Comment Feed for MCE Home Server Manager Update (EnglishBloke on Channel 10)

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

martinchalifoux — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:25:30 GMT

Hi,

I ma wondering if you have made some progress on the MCE Home Server Manager. We need a good solution for this problem and everything out there simply does not cut it. I were hoping your add-in could bring a better solution to the mixe.

Thanks.

Re: Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

saxnix — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:56:19 GMT

Regarding a DVD changer for use in Vista, check out this app which should be running in the next few weeks. They don't currently have the changer working, but it is in their plan to get it running.

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

saxnix — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:52:04 GMT

Hi Steven,

I have just found out about this app you are creating. Wow! I can't wait for it to be up and running. I am in the category of a little information can be a dangerous thing. I know just enough to get me into trouble - and trying to do the other hacks that are out there to be able to watch my recorded tv on different PC's/extenders/WHS just haven't worked in the long run. So a simple install, automation and the ability to still use comskip will be truly great for a novice like myself.

Keep up the work and keep us posted with how it is going.

Thanks

Greg

It's a gorgeous day and I'm going home... but here's what I've read ;)

system — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:33:58 GMT

Sunshine... 80 degrees... must leave the office.... Here's the reading list... Have a good weekend. ITP

Trackback from Satisfy Me

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

DutchMarc — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:24:50 GMT

Could you plz comment quickly, I am waiting to get a clean answer regarding this issue.

I hear mixed info regarding using "DVRMSToolbox" with Cable-Card/DRM ??

Do you have this working on you're setup? And are you able to play the HD content (without Commercials) on the other MCE's & XBOX 360 ?

(Does this means convert all stripped content to a different format? for playing on XBOX 360 & Other MCE's ?)

I read somewhere that it would only playback on the MCE it has been recorded on ..

Thxs Marc

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:45:51 GMT

#16 | jmenghini | Feb 16th @ 1:01 AM

Hey there, unfortunately, I've yet to find a plugin which allows you to use the DVD changer in Vista MCE with Extenders, however there are extenders available with DVD such as the Linksys DMA2200 and of course any 360. If I come across any add-ons for the DVD changers, i'll be sure to post it here first :)

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:10:04 GMT

#15 | BenLambert | Feb 8th @ 1:48 AM

Hey Ben, I think I actually answered this question already through Ian Dixon on the Media Center Show. However I just saw you posted here too, I'm going to paste my full answer here so others can benefit from it also.

I have it setup on my Media Center machine, I don’t use my WHS domain name at all actually. I do have one but I’ve never used it, I actually have a domain registered with an external DNS provider (noip.com) which has an entry for mce.domain.com and whs.domain.com – The mce.domain.com points at my webguide on the MCE machine which is then configured to show media from the WHS and my local recorded TV on the MCE machine. The whs.domain.com points at my standard WHS UI. If you want to keep using the domain on the WHS like you are, you could consider a few solutions for your scenario..

1. The easiest thing to do is use the ‘prism’ feature in WebGuide on your WHS machine to add your Media Center as a source of media for WebGuide. This will give you access to all of your recorded TV from the MCE machine through the Webguide interface.

2. You could use install Webguide on your MCE machine and run it on its normal ports. You could then enable port forwarding on your router to forward the webguide ports to the MCE machine. Then you could add a link to the front page of your WHS like it does now for Webguide. If you did this the request from clicking that link would cause it to come back into your network looking for server:port and the port forwarding would make it come to your MCE machine. This way your setup would be very like mine above, except you’d be doing it all with one hostname (your original WHS name). One thing I’m thinking with this is you could actually probably leave Webguide installed on your WHS and just setup the port forwarding and webguide on the MCE machine and the link to webguide would just work (as the ports would know to go to your MCE through your router configuration, rather than to your WHS machine. But normal http and https requests for anything but WebGuide would still go to WHS).

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:54:49 GMT

In response to #14 | toasty_one | Feb 7th @ 2:42 AM

My Cablebox setup has changed recently, I now have a dual tuner Dell XPS420 system with Dual ATI Digital Cable Card Tuners (I Recommend these tuners, I've had a good experience so far with them). In addition I keep meaning to put my HDHomeRun back on the network, but as yet I haven't had a second to do it, and as I've been that busy that only my wifes been watching TV, she's had both tuners to herself so it hasn't been a priority :)

In my original Video I had the HDHomeRun setup which gave me Over The Air HD (i.e. network channels). In addition I had dual analog tuners, giving me a total of 4 tuners. I had an interesting setup with a HD cablebox as well, back then I had my remote setup so it would flick the tv input between the Media Center and the cable box so I could switch into and out of HD for premium channels, but that really wasn't a great solution.

Thats why I moved to the cable card system. It works really well and I have no cable boxes at all now. And just have the 2 digital tuners setup. I have everything you would expect on a cable box (aside from video on demand) but its all done inside Media Center. The channel changing is much nicer too as you have no IR Blasters :)

When I setup the HDHomeRun, I will have 4 digital tuners although only 2 will do Premium channels, the other 2 will be limited to over the air HD, however this will be enough as most of our recording conflicts end up being on network channels.

In relation to the DVD and HDDVD setup, your graphics card will only matter in the Media Center PC if you are playing media ON that machine, the extenders do not use the graphics card in the main PC for video processing. This is why I took the lowest graphics card option I could on my last system as it's basically headless. If you want to watch HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or HiDef ON the actual main MCE PC I would recommend getting something higher end.

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

DutchMarc — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:26:01 GMT

Thxs Steve for the info. Very cool setup you got there !! I am thinking about replacing one of my HP z545 media-center PC with the Dell XPS 420 with Dual Cable card support. I hear mixed info regarding using "DVRMSToolbox" with Cable-Card/DRM ??

Do you have this working on you're setup? And are you able to play the HD content (without Commercials) on the other MCE's & XBOX 360 ?

I read somehwere that it would only playback on the MCE it has been recorded on ..

Txhs Again & Keep up the good work and plz plz keep the posts coming

Grtx Dutch Marc

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

jjjj — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:26:22 GMT

Hi Steve, The videos you made are great. Thanks for sharing. Would you share the specs on your 420 and maybe why you went with the options you did. Thanks, Jay

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

jmenghini — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:01:52 GMT

Steve,

Need your help on this, So I have a setup similar to what you have with two OCUR tuners, etc. But this is my dilemma,

I have two VAIO dvd changers and I want to be able to view all my movies all over my home!

Any Advice on how to realistically do it???

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

BenLambert — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:48:34 GMT

Steve,

Do you have WebGuide4 running on your MCE box or your WHS box? After copying recorded TV to your WHS box, does WebGuide serve them up - I know it won't do live TV since there aren't any tuners on the WHS box, but does it serve up recorded TV?

(I just put WebGuide on my WHS box and am playing around with it now...)

btw - great posts, looking forward to more!

thanks

Ben

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

toasty_one — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:42:33 GMT

Hey Steve,

I am in the process of building a media center and really enjoyed your video. It was very informative and gave me about 90% of my answers. I would like to setup multiple HD TVs throughout my house. I got the MC server, eSATA storage, GIG ethernet, 360s, but you never really explained about the whole cable box situation. You showed the HDhomerun but that was only a dual HD tuner. You also said that you would need to add a cable card to get premium HD channels. What cable card should I get to do this?

One other thing, I wanted to rip all my DVDs in my library to the MC server. I also have a growing HDDVD collection that I want to rip as well. If everything is running over gigabit ethernet, do I need a high end graphics card and or video capture card in the MC server?

Thanks,

Steve

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:22:21 GMT

Hey Jason, (2nd Reply)

Answers inline below in bold.

All my recordings are first recorded to the MCE machine, this is when recorded live from the TV. I then have an automatic process which moves them to the WHS box overnight for long term storage. This is completely transparent to the user. They just see the same media all the time with no knowledge that it was moved anywhere.

Secondly in your new video you show the Sony XLB 200 disc fire wire dvd changer, are you some how sharing those dvd's via the MCE box to the extenders?

If I told you the answer to that I'd have to kill you. But seriously Microsoft currently have no plans to support DVD Remoting from changers or otherwise. Matt Goyer responded to this on his blog a little over a year ago and I believe this is still the case now, this is the quote and a link to the original post.

'... two things could happen. We could enable DVD remoting from changers to XBox’s, or we could develop DVD managed copy where you ‘rip’ your DVDs to your hardware and stream them to your XBox. …We haven’t announced plans for either of those scenarios. '

Now anyone with a creative mind maybe able to come up with some homebrew solution to make this work.... I don't know anyone who has publically done this though.

Also I was wondering if you could do a post or just respond to here some of your fav. MCE addons/plugins.

I actually created a thread in the forums, come over and make a post, I'll respond with a few more as people reply!

on.10 Forum Post about Favorite MCE/WHS Addons

thanks,
Josh

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:22:21 GMT

Hey Jason, (2nd Reply)

Answers inline below in bold.

Now anyone with a creative mind maybe able to come up with some homebrew solution to make this work.... I don't know anyone who has publically done this though.

Also I was wondering if you could do a post or just respond to here some of your fav. MCE addons/plugins.

I actually created a thread in the forums, come over and make a post, I'll respond with a few more as people reply!

on.10 Forum Post about Favorite MCE/WHS Addons

thanks,
Josh

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:09:42 GMT

@Andres - Hey Andres, this a direct link to the HDHomeRun I have : http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:09:42 GMT

@Jason (1st reply)

This is the enclosure model number and drives and model number that I purchased.

1 SC-MSATA-PCI 4-Port SATA Controller w/ext4X connector x 2

2 SC-SAT84XB External 8 drive SATA II Enclosure w/4X x 1

3 SAS-7070-1M 1m External SAS 4X to 4X Cable x 2

4 HDI-ST3500630AS Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA-II HD x 8

I got mine from pc-pitstop, you can catch them over at www.pc-pitstop.com

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

umdivx — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:01:17 GMT

woops double post....

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

umdivx — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:00:17 GMT

Steve,
I just had a few questions about your setup. In your first video/Interview you were talking about how you have WHS fully integrated into your media center pc. When you say that are you doing all of your DVR recordings with your MCE box and recording them directly toy our WHS box, or are the recordings first being stored on your HDD in your MCE box?

Secondly in your new video you show the Sony XLB 200 disc fire wire dvd changer, are you some how sharing those dvd's via the MCE box to the extenders?

Also I was wondering if you could do a post or just respond to here some of your fav. MCE addons/plugins.

thanks,
Josh

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

jasonb — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:31:52 GMT

Steve,

I've been searching for an external hard drive enclosure and can't find one that meets my needs. I was wondering what the one you are using is and where you got it from?

Thanks,

Jason

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

aechevarria — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:04:48 GMT

Steve,

Thanks for the reply. I look forward to the update when you finally get the time. I can definitely understand that the time gets away from you especially with a little one at home. Could you also post the brand and model number? I'm trying to find it online for sale but I have not yet.

Thanks,
Andres

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

EnglishBloke — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:14:24 GMT

Hey archevarria,

Yep I fully intend adding it back, I just haven't had a few minutes to do it yet. I will post an update in the next few days and let you guys know how it goes.

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

aechevarria — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:09:17 GMT

Thanks for the update. I really enjoyed both videos. It's nice to actually see it in video form rather than just reading about it.

I do have a question for you since I am considering the same type of setup.

I remember from the first video that you had a box that was an HD Tuner that was just on the network and not actually hooked up directly to the Media Center PC. It was a QAM box so it could pick up the free (local network) HD channels from the cable signal. I didn't see the box as part of your setup anymore. Could you not add it in and give yourself 2 more tuners? Only the Cable Card tuners would give you access to HBO HD, Showtime HD and some of the others but you would have 4 HD tuners available for ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, etc. It would also give you 4 tuners for analog channels. Why is it no longer part of your setup?

Thanks and please keep posting! I look forward to hearing your interview on the Media Center Show.

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

ChrisAllen — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:22:36 GMT

Once again, nice updates to your home network and thanks again for your response in the forums...

Re: MCE Home Server Manager Update

tophfisher — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:44:18 GMT

Steve you are the man!!

I am going through a process of having a house built, and you just have me a GREAT idea with the server cabinet you have there. So excited!