ZapWizard's Media PC -Project on hold

That is one of the ideas I am thinking of.

I may just make the case large enough to hide a satilite box underneath the bottom, both making it functional and hidden.

 

not to be a kill joy...but really whats the point of having the TV tuner in there??

I assume you plan on hooking this thing to a receiver / TV

If so the pic quality of the PC Tv tuner is gonna be ALOT lower then if you just left it out of the loop

Like everyone else i know of with em, my HTPC simply acts like a bitchen DVD player, I have it hooked to my receiver as the DVD player(which it is) as well as my cable box and vcr are hooked in there to

I guess it just seems a bit ilogical to me

 

I have found the quality of TV on ATI All-In-Wonder, and ATI TV-Wonder cards to be great, compared to the other sub-$40 TV cards I have used in other systems.
(Some with the same chipset as ATI still don't look the same)

The problem is that most people simply don't know how to connect it properly.
They use Coax CH3, instead of Composite or S-Video.
Or they use $5 cables, or the same cables that came with their system.

This PC is being made to be connected to a projector or HDTV monitor (42" or larger).
Also the Computer is becoming the recorder or TIVO, I am not just using it to watch TV.
I can do that already from my main PC, I want total all-in-one box function.

 

Hauppage WinTV Pro, best TV tuner I've owned and I currently have three ATI all in wonder pros going, the Hauppage comes with a remote controll that works very well, the card itself is great, it even tunes in FM stations for radio it doesn't have TV OUT on it, as far as I know, but I use the TV out on my 9800 pro anyway.

 

ok I see what you mean

but im not sure how your going to get it to tune the digital cable/satilite(sp?) signal....im sure you know its very different then regular cable

also what format do you plan to record in? because mpeg2 is REALLY big, and the only other thing with decent quality is divx but that takes a friggin long time to encode....

 

I will have to route the s-video signal from the cable box or satilite receiver into the Media PC.
(The media PC will then be able to control the satilite box via a IR link)

All the on-the-fly recording will be done in ATI VCR type format.
It is a great format, very fast, small size, and high quality (You can't tell between Live and recorded just like a normal TIVO)

ATI's software then supports re-encoding, where it can then export the video to what ever format you want.
So I will use some macro software to enable a batch type conversion from ATI VCR to DIVX.
At least for TV Shows.
For movies I will probably just leave it in ATI VCR and burn it to CD.

 

Bad pirate, no recording the spice channel, and burning it to cd for later.














(Get a 120+ GB hdd, and put it on the network, save it there, you wont have to change the CD's )

 

ahh I see......said the blind man as he pee'd into the wind, its all coming back to me now



Have you though about getting a learning remote and hacking it up for those IR functions?, That way you can always encode any new buttons you might need.

 

Please read the project log.
There is a short log linked from the first post of this log if you want.

I already have a modded LCD remote that has the ability to be totaly re-programmed by PC. (And I already have the software, and made a cable for it)

 

I did read it took a LOOONG time too

what i ment was use the tuner software(and a remote for parts) to trigger a IR LED positioned in order to tell the cable box(or whatever) what to do, i guess thats kinda redundant though

 

Ah... there is no need.

All I need is a IR transmitter connected to the serial port.

 

Zap, tad off topic, not end of the day.. does hte 120S Pioneer drive have the same internal electronics specially the microswitches?

I might get a 120S or a 106S...dont really matter.

Thanks, Mike

PS. I used a dead/dying drive to test this out, tray loading too, but forgot the resistor and i believe it screwed some thing up. the drive would eject and stuff but the cd would not spin. Ohh well, I'll just be more carefull next time

Have you looked into rerouting NIC led activity to the front of a PC? shouldn't be too hard...just solder wires to nic and reroute. Current limiting should already be in place, I'm just wondering if it would be safe to just connect my 20mA 2.1V 5mm leds to it, go in parallel with the current onboard leds?

 

Have you looked into rerouting NIC led activity to the front of a PC? shouldn't be too hard...just solder wires to nic and reroute. Current limiting should already be in place, I'm just wondering if it would be safe to just connect my 20mA 2.1V 5mm leds to it, go in parallel with the current onboard leds? [/B][/QUOTE]

I have modified both a 120S and 106S
The mods for the 120S are here:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?postid=350640#post350640
(From the quick thread)

If you are not using Red, then don't worry too much about even using the microswitches.
But I will soon be doing this again for my wife's shuttle, but using white. Which of course has red in it, so I will be using the microswitches.

As far as relocateing the NIC, if the LED is the same color you can do it in parallel. (Or just by luck in parallel the LED works)
I did this for my LAN PC here:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?postid=350640#post350640

 

Look at the wire at the bottom left. Where is that going????

My guess is that is trayout and you use that as ground and grab 5v from else where eh?

Cool, now I know how to handle either 120S or 106S!!

I can not find the bit about the NIC yet, I'll check the log in detail after I finish my movie.

Thanks, Zap awesome as always.

BTW I'm using 10000mcd toshibas, hope to fit in 2 !!

Mike

 

It is the Tray-out wire.
it runs to one side of the LEDs.
Then I got +5volts from the molex connector on the other edge of the PCB

 

Just as I thought, was about to post about it, but the forums were down last night. Say if I used my leds, fv of 2.1v each, 20mA, in series that would make 5-4.8 = 0.8V/20mA = 40ohm resistor right? I guess your leds got a fv of 2.5V ??

Thanks, Mike

 

I'm a tad confused here. I've relabelled this and tell me if I'm right or wrong. Your wiring indicates I'm wrong or your labeled wrong or something like that LOL.



What are the other 4 -5 points?

I'm sure it would be easier if I actually HAD the drive here!

Thanks,

Mike

 

Amazing project.
Another 1337 custom case builder.

I feel like sh*t in here

Seeing this awsome work makes me feel a noob again

 

bsodmike please post further questions on the DVD backlight in the Guide Thread linked above, thanks.

For the resistor use the LED calculator here:
http://www.bit-tech.net/article/68/

As far as the labeling of the points.. I think you got them right.

 

No prob, thanks Zap. I'm sure my calc of 40ohm is correct, I've double checked this. simply put, if I labelled the solder points correctly then this image is incorrect (as far as my eyes tell me...) in terms of labelling - the whole thing should be swapped round. (switch-grnd-5v-led)



No matter, I'll work it out when I have the real drive!

Thanks a lot bud. Right now I'm drooling over G-Nome....HAH