[Parrot of Doom]

I have a Tivo (Thompson one, 40G hd no mods), and I'm wondering what future upgrade options might be.

Is it worth putting a network card in the Tivo and some other bits and bobs?

Or should I flog it on Ebay, and buy a Media PC?



Basically what I really want to do is watch on my television the programmes that I have on my computer's HD. The computer is upstairs, the Tivo/TV is downstairs. I'd rather not run loads of cables between the two, so is it possible to put these programmes on the Tivo over the network?

 

[doubledrat]

well, a network card is a lot cheaper than a media pc

afaik you can't put progrs from your pc onto tivo, but I could be way off.

I've read that the xbox 360 is a good way to get media from your media centre pc to the living room, and you get a games machine into the bargain

 

[Glesgie]

A lot easier to buy a DVD player that plays avi files, burn them to DVD on the PC and
watch them on the TV

 

[sanderton]

You can get recordings from your PC to a TiVo, but it a lot of hard work.

Your options are to get one of the video streaming devices which work with regular XP, or upgrade to MCE and use an XBox 360.

I've done the latter, and so far it's working very nicely.

 

[adrianeaton]

What about a mediaMVP box from hauppauge connected to your TV? you can get wireless and wired network versions and they play music video and photos from a computer. They combine very nicely with gbpvr which is a FREE alternative to MCE

The biggest advantage of a MCE or gbPVR running on your PC over a TIVO is the multi tuner support.

Adrian.

 

[lor]

To stream from my PC to TV I always use my normal Xbox, install XBMC onto it and not only can you stream music, pictures, and video but you can view internet TV, play DVD's, internet radio, etc etc.

I also own an Xbox360 but for streaming it cannot do Video from normal Windows XP and even if you have MSMC installed it will still only do .wmv file. The old Xbox does xvid, mpeg4, vobs, iso's and everything else I throw at it.

Chris

 

[Gavin]

What about a mediaMVP box from hauppauge connected to your TV? you can get wireless and wired network versions and they play music video and photos from a computer. They combine very nicely with gbpvr which is a FREE alternative to MCE

The biggest advantage of a MCE or gbPVR running on your PC over a TIVO is the multi tuner support.

Adrian.

Just sold my MVP to someone at workn as it won't do xvid, and I have a divx capable dvd player for everything esle.

Something to add is (AIUI) if you have a MCE PC you can have multi tuners But they have to be the same type, ie all freeview or all analog not a mix. Might be something to consider if your in a marginal freeview area,

 

[ericd121]

To stream from my PC to TV I always use my normal Xbox, install XBMC onto it and not only can you stream music, pictures, and video but you can view internet TV, play DVD's, internet radio, etc etc.

The old Xbox does xvid, mpeg4, vobs, iso's and everything else I throw at it.

Let me understand this; if I buy an Xbox, plug it into my router with a spare UTP cable, then install XBMC onto it, I can watch video files (and listen to music), currently on my PC?

I've obviously not been paying attention!

Can I ask some basic questions?

How noisy is the Xbox?

How does it connect to the telly? SCART?

Does it come with a remote, or would I have to use that bat-shaped thing?

<Casts an eye Ebay-wards> £70-ish, tempting...

 

[cashew1970]

you will need a chipped "Old" style Xbox to do this as they never released the XBMC over here!!! (Sound familiar??)

The old Xbox is fairly noisey..... but nothing compared to the new 360!

 

[Cainam]

Note that you do not need a chipped xbox to get XBMC working. You can perform a "soft mod" on it, which gives you 90% of the functionality of putting a mod chip in the xbox without having to open it up or spend any money.

To put the soft mod on it you need some way of getting some files onto your xbox - which usually means finding someone you know (or finding someone on this forum) who HAS a chipped xbox to copy the files onto a memory card for you.

Thanks to mbriody who answered a lot of my questions on getting this working a couple of months ago.

The best bit to me? It is not just media files on your PC you can play... You can also play files stored on the silver box under your telly with the word Scenium on it (trying not to use the forbidden extrac**** word...!)

 

[blindlemon]

You can also play files stored on the silver box under your telly with the word Scenium on it

Hang on a second, are you saying that you can play videos recorded on that Scenium thing under the TV ...on the TV?

Blimey, I never realised you could do that

 

[jar_uk1]

...The old Xbox is fairly noisey..... but nothing compared to the new 360!

My 360 is a lot quieter when doing mce stuff than my chipped xbox, and with a small workaround it will now "stream" divx from my MCE machine (for some reason, it doesnt like xvid encoded ones though...)

It also streams mpgs that may or may not have been archived from a certain type of silver box under the TV...

John R

 

[ericd121]

To put the soft mod on it you need some way of getting some files onto your xbox - which usually means finding someone you know (or finding someone on this forum) who HAS a chipped xbox to copy the files onto a memory card for you.

Darn! I was hoping it would be an FTP and/or telnet job.

Still, might be worth investigating, if I can find 70 quid.

Thanks for the info. :up:

@ jar_uk1 - I started to have problems playing xvid files on my PC;
a new version of xvid was issued recently.

Anyway, I had to install the new version and a new version my media player, BSPlayer, before they could be viewed.

 

[nathan]

Darn! I was hoping it would be an FTP and/or telnet job.

Still, might be worth investigating, if I can find 70 quid.

There's no "might be" about it - XBMC is great. Even SWMBO loves it and uses the one in the bedroom.

 

[Raisltin Majere]

<Casts an eye Ebay-wards> £70-ish, tempting...

Looking now there is one for £40 and one for £36 going in 3 and 8 minutes respectively.

Sorry for not lettingyou know sooner

 

[ericd121]

Looking now...Sorry for not lettingyou know sooner

Thanks. :up:

I'm sure there'll be others, what with folks upgrading to XBox 360.

 

[Warble]

I have been looking at the same idea - see a slightly earlier post. Doesn't seem to be any straightforward options for the Tivo. I am considering the Xbox as well but I am also looking at the Pinnacle Showcentre - anybody any experience of that?

 

[ericd121]

To put the soft mod on it you need some way of getting some files onto your xbox - which usually means finding someone you know (or finding someone on this forum) who HAS a chipped xbox to copy the files onto a memory card for you.

Which type of memory card does the Xbox take?

 

[Cainam]

It has it own 8MB memory module to plug in, but they cost about £20.

I bought a cable (about £2 from ebay) that plugs into the controller socket of the xbox, and allows me to use my normal USB-flash-memory-pen-thing (or whatver they are called) as a memory card.

 

[JonMace]

Over at www.avforums.co.uk on the Xbox section they have the soft Mod kit floating about, basically as I understand it you add your name to the list it gets sent to you and once you have done the Mod you send it to the next person on the list