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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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#1
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OT Media Center PC
I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN |
#2
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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OT Media Center PC
RogerN wrote:
I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Can't help ya with the MCE problem , but I do have a comp set up with a wireless keyboard and mouse . I'm running Vista Ultimate , with a vid card that outputs for a std monitor connection and s-video . They make adapters from s-vid to RCA plug if your teevee doesn't have that input jack . I have another card , not using it right now , that puts out VGA , DVID (I think that's what it's called , for LCD flatscreen) , and RCA . Audio is plugged into the teevee , y'ed to my stereo too . I don't have a tuner card - yet . Probably will soon though , I'd like to drop the sat receivers and save that money every month . Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN My video card sets it up as a dual-monitor , but normal computer-type windows don't show up well on the teevee . BTW , I'm using a CRT unit that's at least 15 years old . My card uses ATI catalyst control center , I'm sure there are other driver programs that will perform the same function . As far as content , my DVR (directv) is hooked to my home network , and it's supposed to play content from computer storage - but doesn't work worth a crap . I D/L and save pretty much whatever content I want ; another option is HULU and similar sites that stream content . HTH ! -- Snag Learning keeps you young ! |
#3
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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OT Media Center PC
"Snag" wrote in message
... RogerN wrote: I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Can't help ya with the MCE problem , but I do have a comp set up with a wireless keyboard and mouse . I'm running Vista Ultimate , with a vid card that outputs for a std monitor connection and s-video . They make adapters from s-vid to RCA plug if your teevee doesn't have that input jack . I have another card , not using it right now , that puts out VGA , DVID (I think that's what it's called , for LCD flatscreen) , and RCA . Audio is plugged into the teevee , y'ed to my stereo too . I don't have a tuner card - yet . Probably will soon though , I'd like to drop the sat receivers and save that money every month . Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN My video card sets it up as a dual-monitor , but normal computer-type windows don't show up well on the teevee . BTW , I'm using a CRT unit that's at least 15 years old . My card uses ATI catalyst control center , I'm sure there are other driver programs that will perform the same function . As far as content , my DVR (directv) is hooked to my home network , and it's supposed to play content from computer storage - but doesn't work worth a crap . I D/L and save pretty much whatever content I want ; another option is HULU and similar sites that stream content . HTH ! -- Snag Learning keeps you young ! Thanks for the info. I'd like to output to the TV screen but have a second video port for a PC monitor. That way one screen can be used for computer functions, selecting what video file to play, etc, while the other screen is the TV displaying TV tuner or videos. Part of this idea comes from my work, we have PC's running equipment running Siemens soft PLC's. We don't have any keyboard or monitor connected to the control pc PLCs. We have UltraVNC on the PC's and connect remotely, the remote computer becomes the monitor, keyboard, and mouse for the control pc plc. I'd like to have my DVR and tuner functions run off the remote to the TV, and use remote access through the network to handle the computer functions of the media center PC. I got rid of Dish Network so I'd like to spend a little to make my free antenna TV and movies convenient to record and play back. RogerN |
#4
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OT Media Center PC
RogerN wrote:
"Snag" wrote in message ... RogerN wrote: I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Can't help ya with the MCE problem , but I do have a comp set up with a wireless keyboard and mouse . I'm running Vista Ultimate , with a vid card that outputs for a std monitor connection and s-video . They make adapters from s-vid to RCA plug if your teevee doesn't have that input jack . I have another card , not using it right now , that puts out VGA , DVID (I think that's what it's called , for LCD flatscreen) , and RCA . Audio is plugged into the teevee , y'ed to my stereo too . I don't have a tuner card - yet . Probably will soon though , I'd like to drop the sat receivers and save that money every month . Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN My video card sets it up as a dual-monitor , but normal computer-type windows don't show up well on the teevee . BTW , I'm using a CRT unit that's at least 15 years old . My card uses ATI catalyst control center , I'm sure there are other driver programs that will perform the same function . As far as content , my DVR (directv) is hooked to my home network , and it's supposed to play content from computer storage - but doesn't work worth a crap . I D/L and save pretty much whatever content I want ; another option is HULU and similar sites that stream content . HTH ! -- Snag Learning keeps you young ! Thanks for the info. I'd like to output to the TV screen but have a second video port for a PC monitor. That way one screen can be used for computer functions, selecting what video file to play, etc, while the other screen is the TV displaying TV tuner or videos. OK , maybe I wasn't very clear - that is how my setup works . The monitor shows all the icons just like a regular desktop , while the tv shows a movie or tv episode - if your processor/system can handle the load , you can surf the web on the monitor while the kids or wife watch tv . When I open media player I have to drag & drop that window over into the tv screen . Basically a dual-monitor setup . On my system that's a function of the video card and it's software . Part of this idea comes from my work, we have PC's running equipment running Siemens soft PLC's. We don't have any keyboard or monitor connected to the control pc PLCs. We have UltraVNC on the PC's and connect remotely, the remote computer becomes the monitor, keyboard, and mouse for the control pc plc. I have most of my comps set up with XP Pro so I can remote them , just as you're describing . I'd like to have my DVR and tuner functions run off the remote to the TV, and use remote access through the network to handle the computer functions of the media center PC. Sounds like tuner/DVR stuff will be a function of whatever tuner card you use . I have no experience with a setup like that . Again , remoting that comp from another will be a function of the OS you choose . I prefer XP Pro , Vista sucks and I've never played with 7 . I got rid of Dish Network so I'd like to spend a little to make my free antenna TV and movies convenient to record and play back. RogerN I can relate . Right now , we've got a Directv DVR hooked to the living room tv . When I want to watch content from the comp I put the tv into "s-vhs" mode , and select/start/stop the content from the comp with a wireless keyboard/mouse . It would be easier with a handheld remote ... but yanno , I'm not sure that would let me access the stuff I have saved on the various comps in the house - I've got movies/series episodes saved on 3 different machines . -- Snag Learning keeps you young ! |
#5
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OT Media Center PC
On Jan 9, 1:28*pm, "RogerN" wrote:
I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. *Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. *My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? *Any recommendations? *Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? *I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN I built a barely satisfactory one with XP and a decent one with Win7. The tuner is a Hauppauge HVR-950, mostly because it was on sale for $50. AFAIK it doesn't tune channels that showed significant multipath on analog. The CD software was functional but unimpressive. The XP machine is a 2.2 GHz Dell with a Radeon s9250 graphics card, because the mobo has only PCI slots. Process Explorer showed the CPU running at over 90% and it couldn't capture rapid motion at 1080i. The program hung up if a passing plane caused a dropout. The 7 machine is a 3GHz single-core Dell with an Asus EAH4350 card in its AGP slot. 7 Media Center loaded the Hauppauge drivers from the CD and lived happily ever after, so far. ProcExp shows ~30% CPU load and ~0.5G of RAM in use. I use a 22" HDTV for the monitor, placed close enough that I don't need or have a remote. It's connected with an HDMI cable, audio goes to the PC's speakers. Unless I'm recording I plug the cable into the HDTV, which draws 30W with the brightness at 0, compared to ~180W for the PC. Since 1/1/11 it's used $0.19 of electricity My 1980's outdoor antenna was damaged in a storm so I made a new UHF dipole from two 6"x 1/2" aluminum rods stuck into plastic hose insulator, copying the dimensions of the broken original. I straightened and salvaged the director and reflector. I back up C: occasionally with Acronis, so it's only a 40GB that's about 1/4 full and all recordings go to an added 1T internal drive, wth an external 2T as backup. There are several ways to configure multiple monitors. I usually Extend My Desktop onto the second and third ones, and arrange them in Display PropertiesSettings to match their physical positions so the mouse slides smoothly between them. Be careful to keep critical icons on the primary display, sometimes Windows doesn't realize that a display is off. Good luck. Both computers needed substantial fussing to make them work. |
#6
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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OT Media Center PC
"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
... On Jan 9, 1:28 pm, "RogerN" wrote: I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN I built a barely satisfactory one with XP and a decent one with Win7. The tuner is a Hauppauge HVR-950, mostly because it was on sale for $50. AFAIK it doesn't tune channels that showed significant multipath on analog. The CD software was functional but unimpressive. The XP machine is a 2.2 GHz Dell with a Radeon s9250 graphics card, because the mobo has only PCI slots. Process Explorer showed the CPU running at over 90% and it couldn't capture rapid motion at 1080i. The program hung up if a passing plane caused a dropout. The 7 machine is a 3GHz single-core Dell with an Asus EAH4350 card in its AGP slot. 7 Media Center loaded the Hauppauge drivers from the CD and lived happily ever after, so far. ProcExp shows ~30% CPU load and ~0.5G of RAM in use. I use a 22" HDTV for the monitor, placed close enough that I don't need or have a remote. It's connected with an HDMI cable, audio goes to the PC's speakers. Unless I'm recording I plug the cable into the HDTV, which draws 30W with the brightness at 0, compared to ~180W for the PC. Since 1/1/11 it's used $0.19 of electricity My 1980's outdoor antenna was damaged in a storm so I made a new UHF dipole from two 6"x 1/2" aluminum rods stuck into plastic hose insulator, copying the dimensions of the broken original. I straightened and salvaged the director and reflector. I back up C: occasionally with Acronis, so it's only a 40GB that's about 1/4 full and all recordings go to an added 1T internal drive, wth an external 2T as backup. There are several ways to configure multiple monitors. I usually Extend My Desktop onto the second and third ones, and arrange them in Display PropertiesSettings to match their physical positions so the mouse slides smoothly between them. Be careful to keep critical icons on the primary display, sometimes Windows doesn't realize that a display is off. Good luck. Both computers needed substantial fussing to make them work. ***** Thanks for the info Jim, I'm wanting to get my hands on a suitable PC, without dismantling my desktop PC, and try windows 7 and MythBuntu linux DVR. I have saved money by no longer paying for satellite TV so I figure I can spend a little on a DVR and media center. The idea is to record what few interesting programs come in by antenna and watch them when nothing good is on. Also I would like to save my DVD movies to watch without changing disks every movie. RogerN |
#7
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OT Media Center PC
On Jan 9, 11:28*am, "RogerN" wrote:
I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. *Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. *My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? *Any recommendations? *Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? *I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN If you want HD, you're probably going to have to scare up a video card with an HDMI output, or at least DVI. These generally are PCIe, so a somewhat newer PC is needed. Some HD content won't work without the latest MS OS, either, DRM is the order of the day and native HDMI is called for, too. If you want OTA HD, the old WinTV isn't going to cut it, analog is dead and the thing is old enough it won't do digital. The Windows software Hauppauge supplies is rather finicky to set up. I've been using a old 150 card, on a 3 GHz box, WinTV 2000 sucks 50% of the processor just idling along. Some versions run 25-30%, but aren't stable or produce artifacts when recording. See www.shspvr.com for a bunch of software versions and forums on Hauppauge cards. I'm using S-video input from the satellite box, it's not HD but good enough on the monitor I have. The analog tuner on the 150 is just dead weight anymore. I have to program the box scheduler to coincide with the PVR card scheduler. It works, but it's not the handiest thing. The 150 replaced an even older PVR PCI card, that used to run at most 5% of CPU, too bad it died. Generally the TV-out video cards can be set up to either be an extension of your desktop or echoing what the current one does. It's done in the Desktop video setup. There might have to be an app running to convert PC video to TV video, just depends on the card and what hardware is on board. Some have hardware converters, cheaper cards depend on software. Don't underestimate CPU requirements. Same goes for power requirements, newer display cards take an amazing amount of 12v power, some up to 50 amps. You can't go by overall PS wattage anymore, you have to look at the supply's individual output current ratings for each voltage. MythTV is Linux-based, you need a front end box and a backend for it to do its stuff. Networked, naturally. I've looked into it, best results seem to be with purpose-made boxes with components selected for compatibility. There are a few outfits that have dual-digital tuner cards for Linux, not outrageously priced for what they are, but not pocket-money either. I'm slowly accumulating parts, haven't invested in the tuner yet. Stan |
#8
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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OT Media Center PC
On Jan 10, 8:02*am, wrote:
... If you want HD, you're probably going to have to scare up a video card with an HDMI output, or at least DVI. *These generally are PCIe, so a somewhat newer *PC is needed. ...Same goes for power requirements, newer display cards take an amazing amount of 12v power, some up to 50 amps. *You can't go by overall PS wattage anymore, you have to look at the supply's individual output current ratings for each voltage. ... Stan- Oops, the Asus EAH4350 is PCIe, not AGP, that card is in a different PC. I'd read warnings about the driver shipped with it and let Win7 load its own, which works well though without HDMI support, but it runs a VGA and a DVI monitor fine. I didn't load and haven't needed the Catalyst Control Center, which didn't do much good on the XP machine. I like multiple monitors too, but didn't see much use for the second one in 7 MC. On an HDTV a window is still a large image and if I'm typing into another window I'm not staring at the TV picture. So I plugged the second 19" monitor into this laptop and use it for webpages while the laptop display shows connection status and open files and folders, like the temporary one where Youtube videos go and can be copied to *.flv files the VLC player will open. This program saves and restores the locations of icons, which otherwise jump around when you switch between one and two monitors: http://www.midiox.com/index.htm?http...toprestore.htm jsw |
#9
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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OT Media Center PC
wrote in message
... On Jan 9, 11:28 am, "RogerN" wrote: I made the home made antenna to receive digital TV for free, it works well even though I have it inside the house, I'm getting around a dozen channels or so, some duplicates. Small tower and outdoor antenna is planned for future project. I've been thinking about setting up a media center PC so I can have a digital video recorder, digitize old video tapes, and play movies. So far my plan is to get a cheap PC that's good enough to play video, install my Hauppauge WinTV card, get a video card that will play on the TV, connect to my home network. My WinTV board was for Windows Media Center edition, I don't have on my desktop PC, so the IR receiver, remote, and IR transmitter doesn't work with Windows XP Pro. Anyone here done similar with windows or Linux? Any recommendations? Do video cards with TV out work like a 2 monitor setup with windows desktop on one monitor and TV on the other monitor, or does it just work as using the TV instead of a monitor? I thought maybe I could use UltraVNC from my laptop to select movies to play on the TV. RogerN If you want HD, you're probably going to have to scare up a video card with an HDMI output, or at least DVI. These generally are PCIe, so a somewhat newer PC is needed. Some HD content won't work without the latest MS OS, either, DRM is the order of the day and native HDMI is called for, too. If you want OTA HD, the old WinTV isn't going to cut it, analog is dead and the thing is old enough it won't do digital. The Windows software Hauppauge supplies is rather finicky to set up. I've been using a old 150 card, on a 3 GHz box, WinTV 2000 sucks 50% of the processor just idling along. Some versions run 25-30%, but aren't stable or produce artifacts when recording. See www.shspvr.com for a bunch of software versions and forums on Hauppauge cards. I'm using S-video input from the satellite box, it's not HD but good enough on the monitor I have. The analog tuner on the 150 is just dead weight anymore. I have to program the box scheduler to coincide with the PVR card scheduler. It works, but it's not the handiest thing. The 150 replaced an even older PVR PCI card, that used to run at most 5% of CPU, too bad it died. Generally the TV-out video cards can be set up to either be an extension of your desktop or echoing what the current one does. It's done in the Desktop video setup. There might have to be an app running to convert PC video to TV video, just depends on the card and what hardware is on board. Some have hardware converters, cheaper cards depend on software. Don't underestimate CPU requirements. Same goes for power requirements, newer display cards take an amazing amount of 12v power, some up to 50 amps. You can't go by overall PS wattage anymore, you have to look at the supply's individual output current ratings for each voltage. MythTV is Linux-based, you need a front end box and a backend for it to do its stuff. Networked, naturally. I've looked into it, best results seem to be with purpose-made boxes with components selected for compatibility. There are a few outfits that have dual-digital tuner cards for Linux, not outrageously priced for what they are, but not pocket-money either. I'm slowly accumulating parts, haven't invested in the tuner yet. Stan Thanks for the information! I should have clarified, the WinTV card I have is the Hauppauge 1600, it has one analog tuner and 1 digital tuner. The digital tuner tunes in the local digital channels from the homemade antenna and is supposed to be able to record 1080i although I just have an old fashioned analog TV that doesn't display HDTV... for now. I'm saving a decent amount of money by not having a TV bill so I don't mind spending some to get a good enough media center. RogerN |
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