Need some home Theater advice - Page 4

Unless you have a Windows Media Center PC running, I'm not aware of a way to run a test other than to hook them up to a TV and confirm that they turn on. If they power on and their setup menus work, they're probably fine. I don't think anything can go wrong with them other than catastrophic failure in which case they wouldn't power on at all.

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If prices start to get to high or the availability gets scarce, you could always use a few of the 4GB XBOX 360 Slims with the added benefit that those rooms could watch DVD's locally and play video games.

Copy Once doesn't affect extenders - it only prevents you from playing the recording on a different PC. This does mean that if your PC has a catastrophic failure (such as requiring a motherboard replacement), you would no longer be able to watch any old copy once recordings. But that's no different than if your Tivo or cable company DVR dies. Copy Never is what you'd really want to worry about, but that flag should also prevent the cable company DVR from recording the show - it's not a Windows specific issue. If the cable companies and content providers started making liberal use of copy never, I suspect you'd see a mass exodus of people dropping cable TV service and switching to alternate ways to get their entertainment - it would be the last straw for many most likely including me. If they make it too hard to enjoy their content, lots of people will stop paying for the service to the point where it will hurt the cable companies and I would like to think they're smart enough to realize that.

As to movies, I haven't really gotten into putting them on my Windows Media Center box and trying to play them on my extenders, so I really don't have a ton of advice to offer in that department. I do play ripped movies in TheaterTek though and would suggest that you rip them using something that strips copy protection, such as AnyDVD which should render any future changes moot for movies you've already ripped.

Someone else had actually contacted him first, but apparently the deal fell through so I ended up buying it. It's on the way to me now, so I should have it in another day or so. Getting this one was definitely dumb luck / being in the right place at the right time. He should be commended for charging a very reasonable price - I wouldn't have bought one above list price as I would have been willing to wait.

The difference between the vendors is largely whether you have to pay sales tax or not and how much they charge for shipping. Zones has the lowest shipping charges, but have to charge the sales tax for most states. Cannon and Fluid both tack on handling fees to their shipping charges and don't get the same shipping discounts with UPS and FedEx that a larger vendor like Zones gets so their shipping charges work out to be $10-15 higher than Zones. Keep in mind that even if the vendor doesn't charge your state sales tax, it technically has to be paid at some point anyway (though very few people actually do so).

Based on what I've seen for feedback on The Green Button, Cannon seems to be providing the best all around service. I bought my first card from Zones because they were the only vendor when I placed my order. No complaints there.


I'm going to use the tuner salad mod, but I'm not using a bunch of TV's. I'll only be using the tuners on 2 or 3 TV's and rarely more than 1 at a time. Why I want more than 4 tuners is that there are times when the combination of shows I'm recording and the show I'm watching exceeds 4 at which point I've run out of tuners. I could deal with this by supplementing the Cable Card tuners with either Clear QAM or OTA tuners, but I prefer to have all my tuners be the same type because it just makes things easier as I don't have to worry about merging channels in the WMC interface. It's too bad that Ceton doesn't have the 6 tuner version of the card available as that would probably be perfect for my needs and only use 1 Cable Card which would save me a few $ a month. Yes, you need a coax line for each Ceton card. You could probably get away with running 1 line and splitting it at the card, but it's probably better to run 2 lines and split it in 1 place instead of cascading splitters. And yes, connect the HTPC to the same network switch as the rest of the house and the extenders will be able to find it.

ReneTHX is suggesting i3 / i5 because i7 horsepower really isn't needed for most HTPC use including recording and/or streaming a bunch of TV streams. If you've already got the CPU, there's certainly no harm in using it. In my case, I went with an i7 CPU at the time because I needed a motherboard with PCIe slots in the right places so I could use them (many boards have a PCIe slot that's blocked by the video card, for example which makes the slot useless) and went with the Asus P6T7 WS Supercomputer MB.

Why the nVidia video card? Personally, I'd go with an ATI 5xxx series video card so I could stream HD audio formats, but that's personal preference.

I would add a smaller hard drive to install the OS and applications on (500GB or even smaller out to be sufficient) and use the 2 TB drives to store recordings and any other data (ripped music, dvd's, blurays, etc.). By keeping the data separate, you won't lose it if your OS drive fails.

Note that Windows Media Center will only record to a single drive letter, so you'll need to RAID more than 1 drive if you want it to make use of more than 1 drive for recordings. In my experience, 1 2TB drive is probably sufficient for new recordings unless you're recording an absolutely ridiculous number of shows. If you decide you want to archive some recordings, just manually move them from your recording drive to one of the others.

You could also set up RAID on your 2TB drives so they would appear as 1 large drive (the actual capacity you end up with would depend on which flavor of RAID you go with), but would suggest avoiding the RAID features built into most motherboards and go with a hardware RAID card instead as it's a lot more reliable. Keep in mind that if a RAID array runs into trouble and can't be repaired, you usually lose ALL data - not just the data on the bad drive(s). My feeling is that RAID should probably be avoided unless you know what you're doing.

I'd suggest posting your proposed build in that HTPC build thread and ask for advice there (and make it clear that you already have the CPU and intend to use it) as you should get a fair amount of useful advice there.

Chadster,

Reading all this stuff about HTPC, extenders and whatnot makes it obvious that you're a lot more ambitious than I am - I just want to get things operational for one, possibly two, screens/TVs. Look forward to hearing how your efforts pan out.

On a related front, I'm trying to figure out how to run the RG6 cable from my inside my attic out to the outside of the attic (or vice versa ) so I can reliably use OTA. Once I get the connection to the attic I'm good - I've already run the RG6 from my basement central equipment closet to the outside of the house. I see you've done the cabling to/from attics several times - so can you give me (and my helpers below) some help?



I presume it's pretty straightforward to drill a hole through the eave soffit, or alternatively just pop the cable out through a roof vent, but I can't find the details laid out anywhere. I have pretty easy access to both the attic (with blown insulation) but am flummoxed on how exactly to do this, and the workspace is pretty cramped and dirty inside the attic where the roof meets the floor (and the blown insulation).

Any suggestions?

Chad,

Yeah, I wasn't very clear - probably because it's such a stupid question no one could believe I'm actually asking that. What can I say: I'm an antenna virgin.

I am looking at an attic mount antenna, not a roof mount, as my TV Fool map looks pretty good. I'm less than 10 miles from the main transmitter towers, so I already get a decent signal with just a set top antenna, but an attic mount would be better, and I've already run the cable up to the point of the eave soffit. (I just couldn't find a good photo of my helpers with an attic antenna.)

The only part I'm trying to confirm is just the best way to drill through the eave soffit in order to get the RG6 cable INTO the attic! That's it! Once I get it inside I'm good, as I've already run the main RG6 run between there and my basement equipment closet.

My understanding now, from a response I got in another thread, is that it should be an easy thing to just drill through the eave soffit and fish the cable through. I just wasn't sure if I would run into a top plate or something, and didn't want too many surprises once I was up on a ladder, lest I get hung up out there.



So - it's as easy as that: drilling through the soffit and fishing the cable in to the attic?

Agreed - if at all possible keep those wires inside. In my case, the run from the basement to the attic has 2 floors between it. Fortunately, I lucked out and have a closet on the first floor that lines up nicely with a closet on the second floor. So I brought a whole bunch of coax and CAT6 cables up through the closets into the attic. From the attic, they go to the antenna (in the attic) and down into the various rooms on the second floor. The wires are exposed inside the closet on the first floor - it didn't occur to me until I drilled the hole through the (tile, yes tile in a closet) floor that I could have come up inside the wall instead. In the second floor closet, the wires go up through an inside wall (so no insulation to mess with).

If you don't have nicely lined up closets to work with or some other reasonable approach (staircases are supposed to be a relatively easy place to route wires), then by all means go outside. I think you mentioned in your previous post that there was a soffit vent that you might be able to use - if the cable will fit through that would be a good way to go rather than drilling a hole. Definitely keep the holes to a minimum. If you have to drill a hole, it's usually best to make a drip loop in the cable and then put some silicone caulking around the edges after you put the cable through to prevent moisture from getting into the hole.

When we first moved into our current house, I wanted to get cable run from the basement up to the bedrooms two floors up. There wasn't even a phone line. I was thinking the same thing...through the side wall to the outside or through the eave or something. I just couldn't find a good way to do it. I finally called in a pro.

This guy came in, spent about five minutes looking through the house and said, "OK" and went out and got his ladders. He found a way to run from one end of the house to the other simply across the attic. Then he came down into the master bedroom, opened up a closet door and drilled a hole through the ceiling into the attic and stuck a hanger through. BUT he did it at the inside corner next to the door so that when you open the door, you don't see the wire. Went back up, found the hanger, fished the wire through. Then he did the same at floor of the closet, which miraculously came through in the garage. Fished the wired through, went down to the garage, tacked the wire along the ceiling and then down the wall and in to the basement.

Then from the attic, found the partition walls and fished the wire down through the partition walls into the bedrooms. It's COMPLETELY hidden.

I was amazed. Money well-spent.

I'm a software developer and didn't find running wires myself all that difficult. Time consuming for sure, but not too difficult to do. One of the keys is to have the right tools - those long flexible drill bits, a good snake, a headlamp, etc. all make the job a lot more doable. Just measure VERY carefully to avoid ending up with holes where you don't want them .

Thanks guys - running in 5 directions at once right now but that should be the info to get me there ... as soon as I can get back to it!

Great info, I just hope Hanes is paying attention.



Regards,

RTROSE

Yeah, NOW I know that, hindsight being 20/20 and all.

And now that HE figured out the path, I can pretty much reuse it anytime I need/want to.

OK, I got it now. Plus I have my very experienced assistant to guide me through the intricate nuances.



Thanks!