ADL Mark Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 Just been setting up an HTPC for a bit of fun, saw a couple of threads on here about it a while ago and thought I'd waste some time I've gone with MediaPortal, seems like a really cool program, does what I want and does it with ease.. Loads of functionality that I won't use yet or probably at all but handles my MP3s/Photos with ease of use, really cool looking at them on a 32" LCD too! Having some trouble with videos at the moment though, they're really slow to open and MediaPortal seems to be struggling. Not sure what the cause is though. I'm streaming them from a W2k3 file server over a 100Mb network with little other traffic so wouldn't think that's causing a problem? Otherwise the HTPC is a 2.4Ghz processor with 1Gb RAM and an nVidia Quadro FX 500 128Mb AGP4x graphics card. This should be man enough for the job surely? Just about to try and update the graphics drivers as these threw a wobbly when I was trying to sieve through some small home vids (talking 1-35Mb taken with digital camera) and crashed completely. Other thing is, once I've got a big enough hard drive, I want to rip some of my DVD's on to the HTPC, mostly the series I have on DVD as this will make it easier to watch. What's the best thing I can use to rip these with? And I'm guessing with the DVD quality stuff I probably want a local drive rather than streaming from my server..? Cheers for any pointers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 29, 2008 Share Posted April 29, 2008 If you are playing AVI's part of the initial loading includes a quick run to the end of the file to check various container info, I find as well via the network it can be a little slow initially but usually not a major issue. Check your codec settings, and the settings within Media portal for playback Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADL Mark Posted April 29, 2008 Author Share Posted April 29, 2008 Well I've just tried playing local files and they start up absolutely fine, have tried AVI's up to about 50Mb so far and no problems at all, but over the network it's painful to the point where it often crashes or just stalls for minutes at a time even on 1-2Mb files. Something definitely up with my network, the two machines are only a D-Link switch apart so I'm wondering if the switch is having issues. I might try them both plumbed in to my Netgear Router instead and see if this improves the network speed. Also noticed that straight file copying is stupidly slow too, quicker to dig out the external hard drive, put stuff on that and then copy back on to the other computer. All 100Mb NIC's, 100Mb switch and Cat5e cables, most strange.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 Your network is up the spout sir Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 I have a mediacenter PC running Vista Ultimate. I just use mediacenter on that and everything works great. I'm wireless with a 54mb/s connection and i'm also downloading/uploading constantly without any issues. Only thing i can't stream wirelessly is proper HD, it struggles with MKV files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADL Mark Posted April 30, 2008 Author Share Posted April 30, 2008 I had a feeling my network might be the problem. I might get a new switch, have seen 5-port Netgear's for about £15 which should do the trick. Can't see it being anything else. Both the NIC's are onboard Intel Pro/100 VE jobbies so should be ok.. Scotster, this is wired and supposedly running at 100Mbit/s so a lot faster than a wireless connection and still having trouble with stupidly small files. Normal file transfer I've also found to be rubbish, stalls something terrible so will have to have a look in to it futher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 Dodgy cable perhaps sounds like something is causing a lot of noise on the line. Could even be a dodgy network card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 I have a mediacenter PC running Vista Ultimate. I just use mediacenter on that and everything works great. I'm wireless with a 54mb/s connection and i'm also downloading/uploading constantly without any issues. Only thing i can't stream wirelessly is proper HD, it struggles with MKV files. Just be careful...M$ have a habit of using the copy protection stuff to stop you using LEGITIMATE DVD's etc They are genius's... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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