Building My Own Extender - Tell me about your system...

[SDeGonge]

I'm planning on building my own extender from scratch and would like to know if anyone has already done this. Also looking for specs (no point in re-inventing the wheel if someone has already done it). I also know that the HD200 is an excellent piece of hardware but I want something that can handle some non-sage functions also (Internet Browser, Mail, perhaps some games).

Here's what I'm looking for in hardware...
- Bundled motherboards that have video, sound, IR, and Ethernet on-board.
- Small, quiet power supply
- Quiet hard drive
- Minimal number of fans
- Remote
- As small a package as I can get

Here's what software I plan in installing...
- Sage Client or Placeshifter...haven't decided yet, may depend on the hardware and what processor I want to load down.
- Linux or XP...haven't decided yet
- MS Outlook
- Firefox
- iTunes
- other

Of course the hardware costs need to be kept low. No point in building a $500 box when I could just buy the $200 HD200.

Looking for your suggestion - Thanks

[gplasky]

Honestly? You're not going to be able to build an extender for $200 that would also have the capability of running MS Outlook, or iTunes. You would be building a PC and spending much more. One of the high points of the HD Extender is that all the video decoding is done in hardware and done well. Better than most PC video cards. The only thing I can think of that comes close is the popcorn hour baseline B-110 motherboard. B-110

That motherboard is $199 and very similar to the SageTV HD Theater hardware. Now I'm not sure exactly how you would get it to work with SageTV....or the programs you want to run either.

Gerry

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by SDeGonge

I'm planning on building my own extender from scratch and would like to know if anyone has already done this. Also looking for specs (no point in re-inventing the wheel if someone has already done it). I also know that the HD200 is an excellent piece of hardware but I want something that can handle some non-sage functions also (Internet Browser, Mail, perhaps some games).

Here's what I'm looking for in hardware...
- Bundled motherboards that have video, sound, IR, and Ethernet on-board.
- Small, quiet power supply
- Quiet hard drive
- Minimal number of fans
- Remote
- As small a package as I can get

Here's what software I plan in installing...
- Sage Client or Placeshifter...haven't decided yet, may depend on the hardware and what processor I want to load down.
- Linux or XP...haven't decided yet
- MS Outlook
- Firefox
- iTunes
- other

Of course the hardware costs need to be kept low. No point in building a $500 box when I could just buy the $200 HD200.

Looking for your suggestion - Thanks

Yeah, it's called a computer

[SDeGonge]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Yeah, it's called a computer

lol - I guess if you ask a stupid question a stupid person will get an answer

[SDeGonge]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Honestly? You're not going to be able to build an extender for $200 that would also have the capability of running MS Outlook, or iTunes. You would be building a PC and spending much more. One of the high points of the HD Extender is that all the video decoding is done in hardware and done well. Better than most PC video cards. The only thing I can think of that comes close is the popcorn hour baseline B-110 motherboard. B-110

That motherboard is $199 and very similar to the SageTV HD Theater hardware. Now I'm not sure exactly how you would get it to work with SageTV....or the programs you want to run either.

Gerry

Yea - I was hoping that there was some way to do it on the cheap but I guess not. The B-110 is interesting but for $199 what's the point. Looks like I'll be getting the HD200 for the bedroom.

[paulbeers]

You could probably get near the $200, using low end AMD parts (anything Intel would most likely take you over) and using something like the 780G boards, but it is going to make a lot of noise (especially for a bedroom) and use a lot of energy (as compared to an HD200). You would be better off just picking up an HD200 and then using a Netbook or something for surfing the internet.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

You could probably get near the $200, using low end AMD parts (anything Intel would most likely take you over) and using something like the 780G boards, but it is going to make a lot of noise (especially for a bedroom) and use a lot of energy (as compared to an HD200).

A PC doesn't have to be noisy or expensive. I have a DG45ID based system w/ an E5200, it's silent and didn't break the bank.

Not as efficient as a HD200, but it will do multi-channel FLAC->PCM over HDMI w/o stuttering

[blammo585]

I, too, would go with a PC over the HD200. For $200 that'd buy some decent computer stuff. I just like the flexibility of a PC. An HD200 is nice, but all it's going to do is play video. I've been buying a lot of used stuff lately from people on [H]ard Forum. I've fixed up my son's and my dad's PCs doing that.

[lfilomeno]

I tried to build one using PC104 specs (Portwell silent. low power consumption mobo, sagetv client). Even though it worked o.k., I went and purchased an HD200. with the HD200 you do not need to fuzz around with drivers, codecs, etc.. It just works right out of the box. Hope this helps.

[SDeGonge]

Originally Posted by lfilomeno

I tried to build one using PC104 specs (Portwell silent. low power consumption mobo, sagetv client). Even though it worked o.k., I went and purchased an HD200. with the HD200 you do not need to fuzz around with drivers, codecs, etc.. It just works right out of the box. Hope this helps.

You have a point there. I think for the bedroom I'll go with the HD200. For the other room I'm going to try to build one. Thanks all for your suggestions.

[SDeGonge]

Originally Posted by babgvant

A PC doesn't have to be noisy or expensive. I have a DG45ID based system w/ an E5200, it's silent and didn't break the bank.

Thanks for the link - great information!

BTW - I'm a long time MCE 2005 user and have used your software, which is excellent! I didn't expect to see you over here on the "dark side"? Will you be developing tools for Sage?

[reggie14]

There's really no right or wrong answer on whether to go with a PC-based client or an extender. The extender is almost always the cheaper route, and in general I think it's pretty tough to match it on video playback quality. Even besides some relatively minor stuttering, I always had problems with video quality on my TV from my computer. No matter how much tweaking I did, things never looked as good as just using an extender.

But, PC based clients can do things extenders can't. For instance, they can access online video sites like Netflix and Hulu without doing weird hacks or resorting to PlayOn (which, doesn't work terribly well on HD200s anyway). Others might want to be able to surf the net a little bit on their TV, or run certain applications. You simply can't do that on the extenders, so if that's important to you, then I think you go with a PC client. It's certainly more work to get a PC-based client running properly, but I think there are many people out there using PC-based clients happily.

[Fuzzy]

If you have a lot of spare parts laying around (most of us do, after all), you can look at getting a mini-itx atom based board.. The Intel D945GLCF2 is a VERY good board, sold in large numbers, and has a great performance/size/cost ratio. It is has integrated graphics, (GMA-950, but usually good enough for basic extender capabilities). I've got his board in my truck right now, and it has been rock solid, even in the unforgiving car environment.

Oh yeah, and at about 6" square, it'll fit in just about any little box you feel like building for the thing. Add a small SSD or CF, or boot from a thumbdrive. Uses a single stick of ram, so money is saved there as well.

EDIT: did some pricing, and at newegg.com, you can get this board, with 2gb ram, sleek looking black case w/power supply, and an 80gb hard drive for $214... This is a complete pc, that is actually quite capable. The case looks pretty nice as well.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If you have a lot of spare parts laying around (most of us do, after all), you can look at getting a mini-itx atom based board.. The Intel D945GLCF2 is a VERY good board, sold in large numbers, and has a great performance/size/cost ratio. It is has integrated graphics, (GMA-950, but usually good enough for basic extender capabilities). I've got his board in my truck right now, and it has been rock solid, even in the unforgiving car environment.

it can't do HD

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

it can't do HD

Besides that, no Atom-based board (not even the dual-core Ion boards) can handle full-screen flash or silverlight video, which, in my opinion, takes away the major advantage of PC based clients over the extender.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by SDeGonge

Thanks for the link - great information!

BTW - I'm a long time MCE 2005 user and have used your software, which is excellent! I didn't expect to see you over here on the "dark side"? Will you be developing tools for Sage?

DTB works with Sage, there's a migration tool that makes it easy to import dvr-ms into the sage library, and a bunch of other things. The most useful is probably SageTVLauncher, does green button launching for Sage.

Right now I'm working on a DirectShow filter to push SRT subs embedded in MKV into Sage.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Right now I'm working on a DirectShow filter to push SRT subs embedded in MKV into Sage.

How is it going to be different from using Haali and VSFilter?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

How is it going to be different from using Haali and VSFilter?

HWA will work

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by babgvant

HWA will work

I personally don't have any problems with Haali+VSFilter. The only things I had to do were to set always_use_dshow_player to true and set Haali to autoload VSFilter. Of course, this also has the side effect of only being able to control subtitles with the VSFilter system tray icon.

This isn't a huge concern for me since SageTV's built-in subtitle system only works with always_use_dshow_player set to false and I can't get proper colorspace conversion unless it is set to true. Of course, I also don't use my SageTV Client as a primary source of viewing. I maintain it so I don't lose touch with how the client should be configured as a workable solution for if I ever decide to change its role.

Edit: Sorry if it sounds like I'm trying to downplay your new work. That's not my intention. Just trying to get a feel for why and explain my solution.

[babgvant]

I think it depends on what you're watching and what your system has in it.

DVD rips are OK w/o HWA, but h.264 BR rips don't fare so well on my E5200

Jeff has been really cool about providing the necessary information to make it work seemlessly with Sage, so in addtion to HWA the standard methods for controlling display should also work.