New setup questions

[Shran]

Hi, I am new to the site and have some questions.

I currently have Dish Network with two 722 DVR units. I am looking at switching to Verizon FIOS. When I do this, I would likely switch to WMC using xbox units as extenders.

What I have so far:

P4 HT PC with a two tuner OTA card and antenna.
1 TB drive.
Xbox remote.
XBOX 360 in the family room.
XBOX Slim upstairs.
XBOX live Gold Family.

The XBOX units have been mostly for gaming so far, but I did a little testing of OTA with them. At first, the response was a little sluggish. I added a new video card and some memory and it got much better.

I will eventually move the WMC function to another PC.

Questions:

1) Would it be worthwhile to have a dedicated PC at the TV and connect it with HDMI? ( Do the [xbox]extenders suffer any loss of quality? )
2) Can I compress the recordings or should I just add a signifcant amount of disk space?
3) Should I use windows home server? ( I played with it some, but not much. )
4) Would a CETON 4 tuner card and one two tuner be sufficent?
5) What would be a good remote for kids to use? ( I would like to auto boot the extender and have as close to a TV expierence as I can. )


Thanks in advance and any suggestions / tips would be appreciated.

[richard1980]

1) Would it be worthwhile to have a dedicated PC at the TV and connect it with HDMI?

It saves you from buying an extender for that TV. You could take the money you planned on spending on an extender and buy more storage.

( Do the [xbox]extenders suffer any loss of quality? )

Not that I'm aware of. Maybe someone else knows something different?

2) Can I compress the recordings or should I just add a signifcant amount of disk space?

Storage is cheap these days, so adding significant storage won't cost much. I don't like converting files, so IMO adding storage is the best solution. But that's just me. Everybody is different, and it's really just a matter of personal preference. Being able to convert the recordings to a more efficient format depends on what kind of tuner/video capture device you intend to use and the associated DRM. A CableCARD tuner (such as the InfiniTV that you mentioned) will have to honor copy-protection settings, so if you have a CableCARD tuner and copy-once content, you won't be able to process the file with a converter. But copy-freely content can be converted with no problems.

4) Would a CETON 4 tuner card and one two tuner be sufficent?

That depends on your watching/recording habits. There are plenty of times when I have 0 tuners in use, and then there are also plenty of times when I have all 4 of my tuners in use.

[blueiedgod]

First of all,

Is the P4 single core?

You need a core per extender, and a core for the Main HTPC, so you would need to have quad core, and at least 1 Gb of RAM per extender, plus RAM for the HTPC for the best experience.

Questions:

1) Would it be worthwhile to have a dedicated PC at the TV and connect it with HDMI? ( Do the [xbox]extenders suffer any loss of quality? )
2) Can I compress the recordings or should I just add a signifcant amount of disk space?
3) Should I use windows home server? ( I played with it some, but not much. )
4) Would a CETON 4 tuner card and one two tuner be sufficent?
5) What would be a good remote for kids to use? ( I would like to auto boot the extender and have as close to a TV expierence as I can. )


Thanks in advance and any suggestions / tips would be appreciated.

1) It is completely up to you. There is no loss of quality, but you won't have a single TV with Netflix or Hulu, if all of your TV's are through extender/xbox
2)Compression aka transcoding will require horsepower that you don't have. With 3 extenders, and HTPC (4TV's total, you would need 5 if they exist, or 6 core CPU)
3)Is Windows MEdia Center available on WHS? I was under impression it is only available in Win 7, some flavors of Vista, and XP MCE.
4) Yes, we have a Ceton and 4X ClearQAM tuners for 5 TV's, and never run out of tuners. As long as you specify that you want the system to use ClearQAM tuners for non-cable channels. FiOS broadcasts "local broadcast" channels in clear QAM, so no need for an antenna, just split the signal before it goes to Ceton.
5) Harmony 300i (the simplest Harmony remote) no LCD to break, or remote that comes in with Linksys extenders. It allows you to program power, volume, and mute buttons for the TV.

[Shran]

Thanks.

I am looking at building a new PC now just for media center. I was thinking an i5 with 6 GB of ram and a 2 TB drive just for recorded TV. I don't normally keep shows after I watch them. I just keep the "last 5" for almost all of my timers.

Sorry. I should have said that I was thinking of using windows home server to use the auto archive feature for compressing and storing content. I am just not sure how much space recording about 5 shows for 20-30 timers would take and thought it might help. I have read that the archive service doesn't work sometimes so I didn't know how reliable it is.

Thanks again.