tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27469504666618686782011-07-08T04:55:31.166+01:00Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-63017361581726236772010-08-10T14:00:00.004+01:002010-08-10T15:48:33.063+01:00

Last week I upgraded the MediaPortal installation from 1.04 to 1.1.0 final. I decided to take the easy route and leave out the live tv functionality. At this moment my server is located out of reach of the analog tv cable, the whole tv-server setup has always been troublesome, and I've come to peace with the idea of not using the HTPC for live tv anymore. Most of what I watch is downloaded

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-70048556820737039362010-07-28T10:51:00.005+01:002010-07-28T17:00:05.227+01:00

Last December the HTPC got a complete makeover, only the case and the PSU were reused. The upgrade was needed to be able to playback HD content. While I was at it, I decided to throw in a Solid State Harddisk. All media is streamed from the server anyway, so there's no need for terabytes of storage on the HTPC.This is the new setup:- Greenpower HTPC case GL-1c with VFD display- ASUS M4A785G HTPC

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-54524675455808384862009-12-19T18:18:00.004+01:002009-12-19T18:27:04.426+01:00

Today the server got an upgrade: 1.5 TB of additional storage. Installing was a breeze, Windows Home Server takes care of the formatting and adding it to the storage pool.I chose another Samsung Spinpoint, because I like how silent these are. Soon I'll remove the 160GB Maxtor hard drive from the server, because I don't need a third disk and I want to minimize power usage.The server setup is now:

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-84505816453368529732009-06-07T08:48:00.005+01:002009-07-07T12:29:07.404+01:00

Finally, I own a digital flatscreen TV. After long and careful consideration I put my money on the Samsung 40B7020. It's full HD, 100Hz. The all new LED backlighting technology results in deeper blacks, a relatively low power consumption and a very thin - only 3 cm - screen. This particular model comes with an ethernet connection and all kinds of network and internet functionality. It's a Media

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-50946630348117437002009-02-18T16:54:00.004+01:002009-02-18T17:12:28.626+01:00

Tom's Hardware has an interesting piece on building an HTPC based on AMD's Maui platform and Windows 7. Silent PC Review and others reported on the platform in November and what's interesting is that the audio amplifiers can be integrated in the HTPC.Not for me though, my 13 kilogram AV receiver won't be exchanged for an amplifier on a PCI express card. I'll keep feeding it digital signal

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-52735905160175467802009-02-05T15:05:00.003+01:002009-02-05T15:30:41.655+01:00

A little over a year ago I reported about the MP TV series plugin and how it blew me away. Last week a new version was released and it's even better. It still makes extensive use of the TV series database at http://www.thetvdb.com/. Not only the series banners, screenshots and episode guides are used, but also the fanart graphics are used in the background. The user interface for configuration

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-86436479732478513562008-11-06T19:54:00.007+01:002008-11-27T18:16:19.199+01:00

While personally I'm happily tinkering around with individual pc components, the internet hardware stores provide pre-configured HTPCs as well. What can we learn from their hardware choices? A small round-up of the HTPC offerings in the dutch internet PC stores.Judging from the amount of choice, Media Center PC's still don't account for a significant amount of computer sales. Compare that to the

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-91470726199515580602008-10-08T22:15:00.004+02:002009-07-07T12:30:32.055+01:00

The home server is up and running for a couple of weeks now, so time for an update. I use Windows Home Server as the operating system. It's easy to use and helps with a couple of server essentials. The nice thing about WHS is that it manages the available harddisk space as a single large network drive. As a user you only see one network drive, regardless of how many physical drives the server has

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-57784863522936573162008-09-09T22:40:00.004+02:002008-09-09T22:54:57.452+02:00

Since a transfer to MediaPortal 1.0 requires a fresh new install, I'm revisiting a lot of settings that I haven't touched in a while. Among which the maps for My Weather. With many websites using unsupported formats for their weather maps, finding images that My Weather can display is a challenge. For instance, the .png files that are used by the dutch KNMI website and many other weather sites

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-77272979666568316722008-09-07T23:31:00.004+02:002008-09-08T11:48:29.457+02:00

With the server hardware up and running, there is plenty of troubleshooting to do. My network now consists of a server and two client pc's, connected by 100Mbps ethernet and a router that I use a switch. The router is also connected to an ADSL modem that's also a router.First of all, the network was behaving weird. Even though all three pc's had the same workgroup name specified, not all of the

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-5694816653928835622008-08-01T14:13:00.006+02:002008-08-01T14:22:52.258+02:00

The hardware for my Home Server/ TV Server is in!CPU: Intel Celeron 440 2.0GHz, 800MHz FSBMobo: Gigabyte EP35-DS3, Intel P35 Chipset, ATXHarddisk: Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB, SATAIIMemory: Kingston Dimm 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5OS: Windows Home Server UKTo be supplemented by some re-use components:Power Supply 250W2 Hauppauge analogue TV cardsMaxtor 160GB harddisk

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-61229255778131535132008-07-26T19:41:00.006+02:002008-07-26T23:59:55.626+02:00

In the battle between the music communities Last.fm and Pandora, the choice is obvious in Europe: Since Pandora had to block service to anyone outside the Land of the Free in May 2007, the prize went to Last.fm.Wikipedia gives a decent explanation of what Last.fm is and what it does, so I won't repeat that here. This month, Last.fm released a new web layout with a number of improvements. The

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-29379837051852159842008-06-27T13:31:00.006+02:002008-10-08T22:41:28.163+02:00

With a desktop PC and a Media Center PC in my house, I've been contemplating a means of central storing for a while. With a wide array of NAS devices, what's to choose? And why not a full server? With the availability of Windows Home Server since last year, the answer is easy: Let's build a server!With a broadband network in the house, separating the data from the user interface makes sense! A

PeterKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12707188590924238878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-51605922713579186812008-06-02T23:31:00.005+02:002008-06-03T00:30:10.091+02:00

What's the point of owning some fine loudspeakers and a matching receiver, if the set only gets to play crappy MP3 stuff? With todays prices for digital storage, storing music with a lossless audio codec has become affordable. Just exactly how crappy are those MP3 compressed music files?To put this question to the test, I compared MP3 compression against a lossless format, FLAC. FLAC stands for

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-59006336308847390532008-04-09T09:23:00.003+02:002008-04-09T09:33:28.216+02:00

My Media Center PC runs on Windows XP. Today I visited Microsoft updates site and found out I had a backlog of 41 high priority updates since January 2007. I simply never do the updates and I get away with it. I never even bothered to install an anti virus package, for performance and stability.But then again, I don't get exposed to risks too often. My DSL router has a firewall. I only use the

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-9105488742224754852008-01-27T23:26:00.002+01:002008-04-24T09:33:01.981+02:00

My Media Center madness knows no boundaries. When shopping for paint for my house, I found the shop's paint blending machine was equipped with a very tiny keyboard with integrated trackball. How neat would that look in the living room? A trackball is much more precize than the little joystick-like device I have on my keyboard. On the downside: it was attached by a cable. Of course, I had to ask

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-31231627157558867902008-01-25T00:05:00.000+01:002008-01-25T00:14:37.734+01:00

Tom's hardware has posted a review of the Antec Fusion HTPC case. The timing seems odd, this product is not exactly new on the market. But they did a thorough job and it is a nice case.

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-62618545956425666632008-01-19T22:42:00.000+01:002008-01-25T00:20:56.990+01:00

I've been blogging before about the Album Artist view in My Music. I found out that not all of my album artists were displaying correctly, so I had to sink some extra calories in it.In general, I like to play music by album. And I want to select an album from a list of artists. The trick is in here: I don't like to have artists in that list that don't have full albums on my harddrive. Hence the

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-58509639041698841752008-01-19T21:57:00.000+01:002008-01-19T22:35:46.499+01:00

Today I installed the shoutcast plugin. This plugin uses the shoutcast directory at http://www.shoutcast.com/ to find internet radio stations from within MediaPortal. For install it requires only unpacking in the MediaPortal directory and there are no configuration settings. The plugin is easy to use and within a couple of minutes I created a favourites list of the stations I'd like to listen

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-54294316184650694092007-12-16T17:34:00.001+01:002008-01-19T01:34:14.381+01:00

One of my favorite features in mediaportal is the tv-series support. Enjoying the tv-series you like, all you want, when you want, is absolutely great. But MediaPortal just adds a little user's joy to the excercise. The developers found out that somewhere on the internet, there's a community of tv enthusiasts collecting heaps of banners, episode guides and what not for every imaginable tv series.

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-61216576011225815742007-12-16T13:55:00.001+01:002007-12-31T11:13:35.407+01:00

Since the final, stable MediaPortal 0.2.3 release is out, I decided to do a fresh install and blog a couple of tips and tricks.Installing or updating is pretty straightforward. I always check the instructions on the wiki, I noticed these change every now and then. I renamed the mediaportal folder and uninstalled MediaPortal with Control Panel -> Add/remove Programs.Running the Setup exe-file, the

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-72059628508100591862007-11-16T17:17:00.001+01:002009-07-07T12:31:59.918+01:00

A couple of weeks behind schedule, I've installed release candidate 3 of MediaPortal 0.2.3.0. The changes with respect to 0.2.2.0, build 13411, that I was using before, the changes are not that apparent. But there are some!A long time annoyance with MediaPortal was how to best browse through my music. My music collection is arranged by album. So when looking for some tunes to play, I want to

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-51948423679447086872007-11-07T04:44:00.000+01:002007-11-07T06:01:41.558+01:00

Here's two completely unrelated but nevertheless interesting links:Missing remote has a helpful guide on building a Media Center PC for a little over 1000 dollars. All important aspects are covered, check it out if you're building a yourself a new set.The other link is to All out Assault, a forum site where Audiogon users display their monstrous audio setups. The absurdness is funny to the point

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-78120841288790390962007-10-10T15:49:00.000+02:002007-10-23T23:48:37.171+02:00

Using information from internet is what distinguishes a Media Center PC from a harddisk recorder, a Tivo, etcetera. MediaPortal is constantly finding information from the internet about the media it shows or plays. It gathers tv guide information for watching tv, artist information, related music and cd covers while listening to music, actors with your movies, episode guides with the tv series.

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-17980734881493932162007-07-31T17:13:00.000+02:002007-07-31T17:31:00.299+02:00

I bought myself a nice keyboard. Generally speaking, you don't really need a keyboard and mouse for operating the mediacenter, but sometimes... There's a couple of things I like about this keyboard. For one, it has built-in mouse functionality. So you can operate it from the couch on your lap, without having to locate a mouse and a suitable surface first. The 10 meter range is a must for this as

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-58593437902305029982007-07-22T14:42:00.000+02:002007-07-22T16:18:55.704+02:00

A Media Center PC is operated from the couch and therefore you need a remote. Remotes come in all shapes and sizes. Most remotes only send a one-way signal to your home theatre equipment, but Windows Vista is inspiring the introduction of several interesting two-way remotes. The Ricavision Sideshow Remote is an example. The 2.5" color screen is what catches the eye, but what's really new is that

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-51220789281954563442007-07-17T23:37:00.000+02:002007-09-18T15:27:04.966+02:00

HTPC components:- Greenpower HTPC case GL-1c with VFD display- ASUS P4S533MX micro ATX mother board,533MHz FSB, AGP4x, 3x PCI, Ultra DMA133- 2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 CPU, 533MHz FSB- Zalman CNPS5700D Cu CPU cooler (without the air duct)- 512MB memory, PC2700- 250GB Samsung Spinpoint SP2514 hard drive , 7200rpm- Coolermaster PSU 400W- Lite-on DVD ROM drive- XP Home Edition SP2 operating system-

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-61737699971303364962007-07-11T22:38:00.001+02:002010-07-27T10:14:30.659+01:00

The first mediacenter that entered my living room - October 2003 - was merely intended as an MP3 player. I had heard of this new invention called "time shifting" so I bought a Hauppauge TV card as well. The PVR-350 came with hardware encoding and a remote. Another use that I could think of was digitizing my LPs, so that's why I got a Soundblaster Audigy Platinum.All of this was mounted in a

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-10576565668864545022007-06-23T09:58:00.000+02:002007-07-17T23:51:32.075+02:00

So, I'm a MediaPortal user. But what competition is MediaPortal up against?First and foremost, Microsoft. While Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 was still a separate package, the media center support has been integrated in Windows Vista. You'll have to get the Premium edition though. With the performance requirements that it imposes on your hardware, Vista is not the most cost effective

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-91387981860597163082007-06-09T20:32:00.000+02:002007-06-23T11:28:59.356+02:00

The front-end software of choice for my mediacenter pc is MediaPortal. MediaPortal is an open source project hosted at sourceforge.com, meaning that it's absolutely free. But most of all, it's developed by people who do this for fun. And that shows. The MediaPortal community is very active in developing new features, plugins and skins. There's a wiki support site and an active forum with help for

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-12064175778877212692007-05-28T09:50:00.000+02:002007-07-18T18:22:04.624+02:00

Let me introduce you to my setup. First, there's the media center PC itself. Then, I use a Marantz SR5500 A/V receiver and a Samsung CRT television set. The front and center loudspeakers are home-built kit speakers. And for the vinyl collection, there's a Thorens TD125 turntable.A more detailed description will follow in a future post, but here's some features of the PC:- Greenpower HTPC case

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2746950466661868678.post-65211761656091405822007-05-14T22:51:00.000+02:002007-06-24T16:04:18.673+02:00

When I started building my mediacenter PC in 2003, I would have bet a dear thing that a PC in the living room would be common in many households very soon. Why bother with a separate dvd player, video recorder, a stack of hifi components and a zillion remote controls, when you can combine everything in neat single box? Why invest in a hard disk recorder or a home cinema set, only to find out 6

Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880540270274917164noreply@blogger.com0