Today was a good day
 

Today I finally finished the last piece of my "media center" home. I bought a ATi TV Wonder CableCARD capable TV tuner a few weeks ago and the cable company finally delivered my free CableCARD this morning. Now I can watch and record premium HD content with Windows Media Center without having to pay the cable company monthly for one of those ugly cable boxes. Not only that, but I can now stream TV throughout my whole house to my two Xbox 360's and watch/record live TV without having to pay the cable company $50 a month for the privilege. Now I only have one device sitting under my TV's: The Xbox. I can watch movies, play games, watch/record premium HD TV, stream Netflix video on demand and listen to Last.fm radio. I am loving this new age of technology and integration.

http://www.phphq.net/junk/img/mediacenterhome.png

How does that work with the multiple TV's, 1 cable hook up - each tv play the same channel or can they view different channels?


Setup sounds awsome :D


IcI

Haven't tried it on the second TV because I still have to setup media center on the other Xbox. However, the card I have is a M-Type card which can supposedly decode 6 channels at a time according to Wikipedia.

thats awesome. i do enjoy the new technology, just cant afford it lol...college drains my accounts.

are you useing a default media player or can you add further supprot for files or run xbmc or similar?

YAY mythbusters!!!!!!! :D

I'm just using Windows Media Center which plays anything currently on my computer (mpeg, divx, avi, wmv, wma, mp3, mp4, h.264), if that's what your asking. I'm really happy with how Media Center has just worked with everything right out of the box (Xbox streaming, divx etc).

h.264 mkv files?

no support for mkv files but I've never come across one before.

high def. rips, that would be the main reason for me to have the same setup as you. hmm shame :/

All you would need to do is use a reg hack and install a codec pack to have support in Media Center. I've just never downloaded any TV or movies as I can stream it or rent it over my Netflix.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/15979...ia_center.html

you boys got a prettier mouth than a 20 dollar whore...

i hope you have seen blazing saddles.

i think there is more to it Scott, don't think you can add a codec pack to the 360 by the looks of things, i just googled my lazy ass some info and it looks like you have to convert it from mkv to another format, which appears to involve several apps to accomplish :/

Wow, after seeing the AfterDawn tutorial I suppose your right. There are 10 different software packages you may need to play that on the 360. Maybe they will add it to the supported codecs soon if it becomes more popular. They have been pretty good so far at supporting formats... Only problem is that MKV is open source and that may conflict with MS licensing. Oh well.. here in the states downloading a movie is a big no no anyways. After seeing 3 people in my last school get sued and their internet disconnected I decided that downloading that stuff ain't worth it.. I'll stick with my trusty Netflix for movies and TV.

PC pretty much on all the time with this setup?

Yes it would have to be to record and watch tv via the xbox or any other media center extender. My PC is pretty much silent (re:) so I've become used to just leaving it on all the time. My CPU is only 95w (Phenom II 945) and when the new Gigabyte motherboards with USB 3.0 and integrated ATi DX11 chips come out i'll buy one of those and get rid of the graphics card since I never play PC games anymore (AMD Fusion FTW). If the new boards come with Wireless-N built in i'll be in fukin heaven. I'm also looking into a SSD drive for the main OS drive so there are really no moving parts in the system except the three fans (cpu, ps and exhaust).

I want this baby to be the center of everything in my house... I love the ability to control everything from my command center :p

Looks sweet, I'm happy with my setup thought so I won't upgrade (just don't have the money:() in a long time, a PS3 would be nice though :)