I know, I know, you’re all anti-microsoft this and blah blah don’t use their products use linux etc but you have to admit the media center stuff is really cool. Seriously who else gives you the ability to have a FREE TIVO on your computer and the ability to burn your favorite series off to DVD? Heck, forget about buying a season of your favorite series on DVD for $50. You can just record it all and cut it to DVD.

For my quick project, I choose my old server which is an AMD athlon 1.4ghz with 512 megs of ram. I had an NVIDIA Geforce 3 in it which has an S-Video out. I then ran up to Best Buy and using my $25 gift card and an additional $50 I picked up an ATI PCI Wonder Pro tuner Card.

After downloading media Center from MSDN’s website - you’ll have to have a membership - if not just go buy it… or you know.. find someone whose your buddy to hook you up. Wait.. no.. I didn’t say that. THey are watching us…

Anyway, my problem was also two-fold because my server had a power supply issue, it would just shut off randomly. Upon inspecting I determined that the connection from the power supply to the motherboard was discolored which clued me in. A quick trip to Evil Daves to borrow another 400watt power supply (one which was originally mine in a past life anyway) and the problem was resolved. (Thank you Evil Dave).

How to make this thing work
1. Make sure you have a large hard drive. 100gigs free is a start.
2. Make sure you have cable tv or antenna or certain satalites (update: dish network works)
3. Make sure you have a soundcard (SBLIVE 5.1 prefered)
4. Make sure you have a TV tuner card and a video card that has an SVIDEO or Composite OUT (ATI all-in Wonder works too)
5. Make sure you have your Media Center CDs.
6. Backup everythign you have on your PC if you need to.

First you’ll need to install windows, you’ll want to avoid trying to install over your current operating system. Boot to the Media Center CD/DVD and choose to install. Next choose to install to your current partitian - this is if you have had something already running. XP Home, 2000, etc. I suggest doing a quick format over your drive and choosing NTFS file format.

Once installed you’ll have the options to finish your driver update, then install your Windows Media Center Drivers for your TV tuner card. Otherwise media center will not see the card and you can’t output to your TV. This was my first snag. It turns out that ATI does not make drivers for their Wonder PCI Tuner card for Media Center, it does work - and you can use the ATI software, but lets face it, the whole reason for this project is not to use theirs but microsofts.

So a quick trip to return the card and find another one that will work, thank you ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 (2006 edition). Contrary to popular belief - a single card will work just fine at watching TV and recording your shows. A lot of sites out there go by the thought that you will need multiple cards to do this, not true. 1 Card. Save your money. Install your card in the AGP slot, and connect the cable connection to the card. Plug the Audio cable from your ATI card into your LINE IN of you soundblaster. This part is important otherwise you’ll have a picture and no sound. Plug in your S-VIDEO connection to your TV. Turn your TV on and selected video 1 or Svideo or whatever input level your TV uses. Lastly connect your regular monitor up to one of the analog connections on your card. The ATI card comes with a video cable dongle that has 2 analog, 1 svideo and a couple composite outs. Lastly plug in your soundcard line out or phono-out to your speakers or your AMP or whatever audio connection you have.

Next power on the system and go out to ATI’s website and download the Windows Media Center drivers for the card. This is important because the CD drivers that come with the card, Media Center will not recognize. Once installed you’ll need to reboot and then you should be able to go to the display properties and “power on” the TV so to speak. If you don’t see an image on your TV, check your svideo or composite video and make sure that your TV is set to the right input or channel. Once you’ve got your TV working as your main display, disconnect that old analog monitor and launch the Media Center icon. This can be done from the start menu or from your Media Center remote (which is 50% off if you get the ATI 9600 All-In-Wonder card). Media Center will want to configure your TV settings, adjust brightness, test your DVD player you have in your computer (if you have one) and then you’ll want to go to settings and go to TV to put in your Zip code, and then choose your cable company. This will allow you to automatically download the TV guide to your computer right then. The Media Center TV guide is the most powerful feature. You may want to reboot after adjusting all of your settings, FNLIII and I found out that when making setting changes and then trying to watch TV the video and audio were not in sync.

After rebooting re-launch Media Center and then go to TV - Live. This should bring you to a show or to the guide. But I find the coolest part is that you can go to TV - Movies and it will automatically search out all of the movies that are playing on every single channel and display the picture of the movie (dvd box graphic) and have a complete synopsis of it. You can then set to record it right there or just choose to watch it.

Setting the recorder up to record your favorite shows is just as easy. What I did is went to the guide and choose to search. I then searched by Comedy series, Action Series, and Drama Series. When I found something I wanted like ‘House,’ the medical drama, I chose to record series. I then went and choose other series that I wanted to see but always missed because I was at school. The interesting thing is that if there is a conflic with times, it will tell you and then give you the conflic and allow you to either a) search for alternate show times or b) choose which one you’d rather record.

The search feature is pretty cool, it allows you to search your weeks worth of TV for movies, shows etc, or you can search keywords like “Christmas” if you’re looking for specific Christmas shows.

So thats Media Center in a nutshell, I’ll be back later with some better screen shots on some more specifics.

Tags: ATI, How_to, Media_Center, Tivo
Posted in Uncategorized |

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