So what can we expect? Many of you will be aware of the issues surrounding the secrecy behind ‘Fiji’ (now know as the TV pack) and how it ended up being an OEM only release. Have Microsoft learned from this and are now being more open about this new Media Center release? I’m not too sure, only time will tell.

Charlie Owen, a Program Manager at Microsoft, has an excellent write up about the new features present in this current build of Windows Media Center (along with lots of screen grabs). After seeing this I was very keen to try the features out in the flesh. I made a backup of my current MC system and installed Windows 7 Build 6801.

The desktop has a very similar in feel to Vista, but as I was only interested in MC I didn’t play around with it much. From the beginning I knew that this wasn’t ready for prime time… The new interface is clearly a work in progress, and felt very clunky in the way it moved and animated. There are a lot of inconsistencies with this current build. Some menu items have the new ‘All content’ view, whilst others still have the old ‘more info’ panel. Deleting files is also a lot harder. Normally in recorded TV I hit ‘info’ then scroll to delete. Now you hit the info button, scroll to the ‘action’ panel, then down to delete. Its little UI changes like this that could potentially get on peoples nerves. The DVD library is a big improvement as you no longer have to hack the registry to get your ripped DVD’s to show up in a gallery view as per your music collection, it’s there by default. Also all my recorded TV stored on my WHS showed up without any problems (after setting the share up in the library).

One of the bigger new features is the ‘On Screen Keyboard’ I thought this would work quite well but it’s incredibly frustrating to use! I mainly use the remotes ‘mobile phone’ style keypad to find content. The search feature works really well, so I only have to tap a few letters in to find what I want. Now you have to move the cursor around the virtual keyboard to the letters you want. This more or less doubles the time it takes to find anything. One really frustrating this is that it doesn’t have a backslash key! ( \ ) The library setup now lets you type in a server address, but without the \ key I had to plug in a keyboard.

So are there any showstoppers in this release? Well the clock stays in the top right hand corner of live TV and only way to remove it is to bring up the mini guide and then hit the back button. The shares for music and photos disappear and not amount of fiddling will get them back resulting in not being able to playback any media… Also the divx/Xvid/MKV support didn’t seem to be there, so some downloaded TV shows wouldn’t play.

Microsoft have stated that there will be a public beta of Windows 7 sometime in the next few months, which should hopefully have an updated version of MC. There is however a Windows Media Center Beta Program on the Microsoft connect site. I’m not quite sure what this is for, so I’ll keep my eye on it.

Overall this build of MC looks like it’s a step in the right direction, but if you currently have a stable Media Center then don’t think about running this full time.

• Windows 7 Media Center Revealed
• Add-In: TV Manager (Beta) Released
• How To: Play DVD’s in Windows Media Center Stored On Your Windows Home Server
• Video Library - Media Center Plug-in Review
• Controlling Media Center From Your Windows Mobile Device

Well first off I have to say that the wife was very sceptical about the whole ‘pc under the TV’ thing. She is slowly coming around to the idea and as she is learning the interface, the WAF is steadily improving. I love the way all of my digital ‘stuff’ is right there under one interface. No more firing up the Xbox, or gathering people round the PC monitor to look at some holiday snaps, it’s all right there at my finger tips. It’s also good for my daughter. She’s a big fan of ‘In the Night Garden’, and if we need to keep her occupied for 10 minutes, then it’s very easy to start playing it from the Recorded TV list. The TV pack has also brilliantly combined my ‘Freesat’ & ‘Freeview’ tuners together in one easy to use EPG.

So what are the downsides? Well let’s not forget that this is still just a PC connected to a TV. It would sometimes resume from sleep and the remote doesn’t work, Media Center would sometimes crash and not reload, and sometimes it just plain started acting funny (most notably no sound on live TV). All of which required me getting of the sofa to hit the reset button. Most of these problems were from me ‘fiddling’ with the setup. I kept installing and uninstalling plugins to test for We Got Served, and I think it started to take its toll… Even installing codec’s for video playback can have some funny side effects. At one point Media Center would crash when it was generating thumbnails for some video taken with my stills camera. This was a codec issue which was a little hard to track down.

How did I go about fixing it? Well keeping it clean is a start! After all the testing and installing of plug-ins, I’ve narrowed it down to just 4 that I use on a daily/weekly basis. Here they are:

• Arcsoft Total Theatre (for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD playback)

• Video Library Plug-in (See my earlier review)

• TV manager

• Vista Codec Pack

Not many eh? I used WHS to roll back the installation to just after installing the TV pack and setting up my TV signal (after making a note of any new recorded shows I had scheduled, and moving the recorded TV to the WHS) and then installed these 4 programmes. I’ve been running the system now for a few days and its running much smoother. I’ve now made a manual backup called ‘Stable System’ so if I do get any problems, I’ve got a working version to go back to!

So where do I go from here? Well with the unveiling of Windows 7 and the next version of Media Center, I have managed to get a copy and will install it to have a play about.

Stay tuned…

• WMC Plugin: MediaControl 5.3
• Add-In: TV Manager (Beta) Released
• Podcasts in Vista Media Center?
• Add-In Update: TV Manager v1.01
• Add-In Update: TV Manager 1.0

So what functions does this new version bring? In a nutshell it has automated disc copy, automatic monitoring of shared WHS folders and now functions as a meta data provider for other video collection programs. The last function is especially interesting, which I’ll cover later.

Automatic Disc Copy

This new feature is a strange one. One of the ‘features’ of Windows Home Server is that it is intended to be run as a headless unit without a DVD drive. Designing an add-in that specifically requires a DVD drive seems to be a bit odd. Anyhow for those of you who want to be able to rip your entire DVD collection to your home server this is the one for you! Basically all you do is pop the disc into your DVD drive (I used a USB drive attached to my MediaSmart server to test this) and MyMovies will copy it to your shared video folder. If you want to copy commercial DVD’s (which is illegal in some countries) then you will also have to install a second application, AnyDVD, on the home server itself. If you don’t/can’t have a DVD drive in your home server, you can still copy to it using the MyMovies client running on any desktop PC with a DVD drive.

Folder Monitor

This part of the add-in will keep an eye on your video share and add any new video files to your database. This part is a little clunky at the moment as it will find any video file in the Videos folder. I have all the Quintin family videos in there, and of course MyMovies has no idea what they are and cannot provide data for it. You currently cannot set a sub folder of a share as a ‘rip’ folder, which will hopefully be fixed in the next version.

Meta Server

This part of the add-in is very interesting. The regular MyMovies Collection program has great metadata for DVD’s but the actual Media Center plug-in user interface is not quite as good as the inbuilt Microsoft DVD library (which is available with a small registry hack). Now you can run a small program to change the DVD library to use your home server to provide the metadata. I’ve tried it and I like what I see. Originally I couldn’t get the Microsoft DVD Library to work quite right, but now it looks great with MyMovies DVD artwork and Metadata. The only let down is that it won’t grab artwork for any movies recorded by your Media Center. Media Center users outside of the US don’t get any cover art for recorded movies, so hopefully MyMovies can fill this gap in the future.

So is MyMovies for WHS the plug-in for you? I will certainly be uninstalling MyMovies from my Media Center PC, and running the Microsoft DVD Library full time as I feel it has a better user interface. I know I will lose the copy feature directly on the MC box, so I will use the copy functions of the MyMovies Client running on my desktop PC and rip to the WHS.

Overall a solid step in the right direction.

• DVD Library Manager
• Add-In: My Movies for Windows Home Server v1.0.0.3
• New Windows 7 Technologies Point the Way to Future Improvements In Windows Home Server
• MyMovies Media Center Plug-in
• Add-In Review: Recorded TV Manager 3.4.3 for Windows Home Server

Before starting, I want to warn you that not only is this very likely not supported by HP, but can result in losing network access to your server all together.  Now to turn it over to Blackprint:

You might be thinking “Why would I need to do this?” well I can tell you, from my experience, it solved the problem of my slow network speeds. I was getting around 200KBps and now have a steady 9MBps over wireless-n. Be warned: it can be risky because if it goes wrong and the ethernet port stops working, you will have no access to your box, so only update at your own risk.

What you will need

• Remote Desktop Connection
• The Driver

What to Do

Firstly, we need to check what driver version you currently have. Remote Desktop into your Home Server, right-click on my computer and click on manage. Go to Device Manager, expand Network adapters, right click on the SiS191 and go to properties.

Click on the driver tab. The latest version (at time of writing) was released 03/03/08.

If your driver is before this version and you are experiencing slow network speeds, it’s time to update.

Extract the zipped driver file, somewhere in the Shared Folders is fine. Open the Setup.exe in the sgl206a folder.

Follow the installation through, if you see this message click Continue Anyway.

The driver will install and if done correctly it will ask to restart the server. I recommend restarting ASAP. If the server seems unresponsive for a couple of seconds during the install, it was normal in my case. I must have reinstalled this driver a few times during the writing of this tutorial and have had no problems.

Done

You can check the new driver version by following the initial instructions above. Remote Desktop into your Home Server, right-click on my computer and click on manage. Go to Device Manager, expand Network adapters, right click on the SiS191 and go to properties. Click on the driver tab.

Additional Info

The driver link may become out of date. You can get the latest driver from the SiS download page. Read and accept the agreement. Select Windows Server 2003, Network Driver, SiS191 and click Go. Choose a location to download from, I recommend choosing as close to your home as possible to get the best speed. You can then follow the instructions above.

• How To: Make Windows Home Server Appear in Vista’s Network Map
• Add-In Review: Autoexit 2008
• How-To: Install Firefly Media Server for Windows Home Server
• Add-In: AutoExit 2008R2 Beta
• How To: Improve Wireless Security With Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server storage system design requirements

• Must be extremely simple to use. Must not add any new concepts or terminology average consumers would not understand. Simple operations should be simple and there should not be any complex operations.
• Must be infinitely & transparently extendible. Users should be able to just plug in more hard drives and the amount of storage available should just grow accordingly. There should be no arbitrary limits to the kinds of hard drives used. Users should be able to plug in any number of drives.  Different brands, sizes, and technologies should be able to be mixed without the user having to worry about details.
• All storage must be accessible using a single namespace. In other words, no drive letters.  Drive letters are a 1970’s anachronism and must be squashed out of existence!
• The storage namespace must be prescriptive. In other words, our research told us that consumers want guidance on where to store stuff. Our storage system needs to be able to tell users where photos go. Where music goes. Etc…
• Must be redundant & reliable. There are two components in every modern computer that are guaranteed to fail: fans and hard drives. Because they have moving parts,  Windows Home Server must be resilient to the failure of one or more hard drives.
• Must be compatible. Compatible with existing software, devices, disk drives, etc…
• Must have great performance.
• Must be secure.
• Must enable future innovation. Both the amount of storage consumers are using, and capacity/$ are growing at Moore’s Law like rates (while nothing else really is). This creates a discontinuity in the industry and an opportunity for innovation. The storage system must operate at a higher level of abstraction to enable rich software innovation (file level vs. block level).

There have been many discussions in the forums regarding the use of RAID for a WHS computer.  The one concern that I seen over and over again in these posts is backup for the WHS.  Before I can discuss backup for the backup server, we must discuss what the purpose of a WHS is.  When WHS was first released, Microsoft advertised it as a backup solution for client computers.  If a computer hard drive dies, one simply pops in a new drive, loads the restore disk and restores that computer to the last saved backup.  WHS also created a a folder called “shares”.  In this folder, the WHS user could copy files to this folder, which all machines in the WHS network could access.  I can’t say definitively, but I do not believe Microsoft expected the end user to simply copy files over and delete the originals.  I do not believe that WHS’s original purpose was to act as a file server, without the benefit of that data being backed up elsewhere.  Anyone who “moved” data in this manner was asking for trouble.  And quite often they got it.

Microsoft’s original answer to this was the “folder duplication” option.  This option would create 2 copies of any shared folder that had this option enabled.  If a hard drive failed, other than the system drive, simply remove it and replace.  Although I have never seen any discussion regarding how this is done, WHS somehow recreates this duplication information on the new drive.  This is Microsoft’s alternate redundancy solution to a RAID 1 array for the shared folder data.  If the WHS user is cognizant enough to turn it on.

The “real” backup solution for the “shares” folder was introduced in Power Pack 1 which allows the user to create a data backup drive.  From the PP1 release documentation:

You can can now back up and restore your home server shared folders to an external hard drive.

When you add a hard drive to your home server, you are given an option to use the hard drive to back up your home server shared folders. When you select this option, your home server appears in the Computers & Backup tab. You can then use Backup Now to back up your shared folders to the hard drive.

You can view and restore your home server shared folder backups on the Computers & Backup tab.

What this allows the WHS user to do is create a shared folder backup and take it offsite.  The ultimate and only backup strategy in the case of a total disaster, such as a home being destroyed in a fire.

Many users were upset with the release of PP1 in that there was no option to backup the client backups or the System drive.  Along came the WHS BDBB add-in that allowed the WHS user to backup the client backup database.  As for the System drive, the only way to backup this drive up, to my knowledge, is with an imaging software such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost.

So, to recap the above, these are the backup/redundancy strategies that are available to a WHS user:

• Folder duplication (redundancy).  Does the same thing as a RAID 1 array, and takes up the same amount of space as a RAID 1 array.  The disadvantage is that this is only for folders beneath the “shares” folder that are turned on the create this duplication.  Neither solution, however, is a true backup.
• WHS’s external backup of the “shares” folder.  The only true backup solution for data on a WHS machine.  This would be available to a JBOD or RAID solution, as this is copied to a drive external to the data array.
• Client backup database.  The ability to create this backup is through the use of an add-in solution called WHS BDBB.  This is a true backup.
• System Drive backup.  The only option I am aware of to backup the System drive is through a 3rd party program such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost.  There are many potential disadvantages here.  How well do they work with a WHS OS?  How well do they restore the System drive in the event of a failure?  How easy is it to reintegrate the client backups and shares folder?  I do not know the answers to these questions.

All of this seems like a rather piece-meal solution.  Much of the above discussion leads one to suggest that a RAID array would be a better solution.  Perhaps for total system redundancy, but only for redundancy.

If we look once again at the three software sections of a WHS machine, what is the importance that can attached to having a backup to each section?  To me:

• “Shares” folder backup.  This is a no brainer.  Backup of this section of a WHS machine is of the highest importance.  If a user were to “move” over an entire family photo collection, and then lose it, that is a catastrophe.  Which is why WHS allows a duplication option for these folders.
• Client backups.  By definition, this is a backup.  The data contained here is an image of the client machine.  You can restore a complete machine or portions of it.  Do you need a 3rd copy?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Losing a WHS machine and a client machine at the same time would be an unusual occurrence.  Not unheard of, but unusual.  At least one has the option to do so with WHS BDBB.
• System backup.  I do believe that this has a high priority.  That is what system restores are for.

In the above discussion, I have tossed around 2 key terms.  Redundancy and Backup.  Whether it is Microsoft’s folder duplication option, or a RAID solution, neither is a backup solution.  Both are redundancy solutions to protect the user against the loss of a single hard drive.  Lose the system disk in a Microsoft solution, and you may end up losing some of that data.  Lose a RAID array, you’ve lost everything.  The only true backup solution is to physically create a copy of your “shares” folder data on a separate drive that can then be removed from the machine, which just so happens to be the option that Microsoft created in PP1.  If needed, you can also create a copy of the client backups.

Just remember, redundancy is not a backup.

So, in the end, the major advantage of a RAID solution over the Microsoft JBOD duplication solution is that is it provides redundancy for the entire OS and the data on that computer.  The major advantage of Microsoft’s JBOD duplication option is the ease of adding additional space to the data drive.  Both have redundancy of a partial (native WHS) or complete system (RAID).  Just do not expect either to be a backup solution.

• Add-In: WHS Backup Database-Backup (BDBB) 1.0.0.4 Beta
• Windows Home Server Video Training from Scott Lowe and Train Signal
• Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 In Depth: External Backup
• Configuring Windows Home Server: Adding a Shared Folder
• A Guide to Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Beta - Part 2

First of all I’ll be installing the TV pack. Yes the one everyone has been going on about. I’m not going to go into how I got it, but as I’m using DVB-S and DVB-T I basically have to use it to get the TV the way I want to. I opted for Windows Vista Ultimate as the OS of choice. If you want to use more than 2 tuners of one type with the TV pack you have to go with Vista Ultimate. As I mentioned in part 2, I have 4 tuners in total.

Installation Tips

Installing Vista is a relatively straight forward process. It’s worth giving your new machine a name like Media PC so you know exactly what it is on the network. When adding a username for the first time make sure you don’t include a password for the account. You’ll want the PC to boot straight into Media Center and having to attach a keyboard and typing in the password after every reboot is going to get very tiresome. Once everything is up and running and you have installed the Home Server Connector, I decided to remove all the icons from the desktop and put the blue MC desktop as the wallpaper (I used Google to find an image). I did this because I want this PC to be as much like a set top box as I can, and having the desktop look like MC means when it boots up, or if you are running external programmes like TotalTheater or any games means you won’t see a normal windows wallpaper when it runs. To get MC to run on start up, run MC and go to Settings -> General.

Power Saving

As per my MediaSmart power saving tips article, I want to use as little electricity as possible. There are a few things to do to MC to get it to sleep properly. First of all you need to set Vista’s power options to ‘Balanced’ and you also need to go into the advanced settings and change the ‘Require password on wakeup’ to disabled. If you don’t every time the PC wakes up you will have to attach a mouse to click the logon button. You also want to disable ‘Allow away mode when sharing media’ as the PC will never go to sleep.

In the Balanced power mode, MC will go to sleep after 20 minutes if nothing is playing back. If you go to bed and turn the TV off, but don’t stop live TV the PC will not go to sleep.

TV Setup

If you opted to download the TV pack then make sure you install all the updates that come with it before running Media Center for the first time. The TV pack set up is similar to before but this time lets you see what satellites you are receiving and which tuners to configure. Media Center still asks for a postcode, but doesn’t ask what Freeview transmitter you are nearest. I think this has caused a few channels to show up twice in my guide (although the second one is disabled by default) so it’s something to look out for as you may be receiving the right channel, but for the wrong region.

Once the TV set up is complete you will have about 1000 channels to sift through!!! The TV pack contains no help at all with getting the channels in the correct order and it is a looooooong and tedious process to get them just how you want. If like me you have Freeview and Satellite, the Freeview channels will show up as 1 – 80ish (so that part is fine if you just have a Freeview tuner) and the satellite channels start at 101 (as they do on a sky box). I wanted to use the satellite as the main source of TV, and use the Freeview tuner to pick up the channels that are not yet available on FTA satellite (Five, Fiver, Five Life, Dave etc). I had to manually go through all the channels I want and move them around. For example BBC 1 was 1 on Freeview and 101 on Satellite. I swapped 101 with 1 (to make the satellite tuner channel 1) then I changed the guide listing source for channel 1 to channel 101. This brings a pop up box asking if you want to copy the guide from 101 to 1, or to merge the channels and delete 101 from the guide (which is what I chose). This means I can have satellite BBC 1 and Freeview BBC 1 as the same channel in the guide. This is very useful as if both satellite tuners are in use (recording 2 channels, or being used by an extender) then it will automatically change to the Freeview tuner for BBC 1. A nice addition I thought, and one that I only discovered by accident!

You are looking at least a day to go through and change all the channels. You have been warned. If anyone knows how to copy the setup once everything is tuned and you want to copy it off me then feel free to email me.

So that’s the TV tuning side of things done, what else does the TV pack bring you? If you are on Freeview then the TV Pack adds the red button interactive feature and this works very well. This doesn’t work for satellite channels yet though. There don’t seem to be any other changes (that I can see at least) to the rest of Media Center. The Beta TV pack had support for HD TV, such as BBC HD. I was using a DLL file from the Beta on m Media Center so I was able to watch the Olympics in HD. On the 31st August this Beta DLL time bombed and disabled the HD functions. Two great guys over on the Green Button forums have hacked the beta DLL and got rid of the time bomb! I have replaced this file on my system and I can confirm that I am receiving BBC HD again! If you are using an Nvidia card (which I always recommend) you will also need the 7.15.11.7309 drivers. I was using the latest drivers for my 8500, but fast forward/revind on BBC-HD would cause MC to crash and restart. This driver fixes that problem.

Recorded TV

I was very keen to get my recorded TV playing back from my MediaSmart Server. One downside of the Home Server backup connector on the PC is that it doesn’t backup your recorded TV. I know you could override this, but it would quickly eat up all the space on your home server. The only free plug-in currently available is the Recorded TV manager. I’ve tried this in beta form a few times, and to be honest I could never get it to work. I’ll be trying again soon, so stay tuned.

Music/Photos/Videos

MC automatically adds the music/photos/video directories of the host computer to its library. With Vista you can tell the local folders to actually point at your Windows Home Server shares. This is quite useful as you don’t need to do any reconfiguration in MC. To change where a folders location is, go to the local folder, right click and hit properties. There should be a location box and you can change this value to \servermusic (or to wherever/whatever your server is called). Whilst you are there it may be a god idea to delete all the sample footage that comes with MC. They are all in the Public TV/Music/Video folders.

DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD

DVD playback in MC is pretty good, and integrates well with the interface. For Blu-Ray/HD DVD playback the only real way of getting it going is to use Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. When you put a disc in the drive the TotalMedia software is automatically launched. It’s not completely integrated into Media Center (it’s another application running on top of Media Center so the setup menus and dialog boxes all looks like ‘windows’ boxes) but all the MC remote buttons work for playback and to exit you just hit the ‘back’ button. Picture quality on my Sharp 42” LCD is superb with both HD-DVD & Blu-Ray discs.

I had a play about with the DVD library hack that’s been around for a while but couldn’t get it to work properly so went with My Movies (see my earlier review). It’s able to launch Totalmedia and will also download cover art for any disc you may have in the drive.

Other Programmes

On the main MC menu there is a menu called Online -> Programmes. You can install your own programmes (games etc) and launch them from the couch! This is very useful for playing PC games. As I mentioned in Part 2 I have the Microsoft USB wireless Xbox dongle. This lets you playback PC games using the Xbox 360 controller. I downloaded the demo of Lego Indiana and although it’s a ‘Games For Windows’ title it doesn’t add an icon to the MC menu. The way to get around this is to add your own piece of code in an MCL file. Essentially it’s like having a batch file (I’m sure many of you used to use them in the good ol’ DOS days!) which tells MC where the programme is, what it’s called and what icon to use. The game runs really well on my Nvidia 8500 (although only in 720p) and is just like playing it on the Xbox 360. Below is the example code I used to get Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas into MC: (San Andreas.mcl)

<application name = “Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas”
SharedViewport = “”
NowPlayingDirective = “”
run = “C:Program FilesRockstar GamesGTA San Andreasgta_sa.lnk”
startimage=”C:UsersmediaPicturessan_andreas.jpg”
thumbnailimage=”C:UsersmediaPicturessan_andreas.jpg”>
<capabilitiesrequired directx=”True” audio=”False” video=”False” intensiverendering=”True” console=”False” cdburning=”False” />
</application>

You have to create a shortcut to the actual .exe file (just right click and ‘create shortcut’) and this MCL file links to that. The MCL file lives in C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsMedia CenterMedia Center Programs. If this directory doesn’t exist on your machine, just create it.

Remote Control

Obviously you want to use Media Center form the comfort of your sofa, but which remote control do you opt for? Before I sold my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive I was using it as an extender for my desktop PC. The Xbox universal remote is very nice and works perfectly with the Xbox, but doesn’t work with normal PC IR receivers. The TV pack was bringing Red Button interactive to MC so I decided to go with a remote that has the Red/Green/Yellow/Blue buttons. I wasn’t keen in the older style MS remote so went for the Philips 5100. This remote has all the MC functions and Interactive buttons and can also control your Amp & TV and is a very good remote. The only downside with the IR receiver built into the Antec Fusion case is that the bundled software takes the remote signal and turns it into keyboard commands. This works well with MC, but there are 2 major drawbacks. First the Red button interactive doesn’t work (I don’t know/couldn’t find out what the keyboard short cuts are) and most importantly it doesn’t support MC’s ‘Triple Tap’ feature (pushing a number button more than once brings up the letters like a mobile phone). This means that if you want to search for a programme in the guide, or search for music by letter, pressing the letter on the keypad will just bring up the number you pushed. The only way around it is to use a proper Microsoft IR receiver. The USB one that came with the Philips remote is compatible and works well with my remote. I’m sure you can probably get one to fit inside the Antec case of you do a little searching.

So that’s it for software, in my 4th and final part I shall be exploring what it’s like ‘Living With Media Center’.

• Building the Ultimate Media Center (Part 4 - Living With Windows Media Center)
• Building the Ultimate Media Center (Part 1)
• Fiji Isn’t All Bad News, Especially For Those Outside the USA
• Hello from the UK!
• New Xbox Media Hub On the Way?

Onward to the Living Room

When I first started this series, I explained that my ultimate goal was to provide some insight into how to use Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server together in an environment full of novice users.  So far, most of the discussion has been centered on the network infrastructure and back end.  As I indicated at the end of Part 3, my wife was less than impressed with the server.  I did manage to show off a little bit when I hooked our printer up to the server and showed my wife how we could now print from our laptops from the couch, but I have to make clear that I considered her general lack of interest to be a success.  In the weeks since I initially installed the WHS, it has happily hummed along backing up the systems on our home network and synching our files, become the container for more media than any one family should be allowed to consume, and generally gone unnoticed by the rest of family.  This was the plan.

The next step was bringing a Media Center into the living room.  I will approach this topic in two phases.  First, I will take you inside the new hardware and try to give some insight into why I selected the components that I did.  It is not a fancy system, but my purchasing decisions were guided by practical experience with WMC and HTPCs in general.  Then, I will give some suggestions on how to set up WMC to seamlessly take advantage of WHS.

The new HTPC

When planning my son’s new system, I knew right away that it would be Intel-based.  He wanted it for gaming and general purpose use and I wanted it to last many moons in that role as he matures and begins to use a computer seriously.  When planning my new WMC system for the living room, I knew right away that it would be AMD-based.  I wanted it to be as quiet and power conscious as possible while handily pushing 1080p video and 5.1 audio.  As such, my eyes turned immediately toward the one-two combo of the 45W Athlon 64 X2 4850e and the RS780 integrated chipset.

System Specs

Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e

Dissipating a cool 45W, this little dual-core processor seems tailor-made for HTPC applications and WHS applications.  It provides more than enough horsepower for HD television, Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback, and even some mid-level gaming if you are so inclined.  Put it in the right case, and it can even be passively cooled.

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H

Nvidia, Ati/AMD, and Intel have been racing to develop the perfect mainstream integrated graphics processor.  One of the key criteria for me has been the ability to play back 1080p video, something that the ATI Radeon HD3200 GPU on this board handles with ease.  My home theater receiver lacks HDMI audio requiring that I have a separate digital audio output, which can severely limit one’s motherboard choices.  Think carefully about the motherboard features you desire or need.  The more high quality choices you can find integrated into a board, the more expansion slots you can save for TV tuners, video card upgrades, or other desired upgrades.

System Memory - 4gb DDR800 RAM

The usual rule applies: the more system memory the better, especially if you want to run a 64-bit OS.

Hard Drive - 500gb Seagate 7200.11 SATA

The hard drive will be the target of my first upgrade.  From three to four feet, the system is silent, except for the chatter of the hard drive.  The fact of the matter is that a pure HTPC does not need a large desktop drive.  In my case, the WHS holds all of the media content, so the internal drive’s only real purpose is to serve as the repository for the OS and installed software, recorded television, and as the live TV buffer.  I plan to replace this drive with a petite laptop drive.  A laptop hard drive is considerably quieter than a desktop drive anyway, but encase it in the Scythe SQD2.5-1000 hard drive silencer and it will be effectively silent and will fit perfectly into the standard 3.5″ bay of your average case.  Flash based SSDs promise an even quieter future for HTPC enthusiasts, but I do not consider these devices cost-effective just yet.  Perhaps next year.

TV Tuners - ATI Theater 550 pro and AVerMedia PCI-E Combo tuner (M780R)

The tuners were left over from my original Media Center and I could not justify replacing them.  If I were buying again today, I would spring for a pair of Theater 650 Pro cards.  I have always been pleased with the image quality of the 550 Pro card and have read that the 650 Pro is perhaps even a bit better, but I know that other tuner manufacturers have their fans and that certain manufacturers fare better in different regions and with different broadcast standards, so research this choice carefully.  If you are worried about watching and recording television, your choice of tuner card will likely be of paramount importance.

Enclosure - Antec NSK 1380

I used the predecessor to this case, the Antec Aria, for my first WMC system and have subsequently used it in builds for other people.  The NSK 1380 lacks the built-in media reader of the Aria, but this is actually a bonus as the reader was a tremendous dust magnet.  This relatively petite, sound dampened case leaves plenty of room for a microATX board with a full load of expansion cards, 1-3 hard drives, a surprisingly quiet power supply, and an optical drive.  There are a number of case manufacturers out there making cases specifically for the HTPC market.  Most of these cases are designed for full-size ATX boards and are designed to blend into a stack of consumer electronic devices.  Such systems tend to be quieter than the average mid tower, but not always by much, and tend to have a good-sized footprint.  I would prefer an HTPC be as small as possible even at the cost of expandability and gaming potential, but that is obviously a personal choice. 

One advantage of many of the bigger HTPC cases is that they include a small display on the front allowing one to access media, particularly music, without charging up the WMC’s display.  I have struggled with the issue of accessing the music collection without using the main display for a while.  I have an RDP shortcut on each of the laptops to access the WMC, but this is not the most family friendly solution.  A small screen on the front of the case can be difficult to see and can pose navigation challenges even for experienced users.  I had even toyed with the idea of placing a small lcd television alongside the main display, set to clone mode to use for music playback and photo slideshows during parties.  I had high hopes that Windows SideShow would present a solution to this problem and there is still reason to be optimistic now that Microsoft has a Media Center SideShow control gadget in the works, but the hardware has been painfully slow to come to market.  My current thought is to pick up an inexpensive PDA such as the HP iPaq 111 to use as a SideShow remote, but I continue to drool over the nascent Ricavision SideShow devices.

Optical Drive - Lite-on Blu-ray drive

Got it cheap and couldn’t resist.  The idea of buying a read-only drive might seem strange to many people, but an HTPC is not a content creation machine, it is media playing machine.  If I could have gotten a burner for the same price, then bonus, but it is not necessary.

I have enjoyed playing Blu-ray discs on my Media Center, but I do not consider these players ready for the average living room just yet.  The problem lies in the software.  Most of the software available to play back Blu-ray discs does not integrate well into WMC.  Cyberlink’s PowerDVD, however maligned by enthusiasts, has been the most stable player so far, but it requires exiting from WMC to access.  I have tried adding a link to the WMC menu to automatically exit the WMC interface and launch PowerDVD, but it is kludgy and PowerDVD does not always recognize the commands of the WMC remote.  Arcsoft makes a product called TotalMedia Theater which installs a link in the WMC menu and opens a 10-foot interface that effectively makes use of the WMC remote.  TMT is not as CPU and GPU efficient as PowerDVD and I have experienced an unfortunate amount of instability transitioning back and forth between WMC and TMT.  In time, I assume that either Microsoft or one of the media playback vendors will arrive at an effective solution.  Arcsoft is close, but they are not quite there.

Deploying the HTPC

Fully assembled with Vista installed, the new system took its place in the living room.  An HTPC is essentially a headless computer.  The only point of interface is the media center software.  I get around this limitation by using Vista Ultimate and setting up an RDP connection, but you can achieve the same effect directly by keeping a keyboard and mouse handy.  Either way, I tend to think of the WMC interface as the great Wizard of Oz, a powerful public persona, but a facade.  I do not want the family to see the little man behind the curtain, but there will be tell-tale signs in the WMC library.

Library Setup

With Windows Vista, the music, video and picture collections are combined into a single giant library.  One of the first things you will want to do is add your WHS shared folders to the library.  Doing so will allow you to store all of your media on the server for access through the WMC, but each of the shared folders will show up in the videos and pictures interface with the UNC as the label.  Also, no matter how fast your network, local media will pop into view faster than media on the network.  You will have the opportunity to add the network shares as part of the initial WMC setup, but you can add new folders anytime you want.  In the WMC interface, scroll down to the Tasks control menu.  Flick right to the settings option and you can access library setup.  Alternatively, you can enter any of the collection folders and open the more info menu with a right-click or by pressing the i-more button on the WMC remote.  The library setup wizard will present you with the option of adding a folder to watch and then ask whether the folder is local or on another computer.  There is no need to map network drives to the shared folders.  Simply select the option to find the shared folders from another computer and the server’s shared folders will become selectable.

Movies

Setting up WMC for movies requires some choices be made ahead of time.  Windows Media Center has DVD playback built into the interface with the Play DVD option under the TV + Movies control menu.  If your family only watches one disc at at time, this is fine, but if you plan to rip your DVD collection as VOBs to your WHS, it would be advisable to enable the DVD library option for WMC.  DVD library shows not only the disc you inserted, but also the movies you have recorded off of television and can be pointed to VOB files stored in VIDEO_TS folders on the hard drive in the same way that you can add folders to the general media collections.  The easiest way to enable the gallery view is with a registry hack:

1. Exit Windows Media Center.  From the desktop, press the Windows Logo (Start button) and type regedit into the search box.  You need to type the entire name in order to make the program shortcut appear.

2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionMedia CenterSettingsDvdSettings

3. In the results pane, right-click the registry key entitled ShowGallery, and then select Modify.

4. Clear the contents of the value data box and replace it with Gallery and then click OK.

5. Restart Windows Media Center.  The Play DVD option on the TV + Movies control menu will have been replaced with DVD library. 

When you insert a disc into Windows Media Center, WMC pulls metadata about the disc from AMG.  This dvdid metadata information is stored in a hidden folder in the account User folder.  If you want to take advantage of this stored metadata then I would recommend checking out the good folks over at www.dvdxml.com.  They have detailed instructions about how to apply the dvdid to your VOB folders and by registering you can access and add to their growing database of dvdids.  If you do not want to use the dvdid metadata or have home movies stored in a VOB format, it might be advantageous to add images to your movie folders to help make your movie collection more user friendly.  Simply add a JPG image of your choice to the folder that contains the VOB files and rename it to folder.jpg.  The movie’s generic placeholder icon in the DVD library will now be skinned with the image.  Keep in mind that the image will be resized to a rectangular shape similar in proportion to a DVD case.  As such, I find it best to use images similar to those one might find on Amazon or IMdB.

Unfortunately, the DVD library is restricted to movies recorded off of television, DVD discs, and DVDs ripped as VOBs in the VIDEO_TS folder format.  If you plan on building a movie collection using a mix of different WMC compatible file types, your movies can be added to your video library.  However, WMC does not offer much in the way of metadata outside of the DVD library and music library, so any movie collection you place in the video library will appear somewhat spartan.  For a mixed collection with complete metadata options, I suggest using a third-party movie management collection plug-in.  There are a variety of such plug-ins available, most of them free, open-source projects in various stages of development that I have enjoyed testing and using.  The best known, most mature, and really the best choice for an environment of novice users, is My Movies.

Television

I have saved the discussion of television for the end.  The topic of integrating WMC’s DVR functions with WHS has generated a great deal of discussion.  The allure of sharing one’s recorded television throughout the house has inspired a great deal of tinkering and testing by enthusiasts around the world.  There are ways to set up WMC to record directly to WHS and there are enthusiast projects afoot to bring Media Center to WHS, but after weeks of tinkering and testing of my own, I have come to the conclusion that the best solution for integrating WMC and WHS is to leave the heavy lifting to WMC.  I suspect that WHSv2 will bring some other solutions, but for now, the other solutions to involve WHS in the recording process tend to be temperamental or overly network intensive. 

Since my goal is to keep the network and WMC setup as stable and user-friendly as possible, I suggest leaving the recording functions to the WMC and then transferring the recordings over to the server for storage and network-wide access.

1. Start with the WHS.  Create a shared folder.  You can either add a subfolder to one of the default shared folders, or create a new shared folder, but it is best to use a folder name without spaces.  WMC tends to get cranky about updating its watched folders if you use spaces in the folder name.

2. Set the permissions on the folder to allow your Media Center machines full access to the folder.

3. Switch to your WMC machine and exit Media Center.  From the desktop, press the Windows Logo (Start button) and type regedit into the search box.  You need to type the entire name in order to make the program shortcut appear.

4. Navigate to the following key:

HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionMedia CenterServiceRecording

5. In the results pane, right-click the registry key entitled WatchedFolders, and then select Modify.

6. Clear the contents of the value data box and replace it with the UNC path to the shared folder that you created on the WHS and then click OK.

7. Restart Windows Media Center.

If you are setting up a WMC machine without a TV tuner, or have not set up the tuner on your machine yet, there will not be a WatchedFolders entry.  If you do not have a WatchedFolders entry in the registry, you can add one.

1. Select Edit –> New –> String Value

2. Name the new entry in the results pane, WatchedFolders

3. Return to step 2 above.

Now, there are three ways you can go about transferring your recordings over.

• If you are a code monkey, then you can try writing a script that will move your recordings as a scheduled task.  This route would be beyond my ken.  Sorry.
• Use TV Manager.  This is a relatively new WHS add-in, but has quickly grown in popularity due to its rapid development cycle, straightforward features, tight WHS integration, and low, low price of free.  The recent 1.01 update adds new functionality to access recordings through the WHS web page.
• Use Recorded TV Manger.  This commercial WHS add-in has been around almost as long as WHS itself and has grown into a tremendously powerful television management system.  If you want complete control over how different media centers on your network access television and are interested in collecting complete seasons of television series, then this is the add-in you want.

Enjoy!

At the end of the day, I had two advantages going for me when I brought this new media center into the living room.  First, this was not my family’s first experience with Windows Media Center.  I had installed a PC in the living room before and we had been using an Xbox 360 as an extender for some time.  Second, my wife is patient.  It is this second advantage that matters most and that I will explore in more detail in my next article.

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• MyMovies Media Center Plug-in

Many of the WGS readers may not know anything about Crystalfontz America Inc.  Before I delve into the topic of this post, let me take a moment to explain to you who Crystalfontz is and what they do.  Crystalfontz is a supplier of LCD displays, mainly for the OEM market.  They also produce an extensive line of LCD displays for the consumer market.  These displays can be interfaced to computers by means of a serial port, printer port, or USB port.  CrystalControl2 is a software solution written by this company that will allow you to display an extensive amount of information about your computer (and certain software applications) on these displays.  For general information about Crystalfontz, click on the link above.  To get an idea of the capabilities of the software, go here to see the type of information that can be displayed on these devices.

You may ask what is my connection?  I, and other CF users, have been Beta testing their software (and some of their hardware) over the past several years.  Recently, a specific post over at the CF forums got me thinking about a new application for these devices.  This post posed a question and the answers provided a potential solution that might be able to break the limitation created by a direct USB cable connection and have a wireless solution for a Crystalfontz display.

For your next question: what does this have to with WHS machines?  I am both a Crystalfontz and WHS enthusiast.  I have 2 of these devices on my WHS.  One to control fans and one to display system information.  Many of the users of WHS machines tuck their machine into a closet, garage, or other out-of-way place.  Users of the HP machines are, of course, headless.  Many others (including myself) have self-built solutions, and only log onto the WHS machine through RDC, thus making it a headless solution, also.

For those who would like a quick status check on their WHS without logging/RDC onto it, these displays can provide that.  Finally:

Before I go on, a quick note to you readers.  I am posting versions of this article in the Crystalfontz forums and on the We Got Served blog page.  While this is mainly a “Now for something completely different” article about CF displays, I am posting it here for the reasons I just noted above.

Food for thought…

Many of the questions, ideas, and suggestions that have been posted on the Crystalfontz forums have provided me a rich source of material that I have turned into reality.  The guys and gals in the CF forums have had some great ones!  Much better than mine, quite often.  One such post got me thinking recently.  Wouldn’t it be great to able to break the limitation created by that USB cable and have a wireless solution for your Crystalfontz display?

The possibilities for use of these LCD displays would increase greatly.  Trapman, in his post I mentioned above, and wiszmaster in his post, would be able to set up a CF display locally near their aquarium and be able to manage that display clear across the house.  An IT administrator (or home user) could setup a series of displays in his office and have a very informative visual display of server (or home computer) information right in front of him.  For the Windows Home Server users (especially those who have headless servers “tucked” away in a closet), you would be able to display HW/SW information that would not be easily obtained otherwise.  A series of screens that I developed for my WHS can be seen here in the wgs forums.  My CF-WHS project can be found here.

For you WGS readers, would you like to be able to see:

• Real-time CPU usage and Operating Frequency?

• System uptime?

• A fun “Stay away from me reminder”?

• Memory Usage?

• Free Drive Space?

• SMART Hard Drive Stats?

• DNS/Domain/IP information?

• Network Stats?

• Printer Information?

• Fan Data?

Please note that all those pictures above are actual pictures of the physical LCD displays.

All this is possible without having to log on to your WHS.  And good luck finding this information, at a glance, from the console or RD.  Put your WHS in the closet, hook up the device that I am reviewing below along with a Crystalfontz LCD, and you can put the display right by your main workstation.  If the display stops working, it is time to check on your WHS!

One of the devices mentioned in the post I linked above was a Silex SX-2000WG+ USB to Ethernet Device Server.  This device breaks the USB wire limitation.  This device also breaks the wired Ethernet limitation, as it is a wireless device.  This could be very useful, if it worked.

Crystalfontz displays, and many of its competitors, make use of a Virtual Com Port to USB converter driver made by Future Technology Devices International Limited (FTDI).  I was somewhat apprehensive if this driver software would be able to interface with USB to Ethernet converter software.  Lots of “converters” there!

I really wanted to try out this device, but I decided I better contact Silex to get their opinion on compatibility.  I received an email from them a few days later.  Their response:

There are a vast amount of different USB devices on the market.

We are constantly hearing from customers who tell us that they tried our server with some device or another and that it worked great. There is also the occasion that something doesn’t work well or not at all but that is the exception not the rule. Generally, if the USB driver is a standard written driver, then it should work. If there is something odd about their implementation of the driver then there may be problems.

If you would like to try it then, we would love to hear your feedback.

There are many online retailers who sell this product. Pick one that has a good return policy.

Oh well.  No pain, no gain.  I opened up my wallet (credit card, of course!) and ordered one from TECHeGO.  Several days went by and I had not received the item.  I contacted them and the order must have gotten lost in their system.  I received it Overnight FedEx!  Now, that is service!

OK, enough of the boring intro stuff.  Does it work?  You have to read on to find out!

I removed the Silex box from the shipping package, opened it up and removed the contents.  As can be seen below, the physical device is quite small which would make it easy to hide, if so desired.  Basically, it has the appearance of a small wireless modem/router.

 

Getting from the first set of pictures to the last set of pictures is not as easy as it might seem by looking at them.  There is quite a bit of work one needs to do to get from Point A to Point B.  This is not a plug-n-play device.  There is software to install, and device configurations to be made.  And I will repeat, this is not not a plug-n-play device.  I am like most American males.  Read the directions only as a last resort.  I guarantee you, you will need to read and follow the directions.  I did have problems getting the device configured, but these problems were mostly not a result of the Silex instructions.  They were mostly a result of my sometimes near stupidity in putting the correct information in the appropriate places.  Regardless, you do need to know your way around your computer’s networking and firewall options.  And what firewall you use.

So, let’s get the Silex device ready for use.  You may have noticed that the back of the device has an Ethernet port.  If so desired, you *can* use this as a wired server, but why would you?  After all, it is a wireless device.  Well, as with most wireless modem/routers, you do need to configure the device.  And it almost always requires a wired connection to do this.

The first thing you need to do is connect it to your network and power up the device.  After that, insert the CD into you CD/DVD drive and let it autorun.  From here, you will need to run the server setup and install the associated software.  Here is the setup/install, screen by screen.

Silex tells you in their Setup Guide to disable your firewall (temporarily) prior to the installation.  I did in some cases, not in others.  It depends somewhat on what firewall you are using.  Just do it and re-enable it once you have successfully completed the install.

From the opening screen, click on Device Server Setup.  Then, click on Wired.

 

Click on Next.  Click on Yes.

 

Highlight the Silex SX-2000WG model and click on Next.  Click on “Get an IP Address Automatically” and click on Next.

“Confirm” your Configuration Parameters and click on Execute.

 

 

Make sure the Yes radio button is highlighted and click on Finish.

 

Here is where you install the software that will interface the Silex device to your computer.  Click on Next.  Click on Yes.

 

 

Choose the default location (or change it if so desired) and click on Next.  Click on Next.

 

 

 

Click on Restart.  Make sure you have any other work saved!

That is it!  For the most part.  Part of my stupidity came into play here.  I originally used the Network Key for my old modem/router.  I could see the device wired, but not wireless.  It actually took me a few retries before that *dim* light bulb came on and I finally figured out my mistake.  Garbage in, garbage out…

In some cases you’re done, and up and running.  It all depends on what firewall you are using.  For me, I had no problems when the OS was using its built-in firewall.  Some of the computers in my home network use Microsoft’s OneCare.  This is free to me, as my ISP just so happens to be Microsoft.

So, if you happen to use OneCare, here is what you need to verify and/or do.  Open up OneCare from the Taskbar.  Click on Change Settings.

Click on Advanced Settings.  Scroll through the list and make sure that SX Virtual Link is in the Allow list.  If not, add it.

 

 

In my situation, I had 4 CF displays to hook up the SX-2000WG.  I dug out one my USB hubs and plugged the CF units into the hub.  Make sure it is a powered hub!  The Silex device does not provide power to a USB device.  At that point locate and execute the Silex SX Virtual Link Program from the Start menu.

It will locate itself in the Taskbar.  I do not remember now if the program window comes up the first time or not.  If not, click on the software icon in the Taskbar.  You will see a window similar to what you see below.

If all went well, you will see the Silex device, with its little “wireless” icon.  If you do not, go all the back to beginning and start over.  Based on the number of screens and a restart, do you really want to do that?  Do it right the first time!  If you have problems, use the Help menu in this program.  I found a lot of useful information there to help me through my mistakes.

Assuming all went well, I would go right to Options and make sure it is setup to Add to Start Menu, and Start Minimized.

Back into the main screen, and again assuming everything went smoothly, click on the + button next to the device icon.  You will a list something like what you see below.

I say somewhat in that I have previously configured my devices.  At the time I took this screenshot, I had 3 displays added to Favorites on this computer and 1 on my WHS computer.  When you right click on each item, you are given the option to add it to Favorites, which is what you should do.  That is what the little purple star tells you beside each device.

Click on the Favorites tab.  Right click on a device and select Properties.  Click on the Optional settings tab.  Make sure that the SX Virtual Link mode at startup is set to Initiate auto connection.  Click on the OK.

 

Back in the main screen, highlight your device and click on the connect button.  Do this for however many devices you may have.  If all went well, you now have the equivalent of having your CF displays (or other devices) hooked up directly to a USB port on your computer. Ya-hoo!

At this point, minimize the Link software.  Clicking on the X will close the program and you will lose your links.

Go to your Crystalfontz CrystalControl2 software, configure your module and add any screens you wish.  Whether in the same room or clear across the house!  The CFA-633 integral SCAB, which I use to control and monitor devices in my “water box”, also works to perfection.

The following picture shows the CF displays that are in my water box and connected to the Silex converter.  Please note that I took this picture in a dimly lit room, so that the displays can actually be seen in the pictures.

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First of all make sure you have all of the parts. I thought I had everything together, but as it was all going in I realised I had forgotten to order the ram! Luckily I had the 512mb left over from my MediaSmart upgrade, but don’t ever run Vista with just 512mb as it will run like a total dog. Obviously the first thing to go in was the motherboard. I chose the Asus P5GC-VM. I’ve always been a fan of Asus boards as they have always been very reliable. This was the only Micro ATX board I could find that had 3 PCI slots (for the 3 PCI tuner cards). The only downside is that the board doesn’t have any fire wire connectors, so the fire wire port on the front of the Antec case will not work. It’s a good idea to get the RAM in first as the PCI/graphics cards sit on top of them. With the Asus board make sure you put the ram in the same colour slots. I didn’t and wondered why it wouldn’t boot up…

The graphics card came with a passive heat sink, but it was too wide to fit in next to the other PCI cards. I had to remove the stock heat sink and replace it with a Zalman VNF100 Fanless VGA Cooler. I had to modify this slightly as the fins on the front heat sink overlapped the audio connector on the graphics card. A quick session with a hacksaw took the offending finds off!

The LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive goes into the bottom slot of the optical drive caddy, and the spare 250gb hard drive I had goes into the hard drive slot nearest the motherboard (for optimum airflow). I’d recommend putting a bit of gaffer tape across the DVD drive light as I found it quite annoying seeing the light flashing away (it’s very bright on the LG drive).

A few case specific points if you want to go with the Antec Fusion. First I removed one of the side fans and blanked it off as I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible, and second the VFD/IR sensors isn’t wired up properly in the factory. There is a blue & white cabled with Power Switch written on it. This doesn’t go onto the motherboard, but actually goes onto the back of the VFD display. This isn’t mentioned anywhere in the manual, but if you want to turn the PC on with the remote (which you obviously do!) then you need to connect this wire. The red/black cable called Mo-Bo Pwr is what connects to the motherboard power pins.

I had to make some slight tweaks for the audio. The Asus motherboard has 2 pins for the S/PDif audio. This has to be connected to the graphics card so the TV has sound (and also to make it HDCP compatible). I also wanted 5.1 going to my Sony 5.1 amp, but there was no space for the Asus digital coax/optical plate (which wasn’t supplied with the board anyway). What I did was to split the cable between the motherboard and the graphics card, and add a yellow phono connection to the graphics card bracket. The graphics card had a hole designed into the bracket so that you could plug the supplied audio cable from the back of the motherboard S/PDIF out (if your motherboard has one, the Asus didn’t) into the graphics card. I wasn’t sure if splitting the cable would work, but I can confirm that my TV and Sony 5.1 amp are both getting sound.

The Mini Ninja heat sink was a bit of a pain to get in. I’ve not used the new Socket 775 connections before and it took a few attempts to get the clamps to ‘lock’ to the motherboard. I also cut myself quite badly when I put the full sized Ninja into my desktop PC, so be careful with it!

The PCI cads were simple to put in, and don’t have to go in any specific order but I did put the two DVB-S card next to each other. After this it’s a case of tidying all the cables up and securing them out of the way.

I’ve been asked by a few people to provide links to the hardware I’ve used in this build so here is a detailed breakdown of what went into the case:

Case - Antec Fusion 430 Silver - £120 Review

Motherboard – Asus P5GC-VM – £35

Heatsink – Scythe Mini Ninja - £28 Review

Graphics - Zalman VNF100 Fanless VGA Cooler - £20  Review

CPU – Intel 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo - £113