Demo looks great, but what is the reality like?

[kdr1066]

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...

[freymann]

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.

In my two runs at LinuxMCE I've had 50/50 success. Right now I'm in the successful category and loving it!

My first core was a mess, but without making any changes, it runs MythBuntu just fine. Go figure. Not all of us can afford to start swapping out parts and/or purchasing a completely different box until LinuxMCE is happy. I think it's great that users are now starting to document exactly what pieces of hardware they are using. It will give people like you a known to work shopping list. Hopefully you'll find some of those specs (just some the forum poster's signature for a link) and find something you can afford.

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

 I'm running the AMD code on two boxes presently, with great success. I think there's even a mention on the linuxmce web site that the code seems to run better on AMD? But really, I think it's more of a personal preference (for me it was really cost! AMD barebone systems were cheaper).

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.

 I have a surround system in the living-room setup, using a simple cable that goes from the sound output mini-jack of the motherboard to the RCA left/right input of my surround system. In the Media Director page I've told it stereo, analog multi-channel, and I get surround.

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

 If I'm not mistaken, many platforms are still struggling with those.

 Happy Hunting!

[golgoj4]

Welcome!

to jump right into your post...

1. we encourage people to go with what works as a general rule. Newer hardware really has to be 'vetted' by devs / members with more experience with writing drivers and testing out new stuff, etc.  So you COULD purchase newer and shiner items, it might be best to put forward a proposed hardware list so you dont get burned.

2. I dont know? I've heard of people with successes with Intel and AMD systems so I think the motherboard is a more important consideration.

3. Currently lmce can only capture standard def, save the HD Homerun. This be cause of the lack of hardware that supports this, but recent announcements by Hauppage may signal a change in this.

4. Im not sure about satellite. However, the basics from what i understand is that you can connect an unencrypted stream directly into the capture card OR from a satellite box which can be controlled by linuxmce.

5. I use the onboard audio. But this is user / setup preference.

6. I know of one person using a projector, but i dont know how easy it was to setup.

7. No idea. sorry.

8.no idea once again.

hope this helps.

in the mean time, im trying to coalesce user setups into one place that you can drill down by types. so far, not a lot of us are in there but im trying to encourage more people.
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Category:User_Setups

[kdr1066]

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.