now?

But seriously, taking as many heat generating components out of your HTPC, like hard drives and tuner cards, and putting them somewhere out of sight is the way to go.

 

[Erich in Az]

I'm a cool kid now?

But seriously, taking as many heat generating components out of your HTPC, like hard drives and tuner cards, and putting them somewhere out of sight is the way to go.

Sadly, I don't have enought higher end hardware to throw at this to do a dedicated server. I have a couple of dual proc PIII 400mhz boxes around, and an Xp 1700+, but I can't justify spending the $ on RAM, video card, etc with the wife until this at least works. As it is, she sick of me messing with it.

Last night I tried a few more things, but I'm still having problems.

- Worked great with 10GB drive, so I decided to work on it again. Installed SATA/PATA card that came with the 200GB SATA drive I bought and put both drives on that controller. This caused Windoze to get in a reboot loop. Put drives back on MB controller, boots fine. Yanked card.

- Moved 160GB to 2nd IDE channel, disconnected CD-ROM drive. Remapped location of recorded files, and it seemed OK. I then reconnected the CD-ROM and it still seemed OK.

- Installed software for Motorola USB Wireless adapter

- Started messing with the IR Blaster that came with the card. Decided quickly to return this version (I think it's the MCE version 1062) as it comes with the eHome Theater IR thingy that appears to be a huge PITA to set up. I'm going to get the regular PVR150 kit with the blaster that plugs in to the card. Started messing with HIP to get Remote to work. Gave up and switched back to STV to test long time recording, but Live TV was too jerky to watch. Got Mad.

- Cleaned mirror and lens's on RPTV (because of frustration after above)

It could be the Motorola 802.11G driver, but I doubt it. CPU usage is still pretty low ~30% even when the video is jumpy so it doesn't seem to be a CPU issue. My next step is to toss the SATA drive I got in to this on that controller and see what happens.


One thing I keep forgetting to check is the 64k cluster thing on that drive. How much affect does that really have, and is it just during playback or record too?

Any more ideas?