Windows Media Center Show #72 / MCE Setup on YouTube

hes got a lot of storage
 
not bad, sure some ppl on here will have more storage though. Wonder if that guys voice ever has any emoition in it?
 
Seems an odd and expensive way of doing the storage. He's not a very tidy chap when it comes to cables either is he.


Oh what a cynical critic I am. I must get out more.
 
this was funny- he brought 10 nas enclosures - over a grands worth, + about 700 on hard drives- why not buy/build a server with 10 drives in - would of worked out cheaper - and prob use less power

with all his spend he uses 2 old pc cases - madness
 
ADENCOOL said:
this was funny- he brought 10 nas enclosures - over a grands worth, + about 700 on hard drives- why not buy/build a server with 10 drives in - would of worked out cheaper - and prob use less power

with all his spend he uses 2 old pc cases - madness

Perhaps I should justify myself then :)
The disk storage grew gradually, and most of the USB drives were around 80 quid. I bought external 'cos you can switch them off, 5 are backups, only 5 are left powered up. Much safer for your data. The PC cases were purchased AFTER I bought proper media center chasses and found that the noise was terrible. Those Antec cases are special quiet versions because I realised that I could hide the boxes down behind something - its the fan and disk noise that alerts you to having a PC in a quiet room. One of those system you say is in a bedroom, and there you really do need quiet.

Still. I'm grad it stimulated sopme discussion!
Regards,
Brian
 
This is priceless :rotfl:

Nice setup bfrost I'm in the proccess of doing something simular with mass storage.
Do you have the shuttle pc on full time and what os does it use ?
 
haha, hello bfrost, you're not a very tidy chap when it comes to cables are you ;)

Doing the storage that way, are you able to partition across the disks, i.e., combine the storage, or do you have to use each disk separately? It just doesn't seem very economical to keep adding disks in that way, I would have thought after the first couple you'd lookat a different solution.
 
homethx said:
This is priceless :rotfl:

Nice setup bfrost I'm in the proccess of doing something simular with mass storage.
Do you have the shuttle pc on full time and what os does it use ?

Yes, the 'Shuttle' is on full time (its actually a cheap MSI version though). Its noisy and hot but its been running over a year now. Running WinXP pro. Has no keyboard or monitor and get controlled via Remote Desktop.
Bri
 
Slinkoff said:
haha, hello bfrost, you're not a very tidy chap when it comes to cables are you ;)

Doing the storage that way, are you able to partition across the disks, i.e., combine the storage, or do you have to use each disk separately? It just doesn't seem very economical to keep adding disks in that way, I would have thought after the first couple you'd lookat a different solution.

Well, its not as bad as it looks - the router is in a small overhead cupboard so none of those wires are visible. Partitioning the disks IS a problem. I use a storage solution where genres are distributed across the disks - for example one disk has about 50% of my DVD's films, all the Bond movies etc, so at least stuff is reasonably consistent. I'm not worried about that lack of tidyness though becuase improved solutions will come along. Already I have software I've written myself which searches for anything I've got and plays it immediately. Once the stuff is on disk though it is SO easy to move around that you just dont care. Leave it copying overnight and its done. I tried a Maxtor NAS storage device and it was awful. FAT32 only (my disks are all NTFS) and restrictions on file name lengths. Maybe they will get better.
Bri
 
daniel_owen_uk said:
"Full HD" ain't gonna be that great with that 100Mb router.

Not true. I can play two different 1080p HD samples on both Media Centers together. What's not to like?
Bri
 
Lol - I love the way most of the posts here are people slagging off bfrosts setup with childish comments which can only be described as jealousy :)

I for one thing that setup is fantastic, except you talked complete bull saying you don't need a sub :D Get a big SVS, you won't live without it ever again :D

What do you use for recordng live TV?? Do you have Sky HD or anything like that?? I'm thinking about doing a similar setup here after experiences with a special xbox. Would you say having a PC setup for media center in each room is better than having extenders (such as Xbox 360)? I have a laptop in my room along with my home cinema setup and in another room there is a 17" HD LCD tv hooked up to a PC... You know what I think i've just convinced myself to get going with this :D
 
James45 said:
I know of one recent high end setup with 5.5Tb of backed up storage!:eek:


How about this James !

10+TB of storage using a coolermaster stacker 801 case with 4 5into3 cooled hotswap bays with 20!! 500gb drives!! He backs up essential files to a 3+TB system based on a Nortek case media server case. Obviously doesn't mind re-ripping in the event of a HD failure.

INCREDIBLE!!

So my plan is thus.

11 year old Sony 32in WS FX20 CRT in the living room gets replaced by a 42in 720p HD ready Plasma. 5 year old Cheapo Philips 28in WS CRT in the kitchen/diningroom gets replaced by 32in 720p HD ready LCD. AE900 in dedicated Cinema room doesn't get replaced because it is great :D

Xbox 360 connected to PJ that currently spends as much if not more time doing extender duties streaming xvids from main PC in the Living room as playing games gets relegated to purely gaming duties. Why not use 360's as extenders for all the screens?? Well, they are noisey buggers in my experience and most stuff, ie movie rips and xvids must be transcoded afaik and that unfortunately puts all the processing demands on the main MCE machine rather than on the individual 360 CPU's. Stutter city if I am watching 720p in the cinema room while someone is streaming a dvd to the kitchen while someone else wants to watch some anime xvid in the Living room. Yes our house can get that busy audio-visually! :D

Assorted junk in the cupboard under the stairs gets moved and the cupboards new resident will be a 10tb Mass Media storage server linked to above. While I would only be ripping the main title and english 5.1 soundtrack, my 700+ dvds add up to nearly 6TB. While I know it would take a few weeks, I would like nothing better than to have them all backed up to the server along with every DIVX/XVID file I have and playable on any screen in the house at the touch of a button with My movies MCE plug-in.

The 3 final links in the chain would be a Media Centre PC for every screen. Local storage space not being a deciding issue :D

2 x Acer idea 500 MCE Pc's which are getting great reviews, for the 42in Plasma in the Living room and the 32in LCD in the Kitchen/diner.

This little....actually very very big beauty would go in the Cinema room. Its an Origen HTPC case with built in Touch screen. Perfect for saving Projector lamp hours when you just want to play music or setup a recording. We go through a 5000 hour Panny PJ bulb every 15 months. This expensive case would pay for itself over its lifetime.

While the acers in the other rooms are slim, discreet and quiet they are powerful enough to stream and play 720p if required. Hey maybe those laptop core duo's might, just might be able to run some ffdshow sharpening filters alongside their upscaling duties too. The behemoth that is the origen however is big enough to accept the latest greatest conroe core 2 and decent Graphics cards and keep them cool. That will deffo be running all sorts of filters to improve upscaled dvd PQ for the PJ and should be capable of playing any of the latest games at 720p.

I plan to start setting all this up....................
















..............when I win the lottery! :D

Hey we can all dream cant we!! :D

Bfrost, you have the kind of integrated setup that I would aspire to.
If I ever come into a few spare quid or I get an unexpected bonus I'll be onto you for advice mate!
 
that's some crazy storage, I've got 500GB of backed up storage (so 1TB) using 2 NAS drives to supply 2 x MCE machines and a laptop for "mobile" viewing (works great balanced on the toilet while in the bath :) ).

I was considering building something that would give me terrabytes of storage and also ripping all my DVDs but then I changed my perspective and realised that there was really no need to keep everything. I watch something, I delete it and only keep the really good stuff that there is maybe some chance of ever wanting to watch again. I mean, I've seen 24 and the West Wing and all the others, am I really ever going to sit down and watch an entire season again? I doubt it, there'll be a ton of stuff to watch that hasn't even been made yet.

I thought about ripping my 200 DVDs, which would take considerable storage but then I thought about the cost of it all and to be honest, 100MB internet connections won't be too far off and all those DVD rental sites will be offering films to download in the not too distant future, if I can click a button and have the HD version delivered to my PC why would I want to see plain old SD from my library (that took me weeks to rip and lots of money to build). And if I can't do that then I'll just have to go oldskool and get of my arse and stick a disc in!

I thought about it as maybe with having a family it might be good to serve up media on demand to the kids' rooms and all over the house but then I realised I didn't want my family's viewing to be people in different rooms so that changed my mind too.

I guess it's down to personal preference, some people are hoarders/collectors and need/want to store everything on the home network but for me, if I go down that path now, it's going to be a neverending and expensive one for the future.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom