Noob help - Foxtel Digital, FTA & HTPC parts

[Midnight Man]

Hi all, thanks to anyone that can help me out a bit here.

Been doing some reading through these forums, and I read that using MCE 2005 doesn't work with a mix of analogue & digital capture cards. And then got confused with a whole lot more reading

Here is where I am right now:

I have a non HD compatible LCD rear projection TV (so HD's off the roadmap for me, but SD is OK). I have a Philips DVD recorder (no hard disk) that's going belly up, and I have Foxtel Digital delivered via satellite (so, no FTA on it).

At the moment, when something comes on that I want to record, I record using the Philips unit to a DVD+RW disc, then go back, insert chapter markers around the advertisement breaks, and delete those chapters. I then image the DVD+RW on my PC using Nero and burn off to a DVD+R disc. All works well - except that the Philips unit has seen a little too much action over the last year and a half, and isn't behaving itself properly at all times.

Which bought up the question at home - do we replace the DVD recorder with (essentially) something that's (a) locked in to what you get in the box and (b) non user serviceable - or do we bite the bullet, and build an HTPC where (a) config changes involve component level hardware or software changes, meaning its upgradeable and expandable and (b) it contains user serviceable parts if, for example, the DVD plyer in it goes south it costs $90 to fix instead of near $1000.

The decision was made to go HTPC for all the obvious reasons.

Thanks to this forum, I am glad to have read before buying parts, as I realise now that what I thought I was going to do isn't going to work.

So... I'm in a quandry and hopefully someone can advise me!

As you can see from above, our FTA source is via antenna (it's in an apartment building, some ghosting but I can live with it, but would prefer to hook up some form of SD reception instead). Our Foxtel comes via satellite.

I would like to build an HTPC that can record both FTA and Foxtel. I would like to find the simplest (flashy doesn't matter to me) way to take what I record, and burn it - with menu system - to DVD, so that I can play this DVD in other standalone players etc.

I have a narrow choice of cases I've zeroed in on (Silverstonetek, or one of a couple from PC Case Gear).

Mainboard will be Gigabyte GA-K8NF-939, with a 3200+ Venice CPU. 1Gb memory, and SATA 200Gb hard disk (or more if recommended). Video card I was thinking fanless Gigabyte 6600. All that stuff is relatively simple as I'm familiar enough with that sort of kit.

Now the dilemma, am I right in saying MCE 2005 won't play with 1 x Digital and 1 x Analogue together?

How do I go about getting my 2 signals (FTA & Foxtel) into my HTPC in the best way possible?

Should I abandon the idea of using MCE 2005, and is there some alternative?

This is my sticking point, and I don't know enough to confidently make decisions. So, to aid in things (now that you know what I have existing), maybe I shall list some things I'd like to achieve by the HTPC:

(1) Record Foxtel while watching FTA or vice versa. Optionally, record both.
(2) Happy to use Foxtel remote to switch channels, rarely want to tape anything whilst away, so program guides and programed recording can be rudimentary, but more functionality & capability welcomed!
(3) Timeshift of Foxtel & FTA would be appreciated, insofar as being able to start watching something that's been recording for a while.
(4) Simple way to edit recorded material to eliminate ads, if then required to convert to a DVD, build a DVD menu & burn a disc. NOTE: The editing and burning and conversion function can easily be split off to another PC if required (in fact, it would be an advantage!), as long as required "source" file (recorded by HTPC) can be transferred across a network (don't care about file size, Gigabit network can be built to support this).

I think that about covers it - and thanks to everyone for putting up with this long winded first post, and for any and all help given!

Cheers!

EDIT: I should clarify - my Foxtel Digital service is part of what is known as a MDU setup (apartments), and therefore I get NO FTA channels via this system, not even 9, 2, or SBS. So I must use FTA from antenna

[merls]

Hey dude. WOW alot of questions in there

I have foxtel satellite too, and no FTA sucks the fat one. Channell 9, 2, SBS are there, otherwise, no dice. I am pretty sure (not 100% though) that you cant have 2 tuners to do foxtel and FTA in the same MCE box.

As far as rec to DVD etc, Im a noob there too. Only got foxtel yesterday, so im hooking it to MCE tonight. It will go into my noob MCE guide that I am writing.

Happy to share my exp with you when I have had them. Perhaps some of the other guys can enlighten you a bit more.


merls

[nGage]

After much reading (mostly in this forum), my understanding is that the issue lies in how the EPG works. Essentially there is no way in the EPG to indicate that a particular program comes from a particular card. So no mixing of FTA and Cable (or Satellite) because it wont know which card to use for what recording. Quite a bummer really. Like most, I'd like the MCE to be a one stop shop for the lot!

[impact]

Its more than the EPG... Yes you are right that there is the EPG issue, but it is more about how Microsoft have implemented the drivers as such - making the analogue and digital cards incompatible with each other in the same box.

Not sure why your confused - I thought it had been answered 100 times here - as it is the most often asked question... But no you cannot have digital fta tv (digital dvb-t) card with an analogue card - end of story.

That also means no fm tuners if you want digital fta tv too !!!

So you're correct !

What to do - its your choice... maybe MCE is not for you and you need to look at an alternative (not as friendly or stable), maybe you need to set up 2 boxes and share the recordings... maybe stick with just recording foxtel...

Im afraid its up to you now... we can only help within the paramaters of what Microsoft allows us to - yep it sucks... and one day we all hope it will change - Id love to have a mixture of cards - but I dont like the other alternatives - so in my circumstances - I just have digital tv...

Each to their own.

[Midnight Man]

Thanks guys - I've been madly reading and researching here since posting the above.

I can see now that the only possible solution is to use 2 x Hauppage PVR-150 MCE and feed Foxtel into one and FTA into the other.

The only answer I haven't found/am unsure of on that setup is if I did that, can I record Foxtel & FTA at the same time (and choose which one to watch)?

Sorry to be so full of question, I haven't even *seen* MCE 2005, so I'm dealing with a very "unknown entity" :-)

[TiggerK]

The sad answer is that you can't do that and have it work properly. There's no easy way to explain it, but MCE only allows one channel 'map' and that 'map' can only relate to ALL the tuners. So you choose to record a Foxtel program and a FTA program at the same time, and MCE doesn't know (and can't be told) what tuner records Foxtel and what does FTA. So it's a lottery. If you're lucky it'll work, or then again maybe not. And let's not even mention the issue of configuring two tuners differently.....

I do hear that some users have got a work around by using the RF inputs, so that FTA (Analogue only though) appears normally, and Foxtel appears as just one channel along with the FTA channels. I believe you can set the foxtel box to change channels for you and maybe that might work, but only really of use if you don;'t record Foxtel much.... I'd say it's more trouble than it's worth.

We've got to get Foxtel satellite showing all the FTA channels!!!!! Write them lots of letters......


Cheers
TiggerK

[Midnight Man]

OK - this is getting to be a rather frustrating exercise

What if I did the following:

Put 2 x Fusion (Dvico) HDTV Plus PCI cards in the system (these include an S-Video input): http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/eng/Products/DVBTPlus.aspx

I can then get an SD set top box, plug my FTA antenna in there and pipe it to card #1
Foxtel box has S-Video out, so pipe that to card #2

Then use MCE to switch between these cards and record/watch as appropriate?

I'm *hoping* the story might be different here as I'm now (I think) using digital cards not analogue?

[nGage]

Unfortunatley there are several problems with what you suggest.

Firstly the EPG in MCE cannot "switch" between cards based on program. It has no idea of what channel or program "belongs" to what card.

Secondly, my understanding (mostly acquired here) is that MCE does not support the analog-in on digital cards.

The one thing that I have seen hinted at here is daisy chaining your foxtels RF through the MCE and doing a discovery. I believe this would add 1 extra channel where the foxtel is outputting it's signal on the RF. But to use it this way you would still have to use the foxtel EPG and timers etc combined with the MCE for any programmed recording. Sounds a bit messy to me by comparison to the elegent simplicity of recording based on the MCE EPG. Nevertheless, I plan on trying it out as I see no down side to this approach.

Maybe next set of MCE updates will provide some assistance in this area. I think *** lots *** of people are hoping so.

Good luck.

[impact]

NIce try... and it may work 50% of the time.

The problem is back to the EPG again - you cannot tell MCE which tuner card to use to record, so some of the time it will try to record a foxtel channel on your Digital settop box, and some of the time it will try to record a fta channel on your foxtel box.

It would be hit and miss.

The only sure way to have it work would be to use the FTA channels that are available on your foxtel (and thus miss some channels),
or use two MCE boxes and share the recordings between them or,
Use MCE for foxtel, and use the software that came with the card to do recordings of the FTA stuff (or the other way round). Only define the foxtel stuff in MCE, and only define the one card. This means you will need to schedule it differently, and maintain it through its own interface, but playback of these files could be done through MCE.

[TiggerK]

nGage is right about the RF method, but also right in saying it's very messy and avoids the whole beauty of the MCE EPG.

Impact's final method would definitely be the best way, set up MCE with a single analogue card with the Foxtel satellite, use the EPG and that's all good. For the couple of channels you can't get, use something like the Dvico Fusion HDTV card and use it's software from within Windows (not the MCE program add-on) to record digital FTA stuff and watch it via the My Videos section.

Yes, MCE doesn't recognise the analogue inputs from Digital TV cards. They're useless unfortunately.

Cheers
TiggerK