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Thread ID: 81151 2007-07-18 12:19:00 Ubuntu Media PC Ubunted (12565) Press F1
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570012 2007-07-18 12:19:00 Hey all,

Long time pressf1 reader, first time poster here . Now for the first and by no means the last question .

I have acquired an older PC that i want to set-up as a Media PC in my lounge . Its running Ubuntu 7 . 04 perfectly well and would like to keep it if possible .
Any suggestions? Any stand alone linux apps that will act as a Windows Media Centre/XBMC substitute? Maybe a combination of apps/skins/GUI . Also want to be able to stream media (MP3/ . avi) from my Windows machine on the wireless network .

PC Specs if it helps

AMD Athlon 1333
512Mb Ram
80gb Hard drive
64Mb AGP Geforce MX400
DVD/RW
Wireless Network Card

Thanks in advance .
Ubunted (12565)
570013 2007-07-18 12:34:00 try myth tv
I haven't tried it personally though
it works as a PVR so don't know if that's an overkill for you
heni72847 (1166)
570014 2007-07-18 13:16:00 revision3.com Rob99 (151)
570015 2007-07-18 23:24:00 Thanks i'll check out MythTV. May as well do it properly and chuck out the old VCR. Now I need a tuner card! Ubunted (12565)
570016 2007-07-19 00:06:00 Recommend the Hauppauge cards. These are excellent with hardware MPEG2 encoding so takes all the processing off the CPU.
I have the PVR500MCE which has 2 tuners so I can record 2 different channels at the same time.
If you want to go the digital Freeview way then look at a Skystar 2 DVB-S card (requires a satellite dish - an old sky one will work)
CYaBro (73)
570017 2007-07-19 00:19:00 If you want to go the digital Freeview way then look at a Skystar 2 DVB-S card (requires a satellite dish - an old sky one will work)

Is it possible to get the sky signal into the PC/media centre? Not worried about the scrambled channels, just would like to be able to record/timeshift the free to air stuff. I have sky, but no analog aerial.
sjaxso (11577)
570018 2007-07-19 00:45:00 Is it possible to get the sky signal into the PC/media centre? Not worried about the scrambled channels, just would like to be able to record/timeshift the free to air stuff. I have sky, but no analog aerial.

Yes, the Hauppauge cards have AV / s-video inputs on them as well. The PVR500MCE has two sets!
I have my sky decoder hooked up to the media PC.
What I don't have though is anyway of changing the channels on the sky decoder automatically (I don't have the required ir blaster) so if I want to watch / record a sky channel I have to set the channel manually on the decoder.
I'm using MediaPortal for watching / recording TV and XMLTVNZ for the electronic program guide.
CYaBro (73)
570019 2007-07-19 03:52:00 Yes, the Hauppauge cards have AV / s-video inputs on them as well. The PVR500MCE has two sets!
I have my sky decoder hooked up to the media PC.
What I don't have though is anyway of changing the channels on the sky decoder automatically (I don't have the required ir blaster) so if I want to watch / record a sky channel I have to set the channel manually on the decoder.
I'm using MediaPortal for watching / recording TV and XMLTVNZ for the electronic program guide.

This is priceless information. My credit card is itching already. :D cheers, cyabro!
sjaxso (11577)
570020 2007-07-21 00:05:00 XBMC IS being ported to Linux, you'll start seeing the fruits of it soon hopefully, its mplayer based IIRC so its just the front-end work that mostly needs to be ported... Chilling_Silence (9)
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