Win7 XBMC with TV Tuner Capabilities

Aaah Microsoft.

You brought PCs to the world and then screwed yourselves over.

For a long time I've been a fan of Windows Media Center thanks to its use of Windows Media Player as the backend and the seamless integration of codecs etc.

But somewhere along the line, Microsoft pushed an update which has kicked off a problem which has not gone away and is causing lots of grief amongst many Media Center devotees.

My reasoning for putting this down to a failed update is that this problem never existed until about a year ago.

The failed update in question involves "Windows Media Center Receiver Service" which is  responsible for handling TV tuner operations (including recordings).
Since the mysterious update this process has continually killed the CPU which renders the system unusable while it is losing it's shit.

Other videos will not play back without horrible stuttering and input devices freeze up for about 5 seconds while in use.

Not acceptable at all.

So, where to now?

XBMC has been great as a front end for media playback (tv, movies, music) but has never really had a place in PVR management.

Well - there is some progress being made here.

I wouldn't say it's ready for the masses but it is more than acceptable to use for those that are technical.

My setup all resides on the one box in that it's running Win7 Home Premium with a local PCI Express tuner.

In theory with XBMC the tuner can be on a different DVB-T server (or a homerun device).

I simply followed this guide over on YouTube that basically says:

• Install Next PVR
• Set Next PVR settings to use tuners
• Scan channels in Next PVR
• Install XBMC
• Install XBMC NextPVR client plugin
• Point to server (127.0.0.1 obviously if same box)
• Give it a minute
• Bam - it works.

I have to admit - I didn't think it was going to work - but it did!

I'm using an Avermedia 188 PCI Express Tuner and it works quite nicely.

I get the odd glitch but that's mainly due to the channels not having good enough signal strength.

My next trick is to see if Next PVR supports a threshold for signal strength in it's discovery and update the channel list.

The EPG isn't as polished as WMC but it is more than good enough.

Recording support also seems good but it might need a bit of work in terms of understanding re-scheduled time etc.

This all does look very promising however given that WMC seems to be abandonware from Microsoft...

Best HTPC Remote Control (Hand Held) Setup

It was a sad day when my official Microsoft MCE remote (1039 model - picture below) packed it in.

Official MCE Remote = Awesome.
Sadly no longer in production.

I'd gotten very used to this remote with its nicely functioning and highly responsive buttons and the way it "just worked".

As this remote is no longer in production (and there is no updated version) I was left with the option of getting the closest thing to an official MS remote which was the Happuage MCE Remote Kit which runs for about $50 in Australia or a cheap ebay generic kit which ran for about $20.

I ended up going with the ebay generic version which worked but was quite frustrating in that buttons didn't register properly and was very unresponsive (as in lots of delay) when buttons did actually register.

So - if you're new to the Media Centre game and want a good quality remote setup, what's your best option?

If I was doing it all again (or had to start from scratch right now), my recommendation would be to buy the cheap ebay MCE kit and throw away the remote but keep the USB IR receiver.

Next, go out (or stay in I guess these days...) and get yourself a Logitech 
Harmony remote.

There are various models ranging from $20 - $200 depending on the level of fanciness you feel you need :)

Cheap ebay Generic Kit =
bad remote performance but a
good way to obtain a USB IR receiver.

I purchased a bargain clearance model Harmony 200 for $15 from JB HiFi and am super impressed with it.

I simply signed up via myharmony.com to access the configuration service and fired up the browser based plugin which then let me start configuring up my remote.

I used the software to configure the primary profile (as you can see there are three profiles - tv, cable and DVD which can be mapped to any device you desire) as a Microsoft 1039 Media Centre remote and waited for the config to sync to the remote.

I then thought - it can't be that easy.

I walked into the lounge and pressed the power button and the HTPC woke up straight away.

Logitech Harmony. Get one. Now.

Am very impressed at this point.

I then proceeded to give all the other buttons a whirl and everything worked perfectly.

All commands were mapped as I expected and the buttons register first time every time.
As a bonus the interface is nice and responsive.

This is all using the original USB IR receiver from my Microsoft MCE remote kit (which is the same what's included in the ebay kit mind you).

I then took it a step further and loaded the profiles for my TV and Stereo Mini System on and was further impressed with the setup.

The only thing I had to do in addition to this was manually configure a button for use with the stereo mini system profile so that I could scroll through my input selects.

This was as simple as using the Logitech configuration software and pointing the original remote at the new remote, pressing the desired button and then dragging and dropping the newly learnt command to the relevant button in the configuration software.

The ultimate party piece is when you've setup the special "Watch TV" button at the very top left of the remote correctly.

By default this will turn on and off your media centre and TV simultaneously.
Spending 5 minutes more with the software will allow you to also make it include your stereo / amp in that process which is just awesome.


Very impressive stuff :)

Minix Neo X5 Mini Android Media Center

Finally.

An Android based media center device that is small, powerful and has a decent remote control and keyboard option.

Minix has just released the Neo X5 Mini and it looks bloody good.

Spec wise it's very similar to it's previous incarnation but got shrunk in the wash and now has a better remote.

The device is orderable from Deal Extreme for the very reasonable price of $89 (AU).

For that you get a tiny little media center that's capable of running XBMC with hardware acceleration (using the MX player trick), HDMI output, SPDIF output, 802.11n 2.4GHz support as well as 2 USB ports, an  ethernet port (think it's only 100mbps) and an SD slot.

Inside the SoC it packs a Rockchip RK3066 Dual-Core 1.6GHz processor (Cortex A9 architecture) and a Quad-Core Mali 400GPU.

That little GPU will more than take care of 1080p decoding :)

Full specs are available at the official Minix product page.

It comes with a small remote that is meant to better than the one included with the standard size Neo X5 and also supports the mini keyboard / wii-mote style thingy / accelerometer controller (available from Deal Extreme for $40 AU).

This pricing is not great at the moment due to the over-inflated US dollar (waiting for imminent crash...).

There's an XBMC release (Neon XAF build) compatible with the Neo X5 mini over at xbmcandroid.com including instructions.

I highly recommend changing the theme to Confluence :)

Check out the youtube clip below for a great full review and to see XBMC in action.

Miccus Home RTX Long Range Bluetooth Transmitter

I'm pretty impressed with this little device.

I've been looking at a Bluetooth transmitter that could plug into a HTPC and send the signal to an amp in another part of the house.

The idea behind this is that you could control the media (music mainly) being played back from the Win7 HTPC from an Android Smartphone using MediaCenter Control over WiFi  from anywhere in your house and have it pump out a proper stereo.

To achieve this I first off used a Creative BT-D1 Bluetooth transmitter with a Logitech bluetooth receiver.

I opted for a more expensive transmitter (there's heaps of $10 jobs on eBay) as I figured it would be better quality.

How very wrong I was.

The Creative transmitter was totally piss-ant in terms of transmission power.

To boot, there was no software available to actually control which device it pairs with from Creative.

I thought the Windows Bluetooth controls might magically appear as well but I'm guessing this thing isn't compliant with what Win 7 considers a "real" bluetooth device. 

It supports some creative crap called apt-X which I'm sure is of use to someone.

If this is you, go over to eBay and you will be able to find a bargain shortly...

Anyway, after being bitterly disappointed with the Creative rip-job, I did some proper research.

I needed a bluetooth trasmitter that wasn't crap and could actually send the RF signal more than 10 metres.

This led me to look at the Miccus Home RTX which claimed transmit distances of up to 45 metres.

I took a gamble and ordered it from the only place I could see it for sale (eBay) after seeing generally positive (but not very specific) user feedback on the device.

Well the little thing just arrived and I can happily report that it works as described.

I set this bad boy up at the complete opposite end of my house and paired it up with the Logitech receiver and away it went.

Note in the picture that it actually has an external omni-directional antenna.

Win.

Perfect quality audio and super simple to setup.

At $60 it's not the cheapest thing in the world but it's not a deal breaker price either.

I'm so very glad this device exists and I definitely recommend it for anyone in a similar situation.

Cheers.

Coolermaster Elite 120 Advanced - From 70's Toaster to Carbon Fibre Beast

Just a quick one today :)

While updating the post on the Asus mobo used in my latest HTPC build I thought I'd post up some info on the case I went with and the quick mod I did that made a HUGE difference to its appearance.

When speccing up the machine I wanted an ITX case that let me use normal size (i.e. not laptop) components as to keep the cost down (5.25" BluRay drive, standard ATX power supply etc.).

Luckily Coolermaster has recently released the Elite 120 Advanced.

This is a great little case albeit it slightly on the larger size of mini ITX, but still a good fit for a HTPC.

I actually originally specced up this machine with a Bitfenix Prodigy but promptly returned it as soon as I saw it.

It was waaaay to big to look at home in a lounge area...

Anyway, the case ticks all the boxes as far as component support however looks a tad ugly - but we can fix that :)

Here's a picture of what it looked like originally:

Not the prettiest thing in the world right?

Other people have obviously been thinking the same thing and I saw some other attempts people had made to pretty this thing up on various forums.

So I had a quick look on eBay and found a few people selling small individual sheets of 3M Carbon Fibre Di-Noc Vinyl adhesive for less than $10.

All I can say is - wow. What a difference this stuff makes to the appearance:

A quick word of advice if you go down this path.

The case badge is slightly recessed and will leave a divet if you whack the vinyl straight on.

Get yourself some Rapid Filla and smooth it over before you whack it on and you'll get a nice finish like that in the picture above.

Cheers :)

Raspbmc - Making WiFi Work

Wireless - a minor PITA to get working

Ok - I Had the adapter plugged in, powered the unit on and noticed that the adapter light wasn't doing anything.

FYI - this is the adapter I'm using.

Unplugged and re-plugged the adapter with the unit powered on and was greeted with the message indicating detection of the adapter:

Pulse-Eight CEC Adapter

That's good - but it's still not joining the wifi network.

Maybe I ballsed up my psk (which is pretty cryptic).

As the PSK is hashed out as you type it, thought I'd just tackle it through SSH through a wired connection.

So I had a quick look around and most info was pointing me to edit /etc/wpa.conf

Only problem was, that file didn't exist.

Ran a quick GREP to hind my SSID which I'd saved through the RaspBMC interface and found it (and my psk) in the following file:

/home/pi/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/script.raspbmc.settings/settings.xml

So now I've copied and pasted my PSK but still no dice.

Now I started to think the raspbmc GUI might not quite be telling the truth about what's going on - being that it was displaying the ethernet adapters MAC address where it should be showing me the wifi adapter's...

At this point I thought - hmmm - let's just forget XBMC and attack it as just a linux box.

I then performed the following steps as per the main post and a comment over at anup narkhede's blog (thanks anup).

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

allow-hotplug wlan0

auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet dhcp

wpa-psk wifi_password_noquotemarks

wpa-ssid ssid_noquotemarks

wpa-conf /etc/wpa.conf

* exit and save

sudo nano /etc/wpa.conf

network={

ssid="YOUR_SSID"

proto=RSN

key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

pairwise=CCMP TKIP

group=CCMP TKIP

psk="YOUR_PASSWORD"

}

Now - disconnect your wired LAN connection and reboot.

You'll probably notice the light pattern of your wireless adapter is a little more random now - that's a good thing :)

I looked in RaspBMCs network settings area and nothing had changed.

I then however looked at the connected devices on my wireless AP and saw that my raspbmc device had got a lease and I could now ping it :)

Fired up a video and all good.

W00t.

To hold you until the review is up...

Raspbmc

Well I've been after a cheap all-singing all dancing media centre platform for a while now that could act as a complement (say on a second TV) to a full-blown Windows 7/8 Media Centre (which I personally think is hands-down the best for compatibility and features).

After looking at Pivos running XBMC on Android and not quite wanting to splash $150 on something I wasn't 100% sold on just yet, I started looking at what else was available (I also have some reservations about the input control).

After a fair whack of research I found I kept coming back to this article over at smallnetbuilder:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/multimedia-voip/multimedia-voip-reviews/32034-raspbmc-reviewed

Apart from the low cost, another major selling point of the Raspberry Pi Model B is that it has a somewhat decent GPU that Raspbmc takes full advantage of.

From what I've read, it will handle pretty much anything you can throw at it (in terms of decoding) except super-high (say 40mbps) h.264 content - but it only just gets choppy processing that.

There's also reports that with the bleeding-edge version of Raspbmc they've added support for live TV recording using a USB DVB-T adapter.

For the super low-cost of the unit I figured, oh well, if it sucks I haven't exactly wasted a lot of money.

As far as the shopping list goes, here's a quick break-down of costs:

Raspberry Pi Model 2 inc. delivery: $56
Case: $10 delivered from ebay
WiFi Adapter: $12 delivered from ebay
MC Remote: $19 delivered from ebay
SD Card:$16 from UMart
2A Micro USB Charger: $11 delivered from ebay


As far as getting Raspbmc on there goes, it looks quite painless.

All you need to do is download this handy utility which will make a boot SD card that the unit boots from and then downloads the setup files live.

The only remaining thing is to purchase licensed codecs (MPEG2 and VC-1) codecs from the Raspberry Pi store and you're good to go.

Very excited and will post mini review soon :)

Asus C8HM70-I/HDMI ITX Motherboard Pseudo Review

Well I'm putting together a Win 7 HTPC for someone and went through all the pain of seeing what integrated Mini ITX boards are around these days...

I looked at the AMD offerings (which was AMD-350, then AMD-450 which seem to have dried up and now they are doing the C60) but the CPU performance when compared with Intel's offerings is pretty average.

Intel seem to have re-categorized their Atom CPUs and have gone back to the Celeron naming for integrated CPUs aimed at the desktop (Atom seems to be their mobile device offering now).

The board I found has an Intel Celeron 847 which is a cut-down Sandy Bridge CPU with integrated graphics (which the reviews say, software decoding on CPU is good enough for 1080p MKV and if you're using a player that supports DXVA then the CPU usage is less than 10%) coupled with an Intel HM70 chipset.

If you check out the Intel ARK for this CPU you'll see it's actually been around since Q2 2011.
The difference is that this is the first time it has appeared on a Mini ITX board (and not in a laptop).

Even though it's not super-new, it's spec is bang on for what I wanted.

The things that really made this board stand out for me were:

• SATA 3 6GB/S Support (Although SATA2 is usually quick enough for an SSD with bandwidth of 375MB/s, you might as well give yourself some headroom).

• 2 * USB 3.0 Ports (Ever had to copy large files to an external HDD on your way out the door? USB 3.0 is a must-have).

• PCI Express Slot (USB TV Tuners tend to overheat and can be prone to power issues - I much prefer a PCI Express card-based twin tuner).

• Active Cooling (Some people complain about the noise but in Australia active cooling in Summer is a must-have, even if it's purely to extend the life of the product).

With these features it makes the perfect board for a HTPC.

The only immediate drawback I can see is the lack of SPDIF out.

There are two things you can do to get around this however (if you need this type of audio connection - e.g. your amp doesn't support HDMI).

The first is to simply use your tv as a pass-through device and use the SPDIF out on your TV (if it has one) and pass the sound through to the amp.

This method is quite good as whatever AV input you have selected on the TV will be passed through with no amp changes required.

The other is a HDMI to HDMI + SPDIF splitter which goes for about $30 on ebay.

So, being that the board ticked all the boxes on paper I thought this would be ideal for use in a HTPC I was putting together for a friend.

Although I couldn't find too much info from independent sites regarding those board, I was pretty confident that it would function no problems.

I'm happy to report that this board does everything I expected it to perfectly and the onboard Celeron 847 CPU in conjunction with 8GB RAM has more than enough grunt to run Windows 7 Media Center perfectly.

Installation was a breeze and fit nicely inside a Coolermaster Elite 120 Advanced:

When designing the system my intention was to offload as much decoding as possible to the onboard GPU (Intel HD 2000) and I'm happy to report this worked flawlessly for both MP4 containers (divx / xvid) and MKV (h264) up to ~25mbps with CPU not creeping above roughly 30% using standard MatroskaSplitter and XVID codecs.

Blu-ray playback was also flawless using TotalMedia Theatre 6, again with CPU only just reaching over 30%.

SATA3 and USB3 performance was also excellent with file transfers from an external USB3 2.5" 7200RPM hard drive to the internal Seagate ST3000DM001 7200RPM 64MB SATA 3 hard drive averaging around 70mbps for large transfers.

Dual DVB-T recording also works nicely using an Avermedia Twinstar A188D PCI-Express TV Tuner Card.

This board is highly recommended for HTPC builds.