DLSS Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 help making a media center out of an old pc ... ok so i'm thinking about making a media center pc out of my old box ... notice they're old parts, but it is able to recordemovies just fine and displaying isnt too bad either ... it has been connected to a tv before and i still have the cable laying to connect it up to coax& the cable network. here's the most important parts list : amd athlon xp +2800 onboard geforce 2 (has s-video out) hercules smart tv < 512 MB ram now the questions ... ok so first of all i want a nice media center interface , be able to display all video/audio formats i would be able to on any other pc , be able to add a bluetooth stick & keyboard afterwards, connect it to my network and use it as a local ftp & to browse the web/stream audio, must be compatible with the hardware (i'm mainly worried about the capture card & bluetooth) i'm not biased what would u advise for linux distro or xp media center edition ? any setup tips, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Windows: Win MCE, MediaPortal Linux: MythTV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omega_ion Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 If you go the linux route, I suggest installing either Mythdora or Knoppmyth distros to make installation of MythTV alot easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLSS Posted February 16, 2007 Author Share Posted February 16, 2007 how bout the support for this hardware on the linux side ? i kno myth tv but never installed it but seem to remember there were only little capture cards supported on it ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsncorrosion Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Just use Media Portal http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ Its open source! Yay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLSS Posted February 16, 2007 Author Share Posted February 16, 2007 Just use Media Portalhttp://www.team-mediaportal.com/ Its open source! Yay! it wont even play any of my videos ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omega_ion Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Well with regards to Knoppmyth, it can be run as a live cd for you to test out your hardware and see how everything works. I'm unsure if mythdora offers the same functionality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Media portal is actually damn good, and worked for me nicely when I had a gigantic pile of NTFS disks full of Simpson's episodes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsncorrosion Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Media portal is actually damn good, and worked for me nicely when I had a gigantic pile of NTFS disks full of Simpson's episodes. Same here, I love Media Portal, I've never had a problem with it. But if your having trouble try upgrading media player or send them an email. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmh0101 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 how bout the support for this hardware on the linux side ? i kno myth tv but never installed it but seem to remember there were only little capture cards supported on it ... hardware support is pretty good actually. I would search to see if you can find any results with the TV card you own. Getting the remote to work is usually harder to get working though(if your card is not popular). In my opinion i would go with Windows XP Media Center Edition, because you may find it the easiest to work with and have an wide range of playable video formats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLSS Posted February 17, 2007 Author Share Posted February 17, 2007 ok so seems my capture-card would work with it but media portal doesn't like the system :cry: it just gives me a bland error when trying to run it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsncorrosion Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 Maybe you should email this to them, they might be able to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickisgod1 Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 if you havent completely decided against the linux route, any distro + mythtv is awesome. lircd will work if you have a remote, google says that hercules cards work fine with v4lin, and myth has such great functionality its awesome, obviouly tv, web browser, weather, use mplayer to play any media you have on your computer, use with multiple tuners if you get another one, and much more. of all the media setups ive had, id say i love my linux+myth+mysql+lirc the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLSS Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 i've fixed it by now ... , tho i cant get the colours configured correctly (on az monitor they show fine but on the tv they look how do you say it .... too hot if u get what i mean , and it looks like shit .... any tips i tryed the cofiguration of the tv , gfx card but cant seem to b able to get it to give me some decent quality .... if you havent completely decided against the linux route, any distro + mythtv is awesome. lircd will work if you have a remote, google says that hercules cards work fine with v4lin, and myth has such great functionality its awesome, obviouly tv, web browser, weather, use mplayer to play any media you have on your computer, use with multiple tuners if you get another one, and much more. of all the media setups ive had, id say i love my linux+myth+mysql+lirc the best. u've got my intrest can u link me some information and a download page and i'll look into it :P i always prefere the linux route cos its less system intensive ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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