Tikker's HTPC, part 1

[Tikker]

Since it seems like we're all on this topic lately, thought I'd do a quick write up of what I'm doing at home.

I'm a networking/unix admin guy by training, but I'm relatively weak on the windows department, so I may not always do things the correct way. everything I have currently works pretty well though (I'm in proof of concept mode atm) so thought I'd share

It all started about 3 years ago, when I decided I'd like to be able to share my mp3 collection from my PC in the basement, to the rest of the house. I started to research media streamers, and came upon the linksys ma11b

At this point my network consisted of my 2 pc's (p4 1.7 ghz, and a celeron 1.7) and a linksys BEFSX41 router. just a typical 2 pc setup of the average EQ addict

now being able to stream music and pictures seemed very cool, and it got me thinking....I wonder if you could stream video?

From here, I discovered Prismiq. This was a box that claimed to be able to stream all your music, video, pictures, etc from your pc, to your home theatre. This sounds awesome! was my reaction. the problem was that at the time, the prismiq units were $300+ and so new, that no one actually knew if they worked. So I waited, and watched.
Lots of people had problems with them, and the company seemed to have issues with supporting everything they claimed they could support. to make a long story short, 2 years pass, and 15783 other devices similar to the prismiq come out, and all fail miserably (except maybe the Buffalo Link Theater, and the newish Dlink DSM-320)

then, out of nowhere, I'm browsing tigerdirect.ca and notice this SMCWMR-AG for only $50 bucks

at this point, there's no way I can pass it up. $50 is small bones to get into this market, so thought I'd give it a whirl
The neat point I thought with this little box, was the fact that it had built in wireless connectivity, as well as ethernet.

So I ran a cat5 drop to my home theater (ie, my ghetto 27 inch tv at this point ) and plugged the SMC in, then installed the stream software on my "fileserver" (the celeron)

And what do you know, everything worked



almost

some files wouldn't play. A limitation of the SMC was that it couldn't play certain DivX/Xvid files. Which sucked because like most people at this point (2002ish) were downloading movies from the internet and you had no real control over what kind of movie you were getting

Streaming my music worked amazingly well. I had of course, ripped all my own music, and this made me think about whether or not I could rip my own movies too...

at this point, I'd done some trading and bartering, and my network had grown. I now had 4 machines (P4 2.4, Celeron 2.4, a P3 933, and a P4 1.5) a managed 3com switch and other assorted piles of junk

I stumbled across 2 websites at this point, that basically changed the whole direction of where I was going with this new hobby.
http://www.doom9.net and http://www.rita.lt
the easy to follow instructions, and VERY strong community gave me the ability to take a DVD I owned and rip it to my hard drive as a DivX 5.2 file

Now my brain started going into overdrive. I immediately ordered 2 new hard drives for my fileserver (a 200gb, and a 120) and started encoding movies. 2 months later I bought 2 more hard drives (2x 300gb)

I'd also been keeping my eye on ebay for a cheap Prismiq

In 1 week, I was able to get 1 for $50, and a 2nd one for $85 (this one also came with a wireless keyboard) and I was off to the races

The prismiq's worked immediately right out of the box. the interface was clean, and easy to use and navigate (the remotes are among the nicest i've ever seen)

Everyone that came over was isntantly wowed by what they were seeing

I had my own video on demand system, and everyone was jealous
At this point, I'd also aquired a surround sound system, and with the prismiq having spdif outputs, you could NOT tell that the movie you were watching wasn't the original dvd



most of the time. for some reason, the prismiq's just couldn't quite handle every single movie I encoded, despite the fact they were all encoded exactly the same.


Doing some digging, I discovered that the Prismiq really preferred MPEG format movies, and that in order to accomodate DivX (or anything other than MPEG2) it had to transcode it to MPEG, then stream. And the main problem with this, is that prismiq(the company) sucks at updating their product. so as newer/better codecs have come out, the prismiq falls further and further behind.

It still plays raw mpeg(1/2/4) fantastically, and DivX3 looks amazing as well, but newer DivX5, Xvid files lose a bit of functionality
You can't fast forward, rewind, or jump ahead to parts of the movie.

99% of the time, this isn't an issue for me, as I just like to start the movie, and watch it, start to finish


then I encoded the Lord of the rings movies, and fell asleep about half way thru 1 of them

now if i want to watch the end, I have to watch the whole 1st half again. I can't skip ahead to where i left off!

AAARRGGGhghghghghghg

this brings us to the last 6-9 months or so

I've now added a wireless access point to my network a Linksys WRT54G
as well as a couple of older laptops cobbled together from old broken ones

Now I'm getting the itch to be able to stream media wirelessly to my laptops, and beyond. The Prismiq's are capable of wireless, but the cards for them are actually more costly than the units themselves, and as mentioned above, i'm slightly irritated and the lack of certain functionality

[Tikker]

My current TV service is provided by my DSL ISP, and is multicast

this got me to thinking again, that I could probably build a HTPC that could do 3 things for me


1) Capture the incoming multicast stream (PVR)
2) Redirect the Multicast stream to my entire LAN (watch tv wirelessly~)
3) replace the prismiq's and display all my media properly


to accomplish this, I looked into a program called VLC

I also took the old p3 933 and slapped an old geForce 4200 ti into it, and stuck it beside my TV

It now has 2 NIC's in it. 1 that faces my LAN, and the other into the Multicast stream for the TV.
By capturing packets destined for the TV, i'm able to decipher the IP/port that I need to tune the pc into each channel
By using VLC I can then redirect that stream to the TV (if i want to watch live), redirect the stream to a file (recording it) or I can unicast it within my network (to watch tv on a PC)

I learned the hard way that you need to use unicast, and not just redirect the multicast stream. Word on the street is that most home grade wireless routers don't have enough juice to handle multicast bombardment

so now, I have proved out the possibility of doing everything I wanted, and it's just on to building the final PVR box(es)

I can now stream all my movies to any PC in the house(i still have 1 prismiq going) whether it's a wireless laptop, or hard wired.

I can record TV, and am working on building a script to schedule it properly



Now that the Proof of Concept phase has finished, I'm looking into getting together the final components:

A NAS box to take over for my fileserver. for this I'm currently testing a NSLU2
The box is about the size of the picture actually. it's tiny and supported via 3rd party stuff much like the wrt54g routers. in concept it's a great box, but I'm not convinced it's robust enough to do what I need. I have found a couple of mods to add more ram, and double the CPU speed, but I'm not sure I'm ready to learn soldering just for that

The PVR itself

For this, I have to decide 1 major thing. Do I want to hook the HTPC to a receiver, or do I want the box itself to be the receiver?

I'm leaning towards having a seperate receiver, but we'll see how it goes


regardless, I've chosen a case, but the mobo will demand that I make a decision on whether or not the box will hook to a receiver or not

[Lyion]

Good stuff. I just started on my HTPC adventure, and I'll post some notes once iteration one is done. Right now I have installed Media Portal, MythTV, and just Haupage 1.

[Tikker]

the biggest thing I solved, was being able to directly pick up the multicast stream, and redirect it onto the LAN

now I don't have to reprocess the stream, or degrade any of it's quality by touching it again with a capture card

obviously this solution ONLY works for those that have IPTV of some sort

[Lyion]

Something cool with MythTV is the ability to stream via web to ones local LAN. I don't have it implemented yet, but it looks cool in theory.

Currently, I'm still trying to figure out what to do. My 1.5 Gig P5 750M Rambus,5200 FX and 80 Gig WD Drive seem to run Media Portal very, very choppily. It runs Myth ok, but Myth itself is very dodgy. I'm debating getting a new Dell with my EPP and 50% off deal just to be my HTPC.

I'm still reading up on VLC and IPTV. I'm not sure how this is setup via Windows, but once I get my 42" LCD setup, I'll work on my streaming.

[Jay]

I don't understand a word of any of that.

[Tossica]

My DVD player and real DVD's work just fine for me.

[Tikker]

Something cool with MythTV is the ability to stream via web to ones local LAN. I don't have it implemented yet, but it looks cool in theory.

Currently, I'm still trying to figure out what to do. My 1.5 Gig P5 750M Rambus,5200 FX and 80 Gig WD Drive seem to run Media Portal very, very choppily. It runs Myth ok, but Myth itself is very dodgy. I'm debating getting a new Dell with my EPP and 50% off deal just to be my HTPC.

I'm still reading up on VLC and IPTV. I'm not sure how this is setup via Windows, but once I get my 42" LCD setup, I'll work on my streaming.

media portal needs a p4 1.8 or better to really do everything

as for streaming the webcam, it's simple as pie~

[Lyion]

No, I have a MySQL database with programming setup that can stream via the Apache server any TV programs I want to any PC on my LAN. It's pretty nifty in theory.

I'll probably hit up a web deal and build a real Media Portal type TV.

[Tikker]

No, I have a MySQL database with programming setup that can stream via the Apache server any TV programs I want to any PC on my LAN. It's pretty nifty in theory.

I'll probably hit up a web deal and build a real Media Portal type TV.

you can just use VLC to do all the streaming for you

[Lyion]

I need to figure out how to get sound out of my cable HD box for streaming,,,

[dammuzis]

i just have a small computer next to the home theater

tv accepts dvi so no big

tv tuner so cable comes into puter

5.1 surround hooked up to sound car

i got these
logitech z5500 so the sound is spectacular

also alot easier then what you guys are doing

[Tikker]

i just have a small computer next to the home theater

tv accepts dvi so no big

tv tuner so cable comes into puter

5.1 surround hooked up to sound car

i got these
logitech z5500 so the sound is spectacular

also alot easier then what you guys are doing

no, it's pretty much identical to what we're doing

we're just going 1 step further~

I need to figure out how to get sound out of my cable HD box for streaming

well, how does audio get from the cable box to your tv now?

[Lyion]

Composite out.

[Tikker]

so just have that go into your sound card

[Gidan]

i just have a small computer next to the home theater

tv accepts dvi so no big

tv tuner so cable comes into puter

5.1 surround hooked up to sound car

i got these
logitech z5500 so the sound is spectacular

also alot easier then what you guys are doing

Ahh but can you watch a stream of that video on any computer wired or wirelessly in your home? or how about on multiple computers in your home at teh same time?


My system is working on a different goal I beleive then yall are doing. First, I really didn't see a reason to stream a TV signal to the whole network for 3 reasons, 1 all the TV's in my home have their own cable box, and secondly There is no place in my home I would need to be where I couldn't see a TV, and finally becasue since a cable box is required, I would have to watch whatever the TV that the stream was comming from was playing.

What I did was created 2 Media center's. 1 is a PC running MCE and the other is an XBox running XBMC. Using samba/windows file sharing I am able to watch any movie, or play any mp3 on my network. My server is capable of playing 3 movies at the same time being displayed at 3 seperate locations. The XBox which is already capable of displaying in HDTV is connected to the HD TV while the PC is connected via svideo to my receiver with the other TV.

In the end it works great, I dont need to actually stream anything, I am accessing the file directly off the server, though if I wanted to watch the same video on all computers/TV I would need to deal with streaming but I really cant see a need (though I could see 1 for music) and will probably do something for that later even if its as simple as a shoutcast server. I can watch any video in my library from anyplace in my home, wired or wireless, on a TV or on a computer monitor.

[Tikker]

My system is working on a different goal I beleive then yall are doing. First, I really didn't see a reason to stream a TV signal to the whole network for 3 reasons, 1 all the TV's in my home have their own cable box, and secondly There is no place in my home I would need to be where I couldn't see a TV, and finally becasue since a cable box is required, I would have to watch whatever the TV that the stream was comming from was playing.

VLC would allow you to change the channel you were watching, remotely. My situation is a bit different, in that I actually bypass the set top box, and interact with the data stream itself

In the end it works great, I dont need to actually stream anything, I am accessing the file directly off the server, though if I wanted to watch the same video on all computers/TV I would need to deal with streaming but I really cant see a need (though I could see 1 for music) and will probably do something for that later even if its as simple as a shoutcast server. I can watch any video in my library from anyplace in my home, wired or wireless, on a TV or on a computer monitor.

this is just semantics. watching a movie that resides on your fileserver off of the xbox is streaming. you don't need to do shoutcast, or multicast to stream, it's just another method of doing it

the only real benefit to multicast, is that you can push the exact same stream to multiple locations

ie, i could tune the downstairs tv, the laptop, and the computer room pc to the same stream

[Gidan]

Very true, I tend to link streaming and multicast in my head. Of course, if I were able to bypass a cable box I would probably look very closely at working on a way to multicast the TV signal. I personally cant stand IR blasters, especially with the cable box's I have. The delay it takes to change the channel screws up constantly. I just havn't been able to find one with software that could do it the way I want to.

I have started screwing around with mythtv again, 1 thing I will give mythtv over Windows MCE is that being able to have the backend on a server and the fronend somewhere else is really nice.

[Lyion]

Is there a way to bypass the cable box and yet get the advanced channels? That would simplify things greatly for me.

[Tikker]

Is there a way to bypass the cable box and yet get the advanced channels? That would simplify things greatly for me.

depends on how your provider does things

here, the "channels" are just seperate multicast channels that the set top box taps into


knowing that, you can just use a PC to do the same (after doing some packet sniffing)

[Lyion]

http://htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?s= ... owforum=20

This board has been very informative

[Lyion]

This is also interesting


The Basics
Your digital cable box or satellite receiver (these can be generically referred to as a "set-top box" or "STB" for short) use digital MPEG2 streams to include hundreds of channels.
The digital streams are not compatible with TV tuners (a standard TV tuner is an analog device), so they are translated into a compatible analog output on channel 3 or 4 for older television sets. For newer televisions they offer composite or s-video.

Remember when you use an external set-top box, it does the tuning, your PVR card simply captures whatever comes from the set-top box.


Connecting to your HTPC
Since TV capture cards offer s-video/composite (plus stereo audio inputs) as well as a tuner (for over the air, or basic analog cable) the much higher quality A/V output (composite or s-video) of your STB should be used as input to your capture card. The older RF (coax style) cable only supports low quality video and basic audio transmission which will make digital channels fallback to mono audio, thereby loosing the stereo or Dolby Surround available on most channels.

Controling your STB
Since a STB is able to handle much higher channel numbers than any tuner, channel changing must be done at the STB. To automate this from your HTPC you will need an IR blaster or a direct cable connection, depending on the STB used.
Some STBs have a control port on the back that can be used to change channels, boxes that are known to have these are the Motorola DCT-2000 series used with digital cable, and many DirecTV receivers. DishNetwork receivers have never had serial control capabilities, so an IR blaster is your only option.

An IR blaster is a computer controlled Infra-Red sending device, it is used to send IR codes that mimic those of your STBs remote. It must be positioned so that the IR receiver of your STB can "see" your IR blaster. For a list of IR blasters please see the appropriate section in the Proven Hardware List.

Understanding how to setup multiple capture cards (or dual capture cards like the PVR-500MCE) with cable boxes or satellite receivers

A typical cable box or satellite receiver tunes in one channel at a time. Therefore you need a dedicated box for each capture card you have.
For example: if I have a PVR-150 and a PVR-250 I will need two digital cable cable boxes: one to feed each capture device.

You will also need a method for controling each. Some PVR applications allow different control methods per capture device. For example: one box could be controlled via serial port while the other could use a USB-UIRT.

Notes on DirecTV receivers:
For more information about serial controllable DirecTV receivers please see the Direct Serial Control Utility page. Sadly many less expensive receivers that are being used as the free boxes you get with a commitment to a contract often do not have a data port for serial control.

Notes on the Motorola DCT-2000 series:
For the Motorola DCT-2000 series a standard 9-pin serial male to female cable is all that is needed.
For serial control to work first check the back of the cable box to see that you have the 9-pin serial port. Then you need to see if you have the right firmware for serial control; This can typically be found by pressing the "Menu" button on your remote and choosing "Setup" from the resulting menu, then select "Cable Box", then choose "Yes" to "See Configuration". This will show a quick rundown on the cable box: the firmware has to be version 7.54 for serial control to even possibly work, also confirmed is version 7.72. Other versions after 7.54 may work but have not been tested. If you have the correct firmware version then grab a standard male to female 9-pin serial cable, turn off the cable box and plug in the cable, now turn on the cable box and then try this applet originally made for SageTV, configure your COM port number and try to change channels. Serial control is often not enabled by cable providers. If you have the right firmware version but the serial control fails you can try to call your cable company and tell them you have TiVo and would like the serial control enabled (since everyone knows what a TiVo is and it can control the DCTs by serial this is the easiest way to explain what you need), see what they can do. Otherwise look into an IR blaster that fits your needs.

Notes on the USB-UIRT:
The USB-UIRT is a versatile device that can send and receive IR signals, so it has more uses than just controling a cable box. However it happens to be one of the most compatible IR blasters around. For the more problematic boxes such as the DishNetwork and BelVue Express there is a model that comes with increased IR frequencies (to 56KHz).

Notes on the Actisys IR-200L:
Do not install the Windows default IrDA driver, despite what the included manual says, as this enables the IR transmission for computer interfacing such as syncing to a PDA. This completely kills the remote interfacing support which is directly coded for in the remote control applications. Simply plug it into a serial port and tell the software which COM port it is connected to. The IR-200L was never intended to be used as an IR blaster so while it is usable with many devices, it is generally not compatible with Dish Network receivers and BelVue Express cable boxes.

Notes on specific PVR applications:
Sage TV
As of version 1.4 has inherent support for the USB-UIRT, Actisys IR-200L, and direct control of DirecTV receivers. For DCT-2000 control an applet, discussed here, has been written that uses the EXETuner Plugin. Support for the IR blaster that the retail boxed Hauppauge PVR-150 inlcludes was added in version 2.1.

EDIT: curently the link for the DCT control applet is down so it is mirrored here.

SnapStream/Beyond TV
This popular PVR application has built-in support for serial control of DirecTV receivers, a list of compatible recivers can be found here, and the USB-UIRT. Support for the Actisys IR-200L is available with these instructions. Support for the IR blaster that the retail boxed Hauppauge PVR-150 inlcludes was added in version 3.5.1. Serial control of the DCT-2000 has been included in version 3.5 and newer.

Using the ExeTuner for SnapStream it is now possible to utilize the Firewire recording applet initially made for MCE to have BTV change channels. Get the details from this forum thread.

For those trying to use Girder and BeyondTV together you may find this knowledge base article helpful.

Please note that there a few other IR blasters commonly used that while no inhernet support is included with the common PVR applications, support can be added via Girder.

Windows XP MCE
WinXP MCE is a fairly closed system, made for system integrators, the only officially supported method of controling cable/satellite boxes is to use the MS design MCE remote kit which includes the IR reciver for the remote and an IR blaster for the cable box. In the 2005 version of the remote kit the IR blaster support has been upgraded to two IR blasters since MCE supports two capture cards.

Unofficially support for serial control of DirecTV boxes has been hacked into MCE 2005, you can find more information here.

More recently a user has taken the work done to get the serial control for DirecTV boxes and turned it into control for the Motorola DCT-2000 series cable boxes. You can find out more information at this forum thread over at The Green Button.

A brand new experimental method for controling the Motorola DCT-6200 series via Firwire cable has now popped up at The Green Button's forums. Take a look at it here.

Places to order hardware:
Sony and RCA style DirecTV serial cables, as well as the Actisys IR-200L are available from the SnapStream store.

Notes from Linux land by Geckofiend

Linux supports IR blasters via LIRC (Which also provides support for IR receivers). Users can download a configuration file specific to their particular remote and add it to their lirc configuration file. Mutltiple remotes can be added to this file for both reception and transmision. The appicaltion that activates the IR blaster can accept different remotes on the command line and this control multiple devices. For example if you have a Sony DirectTV unit and have it's remote configuration stored as "SonyDTV" you could use "change_channel_lirc SonyDTV 123" to change to channel 123.

Lirc supports a number of IR receivers and transmitters (they even tell you how to build your own). The IRA/TIRA lines from Home Electro work well.

Serial control for both Sony and RCA DirectTV boxes is also available via simple scripts such as sony.pl and RCA.pl.

There are other serial control scripts available for some cable boxes but I don't have a comprehesive list.

[dammuzis]

what about this
http://www.slingmedia.com/

[Lyion]

Thats pretty close to VLC, I think.

[Tikker]

Kind of, but not really


SLingbox is a neat idea but it's pretty limited in what it can do