What do you suggest?

[thebaron]

Hi all,

Ive got 2 x twinhan cab.ci's as u may know from previous threads.
Ive managed to get them working well in dvbviewer + vplug and even got as far as
dvblink in media centre on vista and win7.

but im not 100% happy with this setup for several reasons.

1. cpu idles at 30%
2. codec setup in media centre on vista or windows7 is a large pain
3. mediaportal was partially working (1 card)
4. dvbviewer/dvlink config is a time consuming
5. epg setup between dvblink/mce is very time consuming
6. pain the ass to rescan and organise new/updated channels

What i would like is

1. direct use of my dvb-c card in mediaportal or even mediacentre (no dvblink)
2. scrambled stations reliably being descrambled
3. codec packs such as ffdshow, coreavc etc... (easy in mediaportal)
4. low cpu idle


Im thinking of scrapping the twinham cards and purchasing a pair for technotrend 1501's.
Ill then try and get mediaportal working with them using mdapi and vplug.

If this system is unreliable im tempted to purchase a zeta cam and funcard and get rid of
vplug and mdapi.

questions:

1. Those of you who have a mediaportal,mdapi and vplug setup. How reliable is your system.
epg? timeshifting, recording etc...
2. If i go down the Zeta CAM route, is it possible with the tt1501's?
3. Can i share the Zeta Cam with the 2nd tt1501 or do I have to purchase two cam setups?
4. Would the Zeta cam method work in Media Centre (i noticed there was a cable tv setup option)
5. what is the most reliable for tv viewing, timeshifting and recording between mediaportal and mediacentre
6. Would 64bit be a advantage using MediaCentre (i believe mediaportal is only a 32bit binary)
7. Do the tt1501's have a signed 64bit bda driver?

cheers all

 

[señor ding dong]

1. Those of you who have a mediaportal,mdapi and vplug setup. How reliable is your system.
epg? timeshifting, recording etc...

I haven't tried the recent versions of MediaPortal, but I did test the original 1.0(?) version for about two weeks, when it first came out, with a TT1500 and Mdapi/Vplug setup, and it worked just fine, except I couldn't get it to wake up from standby to record, and BBC HD was stuttering like crazy, but was fine in DVBviewer. I didn't bother looking into why, but I would imagine it was something fixable. Recording, timeshift and normal operation was perfectly solid, although it should be said, that's obviously not everyone's experience, and it seems that any number of random factors can cause problems with MP. Most people point to Mdapi as the cause, though, so a hardware decryption option might be a good idea.

 

[wonko]

I've found long term use of mdapi setups to be unreliable - it's fine for occasional tv on your pc usage but not in an htpc.

tt1501 with addon ci card didnt work at all for me - was rare to get it to even see a cam - thats probably why it's so cheap - atm my tt1501 is only really used for tv on pc and stream logging

afaik theere is no way to share a hardware cam between cards

mediaportal works fine in vista64 - no idea about xp64

your shutdown/restart record problems are hardware dependant - so systems do it well others dont - on the same settings

never used mce for dvb-c so cant comment on reliability - mediaportal works most of the time but does need the occasional prod - this is using joker/mosc - using mdapi/vplug it coudl be erratic on wakeup from sleep - which would impact it's record facility in this situation

 

[thebaron]

I've found long term use of mdapi setups to be unreliable - it's fine for occasional tv on your pc usage but not in an htpc.

tt1501 with addon ci card didnt work at all for me - was rare to get it to even see a cam - thats probably why it's so cheap - atm my tt1501 is only really used for tv on pc and stream logging

afaik theere is no way to share a hardware cam between cards

mediaportal works fine in vista64 - no idea about xp64

your shutdown/restart record problems are hardware dependant - so systems do it well others dont - on the same settings

never used mce for dvb-c so cant comment on reliability - mediaportal works most of the time but does need the occasional prod - this is using joker/mosc - using mdapi/vplug it coudl be erratic on wakeup from sleep - which would impact it's record facility in this situation

what hardware do you use wonko? dvb-c, cams etc....

 

[wonko]

2xfloppydtv-c's with a couple of joker/mosc's running mediaportal on a gigabyte 780g board, 4850e, 4gb, vista ult (only to get the ms mpeg2 codec), 9600gt silent, 2x wd green 500gb, BR/HD drive, in mozart tx case - thats the basics anyway

works ok most of the time - tv server needs a prod every few days but other than that it hangs together - in terms of useability, features and picture quaility it beats anythign vm offer - and I can also make daft forum posts on it as well ;-P

 

[Harry_hamster69]

My tt-c1501 worked out of the box on mediaportal and was really stable on softcam. Changed to zeta as was toying of idea of going to mce but never left as mp is really good. I have had no probs with 1501 and cam. Suffered stuttering but more down to codecs than anything else. might go for a firedtv for some change later but this one is as happy as anything.
Media centre seems more user friendly. noob friends like it better but mediaportal for me is so stable i don't see what i have to gain.
tho i do have to ask why the low cpu idle? use the comp to do other things whilst watching tv?

 

[thebaron]

My tt-c1501 worked out of the box on mediaportal and was really stable on softcam. Changed to zeta as was toying of idea of going to mce but never left as mp is really good. I have had no probs with 1501 and cam. Suffered stuttering but more down to codecs than anything else. might go for a firedtv for some change later but this one is as happy as anything.
Media centre seems more user friendly. noob friends like it better but mediaportal for me is so stable i don't see what i have to gain.
tho i do have to ask why the low cpu idle? use the comp to do other things whilst watching tv?

Yes the pc will be doing 1 other service, newsgroup downloads. and with the par and unrar stages being recourse intensive, im trying the salvage recourse where i can.

also

im trying to go fully fanless system including cpu. (maybe 1 case fan) and i dont want the extra constant heat of a cpu idling at 30%

Asus Nvidia 8300 motherboard Matx
AMD Athlon II X2 250
Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache
2gb memory (maybe 4gb)
SilverStone GD02B Grandia Desktop Chassis mATX
Silverstone NT01-E Fanless Heatpipe Cooler AM3
400W FSP ZEN Fanless ATX Power Supply


Harry_hamster69: so do use ur tt1501's with zeta cams now?

 

[wonko]

with a z600 fanless hsf, 1 12cm 800rpm case fan (not strictly necesssary) and a bequiet 550w psu my system is virtually silent (even at 4am) and with a 20-35% load runs around 30c - rising to 42c max at 100% load on a hot day - 20-35% load is runnign mp in tv mode, 10 IE seessions, msn, avg and azereus - but it is in quite a large case and the 4850e is a 45w processor - but more than fast enough for anything i have thrown at it - the plasma buzz is actually louder than the pc -or to put it another way a tv drive is several times louder

 

[Harry_hamster69]

Harry_hamster69: so do use ur tt1501's with zeta cams now?

Yeah. Running MP not tried mce, but ran mp fine on soft cam and works fine on ci slot.