2014-02-14, 11:23
Good Morning,
I am finally starting to get somewhere with my media center setup (been a slow process since my wife won't let me buy hardware lol). My end goal is to have a XBMC media center in the living room that does everything - Live TV, Central storage of music, videos, pictures and all things media also dvd player, internet etc etc. I then want another TV/Media Center upstairs in the bedroom that will access the downstairs box for tv/media files etc.
So this is what I have so far:
Until I can buy all the parts I need (so far only cd drive and tuner) I am using an x-computer I had laying around from about 7 years ago. It is a single core processor with about 1gb ram. I installed a cut down version of windows 7 chopped out everything I don't need even replaced the shell to I think it was eventghost to launch xbmc. It also acts as the TV Server with the tuner I purchased in (freeview uk) which is currently MediaPortal but going to try Argus shortly. This works perfectly apart from while watching TV it occasionally stutters. Its not signal related like when you get the digital break down its like what happens when you processor maxes out it happens 2 to 8 times an hour and only for less than a second each time but its quiet annoying. My guess is its the hardware is not man enough to do the tv server and media center in one and second guess would be either tuner or tv server software? Any opinions and if its hardware what sort of spec would someone recommend to do both?
Upstairs I am using an old Android phone (HTC Sensation XE) with an MHL to HDMI adapater it has a custom rom on which is fairly stripped down with XBMC installed and a Startup manager so that it auto opens XBMC on phone startup. This appears to work ok (setup last night) although I haven't tried it with Live TV yet since the downstairs box is not setup properly only allows local playback the only niggle I had with it I came down this morning and XBMC had closed so I need to figure out why and stop that happening - Also does anyone know if its possible to add a command button in xbmc that would trigger the android phone to reboot? That could be handy.
My last issue is Guide/EPG related. When we click on Live TV it goes to a channel list and not the EPG guide which is what my wife wants (basically she likes Sky and wants a familar feel) so is there any way to get this to open when you click Live TV and secondly can you replace the EPG look and feel with something a little bit better. Like on Sky when you click a current show it changes to that channel where as in xbmc it opens a screen up with information about that tv show with ok, switch and record which is a little annoying as well.
One other thing that would be nice but I don't think its possible is to have a bit more of a normal browser rather than the text linear one but thats a more long term idea I think.
Other than that I am really happy with my setup and can't wait to fully switch over to it. I am hoping in the next couple of weeks I can buy a few more parts for the downstairs system I have a half height TV tuner for it as well as a slimline trayless dvd drive (like you get in cars) and I plan to but an M-ITX case and motherboard next.
What do you guys think?
I am finally starting to get somewhere with my media center setup (been a slow process since my wife won't let me buy hardware lol). My end goal is to have a XBMC media center in the living room that does everything - Live TV, Central storage of music, videos, pictures and all things media also dvd player, internet etc etc. I then want another TV/Media Center upstairs in the bedroom that will access the downstairs box for tv/media files etc.
So this is what I have so far:
Until I can buy all the parts I need (so far only cd drive and tuner) I am using an x-computer I had laying around from about 7 years ago. It is a single core processor with about 1gb ram. I installed a cut down version of windows 7 chopped out everything I don't need even replaced the shell to I think it was eventghost to launch xbmc. It also acts as the TV Server with the tuner I purchased in (freeview uk) which is currently MediaPortal but going to try Argus shortly. This works perfectly apart from while watching TV it occasionally stutters. Its not signal related like when you get the digital break down its like what happens when you processor maxes out it happens 2 to 8 times an hour and only for less than a second each time but its quiet annoying. My guess is its the hardware is not man enough to do the tv server and media center in one and second guess would be either tuner or tv server software? Any opinions and if its hardware what sort of spec would someone recommend to do both?
Upstairs I am using an old Android phone (HTC Sensation XE) with an MHL to HDMI adapater it has a custom rom on which is fairly stripped down with XBMC installed and a Startup manager so that it auto opens XBMC on phone startup. This appears to work ok (setup last night) although I haven't tried it with Live TV yet since the downstairs box is not setup properly only allows local playback the only niggle I had with it I came down this morning and XBMC had closed so I need to figure out why and stop that happening - Also does anyone know if its possible to add a command button in xbmc that would trigger the android phone to reboot? That could be handy.
My last issue is Guide/EPG related. When we click on Live TV it goes to a channel list and not the EPG guide which is what my wife wants (basically she likes Sky and wants a familar feel) so is there any way to get this to open when you click Live TV and secondly can you replace the EPG look and feel with something a little bit better. Like on Sky when you click a current show it changes to that channel where as in xbmc it opens a screen up with information about that tv show with ok, switch and record which is a little annoying as well.
One other thing that would be nice but I don't think its possible is to have a bit more of a normal browser rather than the text linear one but thats a more long term idea I think.
Other than that I am really happy with my setup and can't wait to fully switch over to it. I am hoping in the next couple of weeks I can buy a few more parts for the downstairs system I have a half height TV tuner for it as well as a slimline trayless dvd drive (like you get in cars) and I plan to but an M-ITX case and motherboard next.
What do you guys think?