Messages

1

Users / Re: Demo looks great, but what is the reality like?

« on: June 12, 2008, 04:44:51 pm »

Many thanks, I've downloaded the DVD iso to try on my existing box first.  It's not in use the moment, so it might not work at all, but it's somewhere to start.

2

Users / Demo looks great, but what is the reality like?

« on: June 11, 2008, 02:39:30 pm »

Hi,

I'm looking to build a media centre, linux based, and was originally going to attempt MythTV.  Having watched the demo, I'm very tempted by LMCE instead, but have a few questions.  A bit of a mixed bag, but hopefully I can get some idea of how much I could hope to achieve.  Thanks in advance for your help.

1. There seem to be quite a few hardware compatibility issues, which is to be expected I guess, and I know these are documented elsewhere, but the hardware most people report success with appears to be relatively low spec, meaning there are newer/better alternatives now available.  Is that correct?  I can afford slightly more expensive components than the few examples I've seen, so my question is; would I be compromising on the performance and capabilities of my system by buying components that work with LMCE?  I have (and hate) Vista on my laptop, so I'd be very reluctant to go that route for my media centre.  I had Asus in mind for the motherboard, but I'm open to suggestions.

2.  Intel or AMD?  I was planning on the former, but only because of the motherboard I had in mind.

3.  Sky HD?  Could I take a feed from the Sky HD box and record on the LMCE box?  Could I control the Sky box via LMCE, i.e. would it appear on the menu?  And use the same remote?  It would be a pity to have the Sky box outside of the system.

4.  TV capture cards.  I have a Freeview aerial, and was planning to put a TV card or two in the box, but I've just found out about Freesat, and more specifically ITV in HD.  Not great PQ apparently, but has to be better than their SD.  I know I need a dish, which I obviously have for the Sky HD, but I'm guessing it isn't simply a case of connecting a capture card to the dish?  Should I just wait/hope that Sky and ITV will agree a deal?

5.  Audio; on the mobo, separate sound card, or separate amp?  I want surround sound (as this will be going in my home cinema), although sound elsewhere in the house can be stereo.

6.  Projector.  Any problems with outputting to a PJ?

7.  Scaling.  Related to Q6.  I have an anamorphic lens that stretches the image horizontally to show films in scope aspect (2.35:1), but the image also needs stretching vertically.  My PJ does this at the moment, but not enough, so I need a scaler.  I think there are scalers for Linux, but any advice on how/if these fit in with LMCE would be useful.

8.  HD DVD, Blu Ray, does either work in LMCE?

Apologies for dumping so much in the first post, but I really want to get going on this, itching to order some hardware...