Media Center questions

[Flat_Steve]

I'll be getting a 38" HD LCD TV soon and I've been thinking about setting up a PC-based media centre to centralise everything. At the moment I'm using different bits of kit to do different things and I'd like everything to be within one box.

I've been reading up on Xp/Vista media center and it seems the TV menus require an internal TV tuner and is presumably for freeview only? As I cannot get freeview at all where I live I'm stuck with Sky as my only source so I've been wondering how that'd interface with a media center. These are the things I'd like the PC to do:

Play DVD's and CD's
Play films, music and pictures from libraries stored on the HDD
Allow incoming and outgoing videocalls via skype or MSN
Display the Sky feed via an S-Video cable from the sky box into the graphics card
Surf the internet via Firefox

...And all without having to deal with the windows interface at all. I know XP/Vista media center can do some of these but I'm unsure about others, especially how it'd deal with the s-video sky feed. I have a copy of WinDVR which already accepts the s-video input and displays it (it's how I play my PS2 on my computer monitor) but I'd like all of this to work together seamlessly without having to manually jump apps in windows, can it be done?

Edited by Flat_Steve on Friday 27th June 17:39

[jimmyjimjim]

I'd actually consider a PS3 and one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTV

It should allow you to do everything except -
Allow incoming and outgoing videocalls via skype or MSN - you'd have to get a PSP as well.
Display the Sky feed via an S-Video cable from the sky box into the graphics card - nope, can't see how.
Surf the internet via Firefox - you'd have to use the browser build into the PS3

Apart from that, seems to have pretty much everything.

[Zod]

You can feed Sky into a media center PC via the video-in port on the graphics card. You just tell it in setup that it's a satellite feed. It also works perfectly with analogue TV.

[Road2Ruin]

you could buy a satelite card for the pc. you would then get all the free to air channels and there are a lot. gave a look at the freesat websit for the ones listed there, but there are many more, some even hd.

peter

[Ian_T]

jimmyjimjim said:

I'd actually consider a PS3 and one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTV

It should allow you to do everything except -
Allow incoming and outgoing videocalls via skype or MSN - you'd have to get a PSP as well.
Display the Sky feed via an S-Video cable from the sky box into the graphics card - nope, can't see how.
Surf the internet via Firefox - you'd have to use the browser build into the PS3

Apart from that, seems to have pretty much everything.

Haha... so, everything APART from over half of his requirements then... Sorry, couldn't resist... :P

Edited by Ian_T on Sunday 29th June 15:52

[Flat_Steve]

Road2Ruin said:

you could buy a satelite card for the pc. you would then get all the free to air channels and there are a lot. gave a look at the freesat websit for the ones listed there, but there are many more, some even hd.

peter

Had a quick look into this and it seems there aren't any cards that'll let you receive paid-for channels from Sky - the sky card is locked to the serial of your sky box. Not really interested in getting French or German stuff really. Good idea though, shame the technology doesn't exist! :-(

Been having a look at sky's version of the iPlayer, called Sky player. Though I think it'd be easier to hack the NATO mainframe than to get this working - it simply won't let my play anything and it's very unclear as to why. And I'm an IT tech!

I'll see if I can get Media Centre to accept the s-video feed, if it can I think I'm in business.

[Road2Ruin]

Flat_Steve said:

Road2Ruin said:

you could buy a satelite card for the pc. you would then get all the free to air channels and there are a lot. gave a look at the freesat websit for the ones listed there, but there are many more, some even hd.

peter

Had a quick look into this and it seems there aren't any cards that'll let you receive paid-for channels from Sky - the sky card is locked to the serial of your sky box. Not really interested in getting French or German stuff really. Good idea though, shame the technology doesn't exist! :-(

Been having a look at sky's version of the iPlayer, called Sky player. Though I think it'd be easier to hack the NATO mainframe than to get this working - it simply won't let my play anything and it's very unclear as to why. And I'm an IT tech!

I'll see if I can get Media Centre to accept the s-video feed, if it can I think I'm in business.

Thats correct. However all the channels I was talking about are in English, even some HD ones. If you really want to keep your sky then you just use the input on the satelite card (usually composite or s video) and record from that. Takes a bit of setting up but then you have all the channels you want sky's chargeable and freesat. As mentioned before some of the freesat ones are even High definition, BBC HD, ITV1 HD (more to follow) something that costs a huge amount with sky.