Travis Pettijohn: Blog

About two weeks ago, I gutted my Media Center box and rebuilt it so that I could take advantage of optical HD media now that the format war is over.

New components:

• Motherboard: EVGA NF77 with nForce 630i and a GeForce 7150 GPU built-in. Onboard HDMI with HDCP* plus optical and coax digital out/in (respectively). Supports RAID 0/1/0+1/5.
• CPU: Intel Q6600 (Quad Core 2.4GHz).
• RAM: 4GB DDR2, 800.
• PSU: Rosewill 400W. (I needed a 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors for this new motherboard. I was sad to introduce a fan, but the one big 12cm fan is silent for all intents and purposes. Plus, the way the heat sink lies right up against it means better CPU cooling, too. I am very happy, though I didn't think I'd be.)
• Optical Media: LG Blu-ray/HD DVD ROM plus DVD/CD/RW, SATA.

Reused components:

• Hard drives: 2x160GB hard drives in RAID-0/Stripe for 320GB storage.
• Heat sink: Silverstone NT01V2. I still love this thing, and was ecstatic that it was still compatible!
• Case: Silverstone LC10 in Silver. I still love the VFD in front showing me media information. It makes it look like a real theater component, not just a hokey home-built computer.

Overall: very happy, A+ system. The motherboard/CPU combo is my best yet, and it takes about 33% CPU to play a Blu-ray title (with all four cores humming). All of the Media Center functionality moves better, too (like pulling up the guide and filtering by category, which used to strain the system, is instantaneous now). I subscribed to Netflix to, as a friend said, "have some pretties on my TV." Between Netflix and the HDHomeRun, I (finally!) have more HD content than I can consume, even with just local channels over Clear-QAM. 

HDCP

*I have to point out the importance of HDCP (if you're considering Blu-ray on Vista, take note): without it, Vista downgrades the video quality over digital outputs (like DVI or HDMI) to 480i/p. The intent is so that you can't rip a pure digital, HD, unencrypted stream of video from the wire and pirate movies. HDCP keeps the content encrypted from the source (disk/network) through the Vista video stack, out the video card and over the wire, where it's finally decrypted by the TV just in time to be displayed. This is called Protected Media Path. Further reading. If you want to play Blu-ray (or future HD formats from Hollywood), make sure your video card and display/TV support HDCP. (HD titles you download in XviD/MKV/etc aren't affected by this since they're not encrypted.)

Last night I installed a new HDHomeRun. It's a unique device, a network-attached ATSC and QAM HDTV tuner. Setup was a little kludgey (some steps about making sure that the call letters that it detects match up with Zap2It's listings, and you have to ignore a warning from Vista that you're using digital cable listings when you "don't" have digital cable), but wasn't too bad. After that, it was smooth sailing. And now—AT LAST—I have HD content in my Vista Media Center again. I'm SO HAPPY!!

Engadget has a scoop on the DirecTV tuner for Media Center. The best news is that it doesn't appear to have the OEM certification restrictions like CableCard.

Saw this at NewEgg for $299, a HD DVD and Blu Ray combo drive. I've never taken a side in the format war and I don't really want to. The correct solution is HD-video on demand over IP, but we all need more bandwidth for that.

What stinks about this drive and my media center box is that I need an HDCP-compliant video card and a processor upgrade (which would require a new motherboard and new RAM)—in other words, I would need a new system save for the case, the hard drives and the tuner cards. Maybe I should hold my breath for realistic CableCARD support, instead?

I was looking at my cable bill today, which included a price list for all of their services. I noticed a section about HDTV and it said that HD broadcast channels were available with the bare minimum package that I had. I had been living with just basic cable (25 channels) since I cannot get over-the-air reception where I live (too dense with buildings).

So I plugged the cable into my HD tuner card in my PC, ran a channel scan on the OEM software that came with my FusionHDTV 5 tuner card, and lo and behold, I had HDTV. All the locals, coming in with perfect clarity at 720p. Unreal. How long have I been missing that?

Unfortunately, back in Vista Media Center, I cannot tune these unencrypted QAM channels, despite the fact that the card can actually tune them. Apparently another tuner does it (search his blog for QAM for more info), but it's an unreliable hack. If another card does it reliably, it is quite likely that I'll upgrade.

A friend sent me this link: Microsoft adds Slingbox-like capability to its Media Center PCs. I spent the better part of this evening playing with it and I have to say: this is hot. I can log into my media center box and stream any recorded TV program or music in real time. The content is transcoded into a lower bitrate/resolution on the fly. I can almost stream recorded TV over T-Mobile's EDGE network (but not quite...too much stuttering while buffering). It's not as nice as watching the actual program on my actual TV, but if I'm, say, staffed out of town and I want to catch a show I recorded, it will get the job done.

Edit: Here's a photo of M*A*S*H streaming to my phone over Wifi. 15 frames/sec, 160x120, 100kbps.

On Saturday, I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisor on my Media Center box/HTPC. It told me that there were drivers for my TV tuner card! Exciting, since I had been watching the manufacturer's web site, and it still says "coming soon." So I gathered any other drivers and performed a clean install of Vista x64, and, oops, no TV Tuner drivers. Looked more closely and noticed that the Upgrade Advisor was only for x86. Dang. Sunday, rinse and repeat, this time with Vista x86. It all worked. TV is working again, both standard def and HD. Oddly enough, x86 seems to run better than x64. I have a hunch that something was running in WOW and bogging down performance. Anyway, I didn't have time to really play with it, only to verify that it "works." And to schedule some of my favorite shows to record.

Screenshot of a Vista MCE error message at CES indicating CableCARD support.

Please, pretty please, let me put a CableCARD tuner in my computer. I promise to not try and break any DRM. I just want to have access to HD channels other than over the air.

Ok, this is cool. Really, really cool. Long story short: I can automatically synchronize TV shows recorded on my Media Center box to my Windows Mobile smartphone. Read on.

Friday I picked up a T-Mobile Dash. If you're not familiar with this device, it is the Windows Mobile device to have right now. It's slim, sleek, usable and downright sexy to hold in your hand.

The first thing I did was hack the registry to restore the JOGGR functionality that T-Mo deprecated. Then I plugged it into my PC and synced up an album through Media Player 11. It worked as expected, copied album art and everything. Cool.

Then I tried syncing up a TV show I had recorded. It worked, except the resolution of the transcoded file was 160x120, which dumbfounded me because the device has a 320x240 display. After some searching, I finally found a newsgroup post linking to this answer. In summary, the device reports is capabilities to Media Center through a protocol called MTP. These capabilities are stored on the device in an easily-edited XML document (\Windows\WMSyncCaps.xml). Once I changed that, deleted and recreated the partnership in Media Player, everything started working great. The right resolution, good bitrate. Bonita! A half-hour show ends up being about 30 MB.

Back in Media Player, I created an auto playlist that holds the two most recent episodes of The Daily Show. When I plug in my Dash, the file gets transcoded and transferred to the phone's media library. (I have a 1GB micro-SD card, which might not suffice now that I see how capable of a media player this is.)

If I continue doing this, I'll plug my phone in at night, it will sync that night's Daily Show automatically while I sleep. Then on the train ride to the office, I'll be able to (have the option to) watch last night's Daily Show on my commute. How cool is that? Now I just need to pick up the headphone adapter...but it's out of stock right now.

I gave in and bought a standard def tuner card for my HTPC, the AverMedia M150. Media Center Edition requires an SD tuner card to enable TV features. I tried to avoid the expense, but it was totally worth it. MCE's TV features are amazing! I've used TiVo and this ranks right up there in terms of usability. I've got scheduled recording for some essential programming (Family Guy, American Dad). I'm excited to never miss an episode again!

On Friday, I got my hair cut at a salon around the corner, maybe 200 feet away from my door. The timing was perfect. I stopped in on the way home from work to schedule an appointment and she said she could fit me in right then.

After the haircut, I dropped off my dry cleaning at the place right next to the salon. Another short walk.

Saturday was spent moving and playing with my Media Center and home theater. It's looking and working pretty sweet. My entire music library, time-shifted HDTV, divx movies...all driven by a remote control.

I walked to 2200 N Clark to Indian Grill (it has the same owner as Bombay in Champaign) and had some delicious saag paneer for dinner. They wouldn't let me substitute naan for rice, which caught me off guard. I really thought she was making a joke when she said no.

Saturday night when I decided that I needed a snack, I went to the Chipotle downstairs and got some chips and guacamole.

Today when I woke up, I walked out of my building, crossed the street kiddy-corner, went to the Starbucks right there and had myself a coffee.

For lunch, I walked halfway down the block and had a sandwich from Potbelly's on Lincoln. I love those peppers!

Early in the afternoon, I walked a half mile to the Dominick's on Sheffield and Fullerton. It's a cool store—it has two stories. Produce and deli stuff on the ground floor; cans, boxes and refrigerated items on the second floor. Elevators included. I got three bags worth of groceries and walked back home.

For dinner, I took a random walk, heading south down Lincoln, then looping back up Clark via Armitage. I found a gyro place and had way too many calories for dinner.

After eating, I decided to keep walking. I headed two blocks eastward to Lincoln Park Zoo. I think I may have been there when I was a kid, but I don't remember specifically. Anyway, it's really just a park, an extension of the sidewalk. There's no entrance, no gates, no turnstiles. The sidewalks on the street lead to the sidewalks in the zoo. So I took a walk through the zoo. It was a nice walk, though the little girl standing on a bench and screaming, "GIRAFFE! HEY, GIRAFFE!" was a temporary distraction.

On the way back home, I stopped on one of the other corners of the intersection I live on and grabbed a copy of The Onion. I took that to a pub and had a pint of Sierra Nevada.

This evening I registered for a Guitar 1 course at Old Town School of Music this fall. It should be fun!

City living sure is convenient and full of opportunity!

This past weekend I started building my HTPC. The parts spec out as follows:

• Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra SLI motherboard
  • NForce 4-based
  • Fanless
  • Dual gigabit Ethernet ports
  • 2xPCI Express 16X ports
  • Gobs of USB and Firewire ports
  • Coaxial digital audio in and out
  • Four SATA-150 ports, supports RAID
  • Four SATA-II ports, supports RAID
• AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice core)
• 1 GB DDR RAM (2x512)
• 2x160 GB Western Digital SATA-II in a 320 GB striped RAID-0 configuration
• Sony DWQ28A 16X Double Layer (8.5GB) DVD+-RW
• Gigabyte GV-NX66256DP GeForce 6600 256 MB video card with fanless heat sink
• DViCO FusionHDTV 5 Gold Edition HDTV tuner card
• Silverstone LC10M case, with built-in display (for track/artist info, for example) and IR receiver (for remote control)
• Silverstone ST30NF fanless 300W power supply
• Silverstone NT01 v2.0 fanless heat-pipe CPU heatsink (this thing is sexy, check it out)

Note the emphasis on fanless and quiet construction. This thing is barely audible. I've left the two rear case fans enabled, as the fins of the CPU heat sink butt up against them (did I mention that that heat sink is sexy?). Actually, the hard drives are probably the loudest part of the whole thing. The DVD drive is silent when playing a DVD movie, though it whirs when it really spins up (like when you're installing software). It'll be a nice quiet home theater component, sitting next to the receiver and the TV. I didn't want some loud-ass fans drowning out some quiet dialog during a movie.

There was a challenge when installing the RAID drivers while installing Windows. That whole F6 thing requires a floppy drive (why can't I burn the drivers to a CD?). Finding a working floppy disk took a few tries, as did pulling the drive out of another computer.

I can watch HDTV using the supplied software, time shifting and the whole deal. It comes in beautifully! The Windows Media Center Edition 2005 software will only work with HD if you also have a separate SD tuner installed. Lame! Double-lame, since the Fusion tunes both HD and SD in a single card. So I'll probably be using Media Portal, an open-source project to provide the same functionality. It sees the card as expected, though I still have to set up the channels and install XMLTV (for a program guide) to make it work (in other words, I need to RTFM). Plus it's written in .NET, so maybe I'll contribute in my "spare time."

Did you know that Windows Media Center Edition 2005 is really just XP Pro with an additional Media Center program? And here I thought it was something more.

The other challenge I'm facing is getting the IR receiver that's built into the case to work with remotes other than the one that came with it (say, for instance, the better-laid-out MCE remote that came with the Fusion). I think I read that the beta drivers will fix that, though I didn't get a chance to try.

If only I had more time to play with it! Maybe this coming weekend. Though most of my time will be devoted to moving then, so maybe the weekend after it. Once it gets to a steady-state though, and I'm able to do everything from a remote control, this thing's going to be suh-weet!

Edit:I bought a standard-def tuner.

A lot's been going on in my life. I got assigned to a new client recently for work. Last week I went through an interview for this new project and was asked to come on board! After some bench time, it was a welcomed change to get back into the routine of work. It involves me traveling to and from Salt Lake City weekly which (so far) isn't as bad as it sounds. This is my first week out here. That's about all that I can say. Oh…there appear to be oodles of great-looking twenty-something females in this city. It's like I'm in bizarro land.

Last weekend I signed a lease for a new apartment. It's in Lincoln Park, on the corner of Lincoln and Belden (Belden is one block south of Fullerton). I'm pretty jazzed about it. The location is perfect (less than a half mile to the Fullerton El stop (Red, Brown and Purple stop there), a little over a half mile to Lincoln Park Zoo, and steps away from nightlife, restaurants and tons of entertainment). It's a one bedroom, one bath, has a nice kitchen and it has five big east-facing windows, three of which are in a bay configuration. The only thing that's odd is that it's carpeted. (In Chicago nearly everything is hardwood.) Oh well. The positives greatly outweigh that oddity. The lease starts 8/1 (but that's a Monday and I'll be in Utah).

On Monday all of the parts for my new HTPC arrived. I'll post more on that later as I build it. I didn't have time to mess with it since I had an early morning flight on Tuesday (though I did open every box and look at every piece). It's just sitting there at home, taunting me from a thousand miles away.

In related news, Windows Vista Beta 1 has been released, including an x64 binary. I might have to add a second partition on my HTPC for playing with it!

Last weekend I also placed an order for a new TV. It's a sexy, thin, 37-inch LCD flat panel by Philips. It's supposed to come in today or tomorrow for pickup at Best Buy. Now I get to move in to the new place and get all these fun electronics set up. It's pretty exciting!

I'm getting excited. I'm going to build a Windows Media Center Edition box and buy a 37" LCD flat panel display. I would make the purchase right now were it not for the fact that I'll be out of town next week.

System highlights (as it's currently spec'd out): AMD x64 3200+ Venice, GeForce 6600-based video card (fanless), ABit AX8 motherboard (fanless), Silverstone LC-10M HTPC case, Silverstone NT01v2.0 fanless heat pipe CPU heat sink (looks really cool), Silverstone 30NF fanless power supply, DViCO FusionHDTV 5 tuner (supports ATSC and NTSC in a single card), and a Westinghouse LVM-37w1 display (37" LCD flat panel, 1920x1080 native resolution; I looked at one in person at Best Buy and was impressed!).

Since the computer is going to be a home theater component, I decided to make it as quiet as possible. You know how loud all those fans can be. Imagine watching a movie with a quiet dialog...but all you hear is a bunch of fans that sound like an airplane taking off. The only fans are in the case. Hopefully I'll be able to minimize the usage of those. Oh, man, I'm so excited!