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Media PC or Tivo?

13K views 95 replies 44 participants last post by  dribble 
#1 ·
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?
 
#2 ·
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 :)
 
#5 ·
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.
 
#6 ·
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
 
#7 ·
adrianeaton said:
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,
 
#8 ·
lor said:
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! :p

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...
 
#10 ·
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...!)
 
#11 ·
Cainam said:
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? :eek:

Blimey, I never realised you could do that :p :D:D
 
#12 ·
cashew1970 said:
...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
 
#13 ·
Cainam said:
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.
 
#18 ·
Cainam said:
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?
 
#19 ·
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.
 
#21 ·
I use a Kiss DP-500 DVD player which has an ethernet port. Using it as a normal DVD player but also plays divx/xvid fine, either off DVDr or via network. Occasionally issues with some files, but usually because they have been encoded with a 'packed bitstream' (whatever that means!!) but there is a freeware utility to unpack files like these (MPEG4 Modifier), takes about a minute for a TV show to produce the new file.

If you dont want wires everywhere they do a wireless version, the Kiss DP-1500. Theres one on ebay atm for £100.

Both of these look nicer under the TV (imho) than an Xbox brick with XBMC (which is more compatible than most standalone players as its updated so often). I instead now use xbox in the bedroom now that I've got a 360 for games and the Kiss for streaming from PC to my TV.

Ian
 
#22 ·
When you use an Xbox 360 as a media extender do you get full remote access? ie. Live TV with the ability to change channels, divx(I am almost certain this is still no), plugins (such as weather and train times), music, etc?

Also can you use a standard Xbox as an extender? I already run XBMC on my xbox so presume I could watch the recorded stuff but don't believe I could watch the live tv which is a big disadvantage.
 
#24 ·
sanderton said:
You can import extender software for XBox, but it is pretty poor in comparison to a 360.
How so, I'm happy with mine what am I missing out on with the 360?

Bare in mind I do not play games, but just want an extender for the bedroom which has a 28" WS CRT TV, so don't need and can't use HD
 
#25 ·
Gavin said:
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.
It can do divx/xvid with some of the latest software, but it's terrible at doing it. The MVP only does hardware MPEG and so the PC has to transcode on the fly to MPEG to stream it over the network and this puts a heavy load on the PC. I find it stutters all over the place and audio goes out of sync, plus if the video clip isn't a specific resolution it gets windowboxed.

The MVP has a whole load of annoyances which is a shame as otherwise it's a nice simple idea.

As for the original question, I'm in a similar position. I could go with doing some upgrades to the TiVo but with a lack of future in the UK and with HD from Sky, I'm finding I'm more likely to just leave the TiVo alone and go with another option. As I understand it Sky will be doing analogue HD output so I could get or build an HD PVR PC, though with Sky HD you automatically get Sky+ I believe.
 
#26 ·
Popping in late here... Yes, the Xbox can be used to play DivX and .ty files (should an ethernet connection find its way between the two boxes). A modded Xbox is less than £100 and XBMC is the best bit of software around.

Xbox connects via scart or component or composite or svideo (depending on the cable) with optical out.

The official Xbox remote control is about £15 - it's good enough for most things. Or you can hack XBMC to respond to your TiVo or AllForOne remote.
 
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