Simplify your laptop buying
Community Newsletter: Q&A: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater
- 2/15/07 5:06 PM
check out www.byopvr.com
by dso4r - 2/18/07 10:47 AM In reply to: The Windoze MCE bashers are mostly full of it.... by JeffAHayesAnother good user forum for HTPCs is www.byopvr.com. I learned a lot from there. They have a discussion area dedicated to HD stuff.
In short, the last time I check (over a year now), the HD tuner cards are designed to capture over the air (OTA) HD signals. Many people don't know they can get free HD with a basic radio shack $20 UHF antenna. To see if your area has local HD broadcast check out www.antennaweb.org. Some folks have been able to capture HD from a cable or satellite provided by converting it to analog, but that sort of defeats the purpose. I've heard rumors of firewire being a solution. In fact I just saw a user post a detail description of how to build his HTPC and using firewire for HD.
http://forum.byopvr.com/dvr/index.php/topic,7886.0.html
My Documents on another partition + boot from 2nd hard disk
by brit0n - 3/17/07 10:44 AM In reply to: The Windoze MCE bashers are mostly full of it.... by JeffAHayesI agree about C: Jeff. Some even install all the programs on another partition which aids in backing up/restoring (in their system).
The rest of this is off-topic, but you mentioned multi-boot.....
First of all, it helps if you clip the terminology although drive is loosely used these days, it doesn't help thinking about multi-booting. C: is neither a disk nor a drive, it is a partition. Drive "used to be" reserved for things that drove something you put in (floppy, diskette, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM etc). Disk is the physical "device" (which makes HDD a misnomer but we all say "drive" nowadays) and C: and so on are all partitions on one or other disk.
So the method I use for multi-booting (Win98SE, Several installations of WinXP Pro, Vista Ultimate, Vista Home Premium, Linux etc) means that when any OS comes up, it has C: as it's primary partition. XOSL.
If you want a quick and easy way to do multiple boots from different partitions on different physical disks, you might like XOSL (it's free but it's outstanding). Not only does it make it easy to boot whatever you like from just about wherever you like. It's tiny and it is really easy to put it back if an OS installation "fixes" it.
In addition, you can boot "most" OSs from any physical hard disk and, to make life easy for the "I only install OSs on a C: drive", you can tell XOSL to hide any partition, it will swap the physical drives (meaning that it attempts - often successfully - to "con" the booting OS that it is on the Master Disk) and you can set it to activate the partition from which you are booting (which means that C: can be the primary partition in any OS you want it to be which makes handling shortcuts and paths really easy especially if you have programs on another partition - incidentally, with Vista it is now reckoned that you need to install the programs specifically for it rather than attempt to "share" a program partition installation between OSs).
Anyway, give it a try. I am partitioning with Ranish Partition Manager, booting with XOSL and moving (including moving XP from HD1 partition 1 to HD0 to partition 0 and still managing to boot it)/resizing etc with GParted off a DOS booted USB stick. It takes a little reading up, but it's worth it because you only have to read it once.
Hope this helps.
OSXL and a little less OS Hell, please!
by JeffAHayes - 3/19/07 12:06 AM In reply to: My Documents on another partition + boot from 2nd hard disk by brit0nThanks for the tips on XOSL, Briton, although I think I'm gonna still need a bit more info on that to know just what to do.
Tonight, however, I learned what NOT to do, lol. For the first time since I've been back in the Windoze World, I installed a second internal drive in a my new computer last night... This after JUST getting my new Vista upgrade "settled in" and everything (for the most part) running smoothly...
The drive that came with the computer was a WD SATA II 250 GB drive, and I caught this WD SATA II 500 GB drive on sale, so my plan was to partition it such that one partition was as close as possible to EXACTLY the size of "C:" (and MAN you weren't kidding about that being a partition, not a drive! When I finally got a chance to look at it with some actually utilities, it has two other "invisible" partitions on it (one of which is a full 4 GB), plus an unpartitioned space! The other two partitions don't even have any designations, although I believe the 4 GB section is the System Utilities and Diagnostics partition...
Anyway, part of my plan all along was to make that first partition on the second drive bootable, as well, which SHOULD BE a simple task, I thought, but NOPE... It shows up in a list of bootable devices, but I can't boot from it... And I haven't figured out how to make it bootable... I looked into reformatting that partition, to see if the "format as MS-DOS boot drive" box would be available, but it was grayed out... Sooo, using what was supposed to be an UPGRADE-ONLY Dell OEM version of Vista Home Premium, I decided, "What the Heck, Let's see if we can install Vista on this second drive???"
Well, once I got the installation going, it let me pick that partition as where to install it, so I thought things were off and running. But then it got to a certain point in the installation and just HUNG... After about an hour of saying it was 27% finished expanding files, and not responding to any keystroke or mouse commands, I pushed in the power button long enough to power down the computer.
And THEN THE FUN STARTED! When I turned the computer back on, it told me the installation failed... NO JOKE... However, it no longer wanted to boot correctly to the drive with the GOOD installation, either. I finally did a System Restore to yesterday, then rebooted, and it STILL did it again... This last time I told it to boot to "last known good configuration" and I haven't rebooted again yet to see if I STILL have a problem, or not.
I should have known better, huh?
If you feel particularly friendly, I wouldn't mind an email at JeffAHayes@aol.com to fill me in a bit more on this OSXL, unless you're going to go into all the details here.
Meanwhile, if the last thing I tried DIDN'T fix things, I have one other option short of reinstalling Vista on the C: partition, I guess... Won't be the first time... I installed it three times before I figured out there was an erroneous cable connection that was causing it not to boot properly, lol.
Talk about MARCH MADNESS!!! 
Jeff
Solution?
by compurad - 2/18/07 12:48 AM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Why am I not surprised that Microsoft is the solution? There are many other choices out there. Why is Microsoft the answer with the products you've listed that are riddled with their own problems and shortcomings. Suddenly they're superior answers?
Ahem, Lee Koo, did you NOTICE just HOW I spell "WindoZE???"
by JeffAHayes - 2/18/07 11:31 AM In reply to: Solution? by compuradAlthough I'm back on the platform for 3.5 years now and haven't toyed with Linux or any of the other OSes that will run on Intel processors not built in an Apple box, I'm also not of the opinion that Microsoft is anything close to the be-all/end-all of anything or anybody.
I DO, however, believe that as big as the company is, and with its vast resources and interconnected software -- plus the compatibility factor that more than 90% of everybody else is using Windoze and other MS products, such as MS-Office, it still feels like the best bet for the time being...
For all the bad things MS had done (monopolizing the industry, trying to force users to do things ITS way, being sloppy with code and slow with fixes for bugs and hacks, etc.), one has to consider the GOOD it also did in really moving the industry forward, as well. Where would the computer world be had Bill Gates not seen the potential for DOS, essentially "stolen" it, improved it, and sold it to IBM in the late 1970s for their first home computers?
One might argue Apple would have filled the gap, and one may WELL argue that Windoze was at least initially mostly a copy of the Mac GUI interface (I know I did, at the time, as an avid Macophile during those years). Even so, the competition between the platforms has probably also led to more innovation by both.
And NO, I've read literally HUNDREDS of online articles, reviews, blogs, commentaries... you name it -- and I've YET to find a superior PC-based alternative to Windoze Media Center, although I AM just about to go check into this Apple TV and see if that might be a nice add-on (I've been considering a Mac Mini as a side-kick, but the Apple TV is cheaper and does more what I want, since my two main things are websurfing and TV recording).
I don't have a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray burner yet, but have plenty of hard drive space (have a couple of externals I haven't hooked up yet), so I could even afford to save some HD to HD, lol, if I had a way to get it INTO the computer.
Oh, one other thing... Anyone who has a computer without MCE, or without a TV Tuner, the latest Circuit City flyer came out today with the Hauppauge WinTV HVR on sale for $59.99 after $40 in rebates... It's a tiny thing that comes with it's own miniature HD-capable antenna (as is the tuner), but its single input is coaxial, with a USB 2 output, so you just plug it into your computer.
I COULD get it to have a THIRD tuner for my computer, and one capable of HD, BUT since it wouldn't decode the scrambled HD from my cable, that would work only for local channels, and I don't get good reception here... For some of you, however, it might be worth it. I read all 22 reviews at the Circuit City site, and most of them were pretty favorable, so if you live where you have strong HD antenna signals, this is a very inexpensive way to add high-definition TV to your PC.
Happy Viewings!
Jeff
advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater .......
by its_abhishek19 - 2/19/07 12:13 AM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hello Mike ,
What I Suggest First Think About The Configuration .....
For the best Performance the pc have Atleast:
p4 With 512MB or above Ram (For Windows Xp Media Center Edition)
p4 With 1GB or above Ram (For Windows Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate)
These versions have all what exactly you want to do......
Although 512 MB is a minimum and 1 GB is recommended...
by JeffAHayes - 2/19/07 8:31 PM In reply to: advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater ....... by its_abhishek19I feel with RAM as inexpensive as it is nowadays that at least 1.5-2 GB gives you a lot more "head room" to play with... Of course so long as you get a system that can be upgraded to at least 4 GB, you can always add RAM as needed.
I've also noticed that even with the Core 2 Duo processors out, an awful lot of the new PCs being advertised in the Best Buy, Circuit City and similar flyers still have P4 or Pentium D processors in them. Please note that a 3.2 Ghz P4 or even Pentium D (which is "technically a 'core duo' processor," is probably 50% slower than a 1.83 Mhz Core 2 duo processor using Intel's latest chip series (that would be the SLOWEST of their new chips, the 6300). This is because the new processor chips are designed differently, with only about a dozen processing steps and interconnected caches, whereas the Pentium D chips go 31 steps deep in their processing cycles and the caches aren't interconnected, so if a processing instruction turns out to be a dead end, it can take anywhere from 2-4 times as long per clock cycle before the chip can run another instruction (I'm really NOT this smart, lol, I had to do A LOT of reading about all this before I understood it well enough to understand why the new chips were that much better).
So if you're looking at a NEW system, DON'T be fooled by price alone. If two systems look similar (same SPEED chip, for instance) but one is cheaper and it has a P4 or Pentium D while the other has a true Core 2 duo (6300/6400/6600/6700 or 6800), the one with the Core 2 duo processor is actually a faster system, with superior techology that will not only process faster, but probably better...
I'm REALLY surprised by all these ads I'm seeing... Almost NO systems with Core 2 Duo chips in them in the flyers, and the few I see mostly have just the slowest (6300) chip in them... Lots of systems with either AMD processors in them or P4/Pentium D (I'm thinking SOMEBODY had a lot of old inventory to get rid of, lol). HOWEVER, there are SCADS of laptops (and Macs) for sale with the new Core 2 Duo processors in them (but the processor numbers on those are different, so I don't know how to compare them, lol.
Anyway, enough of that... As for Media Center, there are a couple of ISSUES I have with it I haven't mentioned so far I think Microsoft really could and SHOULD address. The most grievous to me is there's NO support for anything like "VCR+ Codes." Right now I can open an email from Tiger Direct and order a DVD TV recorder with VCR+ built in that will put up to 6 hours of video on a single 4.7 single-density DVD for $89.99... VHS recorders with the VCR+ have been available for many years and I even have one, although I've never used the feature because I never felt like dealing with punching in all the numbers... My point is, I BELIEVE when you use these codes, they lock into when the actual SHOW starts and stops, NOT the TIME it's scheduled to start and stop... But with ALL the technical ability of Microsoft, they haven't figured that one out for Media Center. So when the golf ran an hour late last night, which pushed the new Amazing Race 30 minutes late, I had to manually record it to get it all. Left to its own devices, MCE would have still stopped at 9 and recorded only half. I didn't feel like manually typing in time, so I just told it to record "Cold Case," too, then stopped the recording sometime after 9:30. But I think Microsoft could do better than that.
I also think they could figure out a way to make these recordings take up less than 3.2 GB per hour, which they do, using Microsoft's own proprietary format. That makes it impossible to put a 2-hour movie or show on a DVD without using some kind of conversion software to convert it to MPEG-2, so here I sit with external hard drives just FULL of programs I want to keep but haven't gotten around to saving yet, lol.
I guess there ARE still "bugs" to work out... and I DO still have to get around to looking into Apple TV.
I've also still gotta figure out a way to get HD into my system, so I can time-shift HD programs I wanna watch (like Heroes, which comes on at the same time as 24) into my computer. According to my cable box's manual, its only two HD outputs are YGB and DVI... I'm using only the YGB input for my TV, so the DVI is available, but I have no idea how to input DVI into a computer... Anybody know of a DVI-Firewire converstion cable?
The cable box also has ethernet, USB and firewire connections on it, BUT no instructions on how to use them in the manual (just says to contact your cable company for assistance, and I figure they'll just want me to add more of THEIR equipment at more of MY expense).
Jeff
New info -- HD PC tuners...
by JeffAHayes - 2/19/07 10:16 PM In reply to: Although 512 MB is a minimum and 1 GB is recommended... by JeffAHayesI just got an email from one of the online retailers I buy from which had two different external TV tuners for PC that come with antennas and will accept both over-the-air and unscrambled cable signals of both non-HD and HD quality -- one up to 1920-1080 resolution. That one also allows you to plug in your VCR and transfer videotapes to your PC, as well as your gaming console...
I haven't done any research yet to see how well these are reviewed (or even if they have been). Both come with a one-year warranty. The less expensive is a mobile unit intended primarily for laptops, for $169. The other is $229, and from the looks of it looked like it might be worth the extra $60, if you have it.
I've never tried inserting web addresses into this forum before, so I'm not sure if this will work, or not, but here goes. I'm inserting the less expensive model first:
http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail.aspx?dpno=7179966&wt.mc_id=BWBE2526&source=BWBE2526
http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail.aspx?dpno=7179967&wt.mc_id=BWBE2526&source=BWBE2526
Note: This is NOT a recommendation of either of these products, as this is the first time I've seen them... Just something new I thought some of you might want to also look at. Neither one had any customer product reviews available on the sale page, which may just mean not enough have been sold for a review yet, and I haven't had the time to Google them for reviews yet... I have to wonder if they would work with my cable, but I doubt it, as I'm pretty sure all my HD channels are scrambled... Might be a way to get them to work, however.
Happy Viewings!
Jeff
Barry W's Reply/Post
by mfeehl - 2/20/07 1:42 AM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Thank you Barry, helped a lot
What about CineMagix?
by Barrister33 - 2/20/07 7:51 AM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with or thoughts on Velocity Micro's CineMagix entertainment system.
http://www.velocitymicro.com/category.php?cid=33
It seems like an interesting bit of equiptment, though a bit pricy.
Do You Offer Hands On Computer Service?
by smitmich - 2/20/07 10:12 AM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Barry - I'm impressed with you tech knowledge. I also happen to live near North Canton and am looking for someone to service my computer. By any chance, do you do provide "hands-on" computer service as a business? If you do not, can you recommend a reliable, local service I can use? Thanks!
Michelle S.
media centre advice
by SalaciousPuck - 2/21/07 3:01 PM In reply to: 2/16/07 Need advice on how to integrate PC into your home theater by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
great artical Barry many thanks.
i will track this thread and look forward to links and observations.
excellent community use,thanks all concerned.
brian from a we village in scotland to the global village.
god bless u all for making a senior citizens progress in this area , verry verry helpfull
gratefully yours
Brian
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