# HTPC on the cheap



## tdi_veedub (Jan 29, 2004)

I am using my old athlon 2500 as a media pc:

Silverstone lc13 case(Silver)
asus a7n8x-x
barton 2500
512 DDR
radeon 7500 (svga out)
30GB HD
LG DVD writer
Dlink wireless NIC
Twinhan 1020A DVB-S satellite card

Software:

XP
SageTV(trial)
MyTheatre(trial)

I make heavy use of filesharing from other PC's to aquire media such as music, videos and pictures. SageTV will not play regular CDs. Recording from the sat card both with sage, and mytheatre sucks so much it's useless. I would have thought that the software for windows would be more refined. Boy was I wrong.

This box was running Freevo, but I could not get my satellite card to function properly in Linux(kernel 2.4.x). It's unfortunate becase Freevo does everything. No need to switch software and mess around with a keyboard and mouse. With Freevo, the interface was two options, the power button, and the remote. Once setup, no need for keyboard or mouse.

I will give linux another go. This time I will try Ubuntu instead of slackware(newer kernel), and mythtv. I need to at least get the media center portion of things working correctly. Satellite can wait. I have a christmas eve party to host and time is running out.


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## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Have you tried MediaPortal with it? Takes a bit of tinkering, but works very well when finished.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

PS. I'd recommend using version 0.1.30 until the 0.2 gets finished. If your planning to use a MCE remote, then it'll work immediately. Huappuage remotes are also supported.. If you plan to use a simple serial IR reciever, then load version 0.1.20 first and use the WinLirc plugin, then after your remote buttons are mapped, backup irremote.xml and upgrade to version 0.1.30 , then replace irremote.xml.

Download the 0.1.20 version of the Lirc plugin here: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1162750&group_id=107397&atid=647927

Place it in the plugin\processes folder. Then open the configuration for MediaPortal, go to plugins, put a checkmark next to the plugin, and click the settings button to start using it. I am using a few IR recievers from the old PackardBell Fastmedia remotes that I bought for $3ea several months back.

Wally world sells a 3 in 1 PVR remote for $7.99 that works well with a serial IR reciever. I set a few to the "Philips" brand DVR, used WinLirc's learning function (takes a few tries, but it will learn the remote), then mapped the buttons.

I really think both SageTV, and MyTheatre are highly over-rated.

One other thing.. Hopefully before you installed XP, you set the bios power management to S3. It really makes for a quieter experience when you can put the machine to sleep without any fans running. If you didn't, then you might think about re-installing with S3 set in the bios.


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## tdi_veedub (Jan 29, 2004)

Awesome piece of software gotrootdude!!! 

This thing detected my dvb-s, remote, everything!  The only thing I need to configure manually is the satellite definitions and the epg. The ones that come with mediaportal are european. I'll keep you posted, but things are finally looking up.

Thanks again!


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## Gibble (Oct 10, 2001)

Btw, if you plan to use MythTV, use KnoppMyth, it's a breeze to install and setup


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