Please help a newbie out. I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff.

I just bought a HP z556 HTPC with MCE 2005. I plan on putting this puppy in my family room and hard wiring it to my wireless router in the basement. I plan on using this mainly as a PVR for SD shows and eventually HD shows through a USB digital qam tuner. My understanding is that you can't view/record qam shows in MCE so I may have to use gbpvr software on MCE. My goal is to stream recorded shows and mp3 music files to my bedroom reciever/TV. I also have a prewired ethernet jack in my bedroom to connect anything up to my router so the Media streamer does not have to be limited to wireless.

What media streamer should I get? does HDCP come into play?

I can get the Buffalo LinkTheater HD media player for $100 from buy/com
I can get a Linksys WMCE54AG media center for $100 on ebay that works very well with MCE 2005.
Or I can get apple TV for $300.

Are there any other cheaper/better options?

thanks for your help in advance.

Please help a newbie out. I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff.
What media streamer should I get? does HDCP come into play?

I can get the Buffalo LinkTheater HD media player for $100 from buy/com
I can get a Linksys WMCE54AG media center for $100 on ebay that works very well with MCE 2005.
Or I can get apple TV for $300.

Are there any other cheaper/better options?

thanks for your help in advance.


I am looking at the Netgear EVA8000 and TViX 4100. I haven't decided. Also the Syabas Media Tank is in the works and uses a more powerful chip but I have no idea when it will be real vs. vaporware.

Paul

there is only the befitting & suited, but no the best.

I am looking at the Netgear EVA8000 and TViX 4100. I haven't decided.

This is precisely my situation. I've narrowed it to those two, but I can't decide between the two. I would like to purchase either one on Amazon, but the 4100 isn't even for sale yet there. I've e-mailed the distributor twice about the availability of the 4100, but have not received a response. I see the advantages and disadvantages of both. It seems as though the 4100 has more features, but I Netgear has the "name" and credibility (mainly for support/repair should something go wrong) over Tvix.

This is precisely my situation. I've narrowed it to those two, but I can't decide between the two. I would like to purchase either one on Amazon, but the 4100 isn't even for sale yet there. I've e-mailed the distributor twice about the availability of the 4100, but have not received a response. I see the advantages and disadvantages of both. It seems as though the 4100 has more features, but I Netgear has the "name" and credibility (mainly for support/repair should something go wrong) over Tvix.

4100 are being sold by Digital Connection. As far as name and credibility all manufactures will change with the times and also how you manage your own situation. I'll got for the 4100 with the option of hdtv tuner.

when i use samba with tivx4100sh and simpletech nas, vers.1.07 i see the movies
but when i set to nfs (higher bitrate of movies) in the tivx than can i not reach the simpletech
somebody have this situation?


grt.samdo

Please help a newbie out. I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff.

I just bought a HP z556 HTPC with MCE 2005. I plan on putting this puppy in my family room and hard wiring it to my wireless router in the basement. I plan on using this mainly as a PVR for SD shows and eventually HD shows through a USB digital qam tuner. My understanding is that you can't view/record qam shows in MCE so I may have to use gbpvr software on MCE. My goal is to stream recorded shows and mp3 music files to my bedroom reciever/TV. I also have a prewired ethernet jack in my bedroom to connect anything up to my router so the Media streamer does not have to be limited to wireless.

What media streamer should I get? does HDCP come into play?

I can get the Buffalo LinkTheater HD media player for $100 from buy/com
I can get a Linksys WMCE54AG media center for $100 on ebay that works very well with MCE 2005.
Or I can get apple TV for $300.

Are there any other cheaper/better options?

thanks for your help in advance.

Whatever you do, do not get the linkys model. It is way outdated and only supports a couple codecs. I got mine when they first came out and it was great, but now it is a relic. I upgraded to a Tvix 4100 and the only thing that I can't play, that I want to play, are HD DVD rips and about 60% of the blu ray titles out there. For the general person, I would definately go with the Tvix 4100. It is relatively simple to set up and plays the vast majority of files.

What about the Ziova ClearStream CS510 HD? Is this a good option?

Whatever you do, do not get the linkys model. It is way outdated and only supports a couple codecs. I got mine when they first came out and it was great, but now it is a relic. I upgraded to a Tvix 4100 and the only thing that I can't play, that I want to play, are HD DVD rips and about 60% of the blu ray titles out there. For the general person, I would definately go with the Tvix 4100. It is relatively simple to set up and plays the vast majority of files.


What device can play HD DVD Rips?

Thanks.

What about the Ziova ClearStream CS510 HD? Is this a good option?I have the same HP HTPC as you do and bought a Ziova (it was then called Zensonic) for my bedroom. I has worked very well for me.

A lot depends on the video format you are playing. My encodes are in Nero Digital format which the Ziova handles just fine. However, if you just use the Microsoft interface with the HTPC you might as well just get an extender.

Personally, I have found the Media Center software pretty but cumbersome and prefer to use VLC (or Nero Showtime) to play the videos on the HTPC.

For $100, I vote for the Buffalo LinkTheater. I have owned one for around 2 years and it plays everything I need it to. I use Swisscenter as the "frontend". I mainly use it to play ripped DVDs and recorded HD .ts files (recorded from OTA). It works great and has never given me a problem.

I would also consider the LimHD200i...

K

lol and i would consider all others comeon guys that brings nothing!!!

i think for his needs the

I can get the Buffalo LinkTheater HD media player for $100 from buy/com

will be enough but many times you will want more search the forums and read many then you will see what the best is for your needs.

cHarOn

lol and i would consider all others comeon guys that brings nothing!!!

i think for his needs the



will be enough but many times you will want more search the forums and read many then you will see what the best is for your needs.

cHarOn

Soz...didn't read his post fully.....the LimHD cannot be used as a PVR, so would be no good for your needs...

K

havent found an answer but found a place that might have the answer - mpcclub.com. looks like avs for media extenders. i wanna know what the best, easiest media extender is because i've decided that a laptop + a media extender is better for me than an htpc.

Just a correction-there are QAM tuners that support MCE. The HdHomerun for one supports most of the popular PVR packages. I think that there may be one or two others.

Part of the problem is that most hardware extenders have interfaces that suck bigtime. They do great decoding and are relatively cheap, but have terrible, slow, and unintuitive interfaces.

Do you want something that will allow you to see show information, channel guides, metadata, etc? As far as I know the only option for this is an Xbox360 with MCE. Supposedly, SageTV is coming out with an HD extender, but no one has any idea when.

Is your bedroom TV SD or HD? If only SD, there are some more options. There are various SD versions of the "Media MVP" that have been hacked/customized to work as an SD extender for at least a few different packages (GB-PVR, SageTV, BeyondTV). You can find more information at the forums for these products. I believe that there are SD extenders for MCE 2005, but I don't know how good they are. You can find more info about those at the Green Button forums.

Hopefully the recently announced TiVo HD will be usable as a streamer once TiVo implements the currently missing features such as TivoToComeBack. This is supposedly happening by around the end of the year.

The new TiVo HD has much more hardware decoding built in over the original S3. So things like decoding H.264 should be possible.

Also as Fyodor point out, most interfaces suck bigtime. TiVo should have a distinct advantage.

I use Swisscenter (http://www.swisscenter.co.uk/) and it works great for watching programming that was recorded with GBPVR through my HDHomeRun. It is open source and stable on my underpowered server (Athlon XP 3200+ with 512MB). The interface isn't as pretty as a lot of the others out there, but IMO it works very well. Check it out.

Where can I find a list of all the current streamers?

For audio use that is/

For $100, I vote for the Buffalo LinkTheater. I have owned one for around 2 years and it plays everything I need it to. I use Swisscenter as the "frontend". I mainly use it to play ripped DVDs and recorded HD .ts files (recorded from OTA). It works great and has never given me a problem.
Why use Swisscenter vs Winzd - Swiss seems to need much more configuration and add on programs to run????

Is there any benefit?

Linkplayer2 plus WIZD (freeware server software) has worked very well for me for a long time and IMO for streaming SD mpeg and HD ts (bitrates < 18Mb/s) there is nothing out there that is any better. It also does a great job with DivX, DivX HD, WMV, WMV HD, mp4 and the latest version of Nero Digital.

Linkplayer2 plus WIZD (freeware server software) has worked very well for me for a long time and IMO for streaming SD mpeg and HD ts (bitrates < 18Mb/s) there is nothing out there that is any better. It also does a great job with DivX, DivX HD, WMV, WMV HD, mp4 and the latest version of Nero Digital. It supports H.264? Isn't that Nero Digital?

It supports H.264? Isn't that Nero Digital?
I know that the Linkplayer2 does not support h264....I had an older version of Nero Digital that I used to have to run through MP4Cam2AVI before the LP2 would play the file but recently I trialed the latest version of Nero Digital and the files played straight up.

I think Nero Digital is based somewhat on h264 but it is not really h264.

Why use Swisscenter vs Winzd - Swiss seems to need much more configuration and add on programs to run????

Is there any benefit?

I never tired WIZD so I don't have any pros/cons. Swisscenter is very easy to configure/use. I have it running on 2k3 server and never have any problems/issues (very stable).

[UPDATE] I took a quick look at WIZD. It looks good. My biggest issue is the fact that it doesn't run as a service. Also, I feel that the movie details with folder art in Swisscenter is a step ahead of WIZD (at the moment anyway). It seems that there are ways to accomplish this, but it requires some modifications. WIZD seems to have a large following and probably gets updated more often in result. Updates to Swisscenter are few and far between.

I never tired WIZD so I don't have any pros/cons. Swisscenter is very easy to configure/use. I have it running on 2k3 server and never have any problems/issues (very stable).

[UPDATE] I took a quick look at WIZD. It looks good. My biggest issue is the fact that it doesn't run as a service. Also, I feel that the movie details with folder art in Swisscenter is a step ahead of WIZD (at the moment anyway). It seems that there are ways to accomplish this, but it requires some modifications. WIZD seems to have a large following and probably gets updated more often in result. Updates to Swisscenter are few and far between.
WIZD is server software but it runs as an executable and it comes in Windows and Linux flavors. It also provides the option to delete files immediately using the remote, which we find very very useful...not having to remember what we have watched so that it can be deleted later on when I am at the computer is huge. Another feature I have really come to depend on is its flexibility in regards to setting up folders. You can have video on numerous HDDs and in folders and pull it all together under one folder name. For example my wife likes Nature disaster stuff and I have these files distributed across three different HDDs but when she goes to the Disaster Folder she sees all of the video files and can choose any of them.

WIZD is server software but it runs as an executable and it comes in Windows and Linux flavors. It also provides the option to delete files immediately using the remote, which we find very very useful...not having to remember what we have watched so that it can be deleted later on when I am at the computer is huge. Another feature I have really come to depend on is its flexibility in regards to setting up folders. You can have video on numerous HDDs and in folders and pull it all together under one folder name. For example my wife likes Nature disaster stuff and I have these files distributed across three different HDDs but when she goes to the Disaster Folder she sees all of the video files and can choose any of them.

Not trying to hijack this into a this is better than that or anything. I never used WIZD and know that it has a huge following so it must be a nice piece of software. I also agree that the ability to delete on the fly is pretty sweet. For my application, the software must run as a service. The ability to use numerous HDD/folders in one directory is achievable with Swisscenter. As I said, WIZD looks great, but not for my application. I want others to know that there are alternatives. Also, you should go with whatever you like and works best for your application. Keep trying different types until you find one that works best for you.