Brand new, starting from scratch

[Jeep725]

Hello,

I am so excited to be here. For weeks I had been scouring the web trying to find an alternate to Windows Media Center, when I stumbled upon Next PVR through the Hauppauge website. I have spent the past few days wading through the Wiki and the forums to figure out my plan of attack to ditch the dish and go strictly OTA, with a whole-home pvr and media server. (My terminology may not quite be up to par, I am still learning!) Although I fear I am several years behind everyone, as we have to acquire all of our hardware, and have no NMTs or MVPs, of which we will at least need 2. To me, as a noob, this was one of the most important features, to have the ability to have some kind of extender in lieu of a PC. (I am still researching this...as the suggested NMTs listed in the Wiki seem to be discontinued, but I'm sure I am missing something somewhere...)

Anyway, I guess there is not any question here (as of yet) but just a brief introduction and word of thanks for developing this product. I am looking forward to implementing and hope I can help out in this community at some point down the road.

If anyone has and words of wisdom, like "when I was starting out from scratch i wish I would have done __________" Thanks in advance!

Jeep725

[mvallevand]

OTA HD is great and definitely worth pursuing from scratch

- Windows 7 over XP
- get a big drive, transcoding to save space isn't worth the trouble
- although American OTA won't need it, a video card with h/w accelerated h264 is worthwhile.
- for "whole-home" HD you probably won't be satisfied with wifi performance
- figure out what you need for online premium content (Hulu, Netflix, Pandora) which aren't neatly tied int NextPVR.

Martin

[johnsonx42]

Having given up DirecTV some years ago for digital OTA, I know right where you're at.

I agree with Martin's tips 100%. In addition:

- For the extenders, it is true that the only supported reasonably full-function hd-capable non-pc extender is the discontinued PCH A-110 and similar E-Great M34a. These days you can only get them used or refurb. Myself I just run the main TV directly with the NPVR server, and on the second TV we get by with the TV's built-in ATSC tuner and an attached Samsung blu-ray player that has netflix and can play NPVR recording files over the network. Your other choice is a windows PC running NPVR in client mode.

- Hauppauge's tuners still seem to be the best. I went through several K-World devices; one worked pretty well for about a year, though it didn't tune all the channels as well as the HVR-1250, then died. I replaced the K-World with the USB HVR-850, and it tunes all the channels just as well as the 1250. I rarely have tuner problems any more, but on the rare occaision I do, it's always the USB tuner that quits until I reboot (maybe once every few months). If I had it to do over again, I would have purchased the dual-tuner HVR-2250 instead of the single tuner HVR-1250.

- Number of tuners: honestly, I've found two is often not enough. With Cable, Dish, DirecTV, the same episode of a show is shown multiple times per day or week, and even on multiple channels, so you have plenty of chances to watch or record the show; with a 2-tuner DirecTiVo I rarely had any problem recording every show anyone in the family was interested in. But with OTA, you're down to just a few channels, and most episodes are shown just once. Either have a tuner available at the right moment, or miss the show. Under the right conditions, NPVR can record multiple channels with a single tuner, when multiple TV channels are broadcast on the same frequency. In my area I got lucky that Fox owns two TV stations, their main network affiliate that airs the Fox HD feed, and a local station that airs a lot of syndicated shows we like. They broadcast a standard-def feed of Fox as a sub channel of the local station, so I can record both simultaneously on one tuner which happens quite often. Look for opportunities like this.

Welcome to the forums, and enjoy the ride.

[Jeep725]

and on the second TV we get by with the TV's built-in ATSC tuner and an attached Samsung blu-ray player that has netflix and can play NPVR recording files over the network.

This option intrigues me, which would be more affordable I think than having another PC client. But I'm guessing it doesn't have the UI, and the PC has the added benefit of a browser at each TV. decisions, decisions!!

Thanks so much to both of you for the advice.

ETA: Yes it is important to have Netflix available at each TV, possibly Amazon prime as well; one other big hurdle has been where we will get our sports content from. NFL, NCAA football, NHL...we will be looking for something for these as well. To have all these integrated throughout the house, I think we are resigned to the fact that PC clients are the way to go.

[gonzo90017]

The only thing that comes close to what you wan't to achieve is using and Xbox 360. It has access to all the major sports plus ESPN 3 for college football. Netflix and Amazon Prime? The problem is it won't work as a client. I personally use 1 server in the living room and another pc in the bedroom as a client (WMC but moving to NPVR). I use a simple frontend to launch ESPN 3, NBA, NFL, and MLB. Not very 10ft friendly but using scripts and a ZVRemote it's a lot easier.