Creating an ON DEMAND SYSTEM - Possible?

JHet

Thoughts on this guys. UPC's on demand is my inspiration here. Can't help thinking its not bad but something much much better could be created.

Like so many on this forum I have the various bits of gear that I would love to consolidate into one centralised system one day. I have a WDTV Live with HD attached, a dreambox dm800se for sat stuff, 100mb BB. Connect the labtop to the TV for players (RTE, TV3 etc) an odd time. A NAS would be cool but never really got round to it! (LAZY!) Have dabled with XMBC in the past but never really got round to building a system to accomodate and integrating everything together.

I'd LOVE to have one consolidated box that could do everything sleeky and seemlessly! I'd LOVE to have an on demand system thats even better than UPC's.

Anybody have thoughts on this or like to share the own efforts, progress, success's, failures?

Thanks

desaparecidos

What do you mean by on demand?

Do you want access to on demand services from this box or do you want the box to somehow record all live TV so you can watch at a later date?

PogMoThoin

I pretty much already have something like this, everything is automated. Check out Sickbeard, Couchpotato, Sabnzbd and XBMC (or whatever player you prefer). Also check my blog on how to get started with Usenet.

I just line stuff up by selecting the shows or movies I want, it finds, downloads, unpacks, renames, deletes extra files and sorts media info, fanart and thumbnails all by itself. There are lots of apps and plugins to make this as simple as a single click on my laptop or Android phone.

XBMC has many plugins and addons, including those for all the players RTE, BBC, Channel 4 and others for Netflix, Vudu etc.

silvine

I've the above set up as well. It takes a bit of work to get it up and running but it's far more versatile than UPC's effort.

degsie

XBMC with PseudoTV add-on let you set up your channels and present an EPG so you can select your own content.

JHet

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I pretty much already have something like this, everything is automated. Check out Sickbeard, Couchpotato, Sabnzbd and XBMC (or whatever player you prefer). Also check my blog on how to get started with Usenet.

I just line stuff up by selecting the shows or movies I want, it finds, downloads, unpacks, renames, deletes extra files and sorts media info, fanart and thumbnails all by itself. There are lots of apps and plugins to make this as simple as a single click on my laptop or Android phone.

XBMC has many plugins and addons, including those for all the players RTE, BBC, Channel 4 and others for Netflix, Vudu etc.

Great post mate, basically exactly the type of information I'm looking for.

Any suggestions for a decent HTPC on the cheap?

Self build or off the self unit I will have a go a either.

Cheers,
Jhet

PogMoThoin

I built this last Christmas: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056472230

You'd just need the case and board and Ram, the board comes with dual core Atom, power supply and onboard Nvidia video. You could install Openelec(XBMC built into a light linux distro) on a USB key instead of a harddrive and boot from that.

frash

JHet wrote: »

Any suggestions for a decent HTPC on the cheap?

Google 'HP Proliant MicroServer HTPC' and you'll find lots of sites about using these as HTPC.
There's rolling cashback over on at the moment too - check the Bargain Alerts thread.

Hellrazer

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I built this last Christmas: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056472230

You'd just need the case and board and Ram, the board comes with dual core Atom, power supply and onboard Nvidia video. You could install Openelec(XBMC built into a light linux distro) on a USB key instead of a harddrive and boot from that.

Sorry for dragging up an old thread but PogmoThoin I have a question for you.

You pointed me towards this thread a while back and Ive a question regarding Openelec.You mention that it will run off a usb stick??

Im trying to keep everything as small as possible so in theory could I leave out a hard drive and use openelec instead??I dont need my media stored on a hard drive.I want to stream from web based services and openelec seems to do this.

PogMoThoin

Yes, you can install Openelec anywhere you like, hard drive, SD card or usb key. To install it to a usb key requires 2 usb keys. First you make a bootable usb key from which you install from and you install as normal to the second usb key which remains in the HTPC.

http://openelec.tv/installation/install-1-windows
http://openelec.tv/installation/install-2

Openelec is just XBMC made bootable, you will have all the XBMC addons available to it. http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=27

Hellrazer

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Yes, you can install Openelec anywhere you like, hard drive, SD card or usb key. To install it to a usb key requires 2 usb keys. First you make a bootable usb key from which you install from and you install as normal to the second usb key which remains in the HTPC.

http://openelec.tv/installation/install-1-windows
http://openelec.tv/installation/install-2

Openelec is just XBMC made bootable, you will have all the XBMC addons available to it. http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=27

Nice one.So openelec will stream from a network??Will it stream from the web??
What about drivers etc for the actual pc itself ie networking,video out etc??
Will openelec play from an external drive connected to the pc??



Ive just gotten hold of the mini pc I started a thread about a while back.
Its an old Iquon in a really small case.Its an Itx board with a p4.1gb ram.Ive deliberatly left out the hard drive and dvd drive to keep it as low powered as possible.

As long as I can play from the network / web and an external drive Ill be happy


/Edit/ One more question--Which versin do I use for the above mentioned pc??

PogMoThoin

Hellrazer wrote: »

As long as I can play from the network / web and an external drive Ill be happy

Yes to all 3. It's XBMC on top of a light linux distro, it should detect all your devices as you install it.


Install XBMC on your pc to try it out, it's the same thing
http://xbmc.org/download/

Johnboy1951

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Yes, you can install Openelec anywhere you like, hard drive, SD card or usb key. To install it to a usb key requires 2 usb keys. First you make a bootable usb key from which you install from and you install as normal to the second usb key which remains in the HTPC.

http://openelec.tv/installation/install-1-windows
http://openelec.tv/installation/install-2

Openelec is just XBMC made bootable, you will have all the XBMC addons available to it. http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=27

Just a little clarification and extra info on the 2 USB key thing.

If you are familiar with bootable USB sticks there is need for only one.

For instance I added Openelec to my bootable USB stick by simple copying two files to the stick and adding a boot option to the boot manager. It is that simple .... if the USB stick is prepared before hand.

So from the one USB stick I can boot a selection of operating systems, one of which is Openelec ....... so I can use the HTPC as a standard PC booting a live Linux distro, with or without persistence.

I have also added Openelec, in the same manner, to my SSD in that box so I don't have to use a USB stick now to boot it.

Note: I do not use Windows so maybe it is easier in my set up than a Windows set up.

Hellrazer

Is it worth putting in even a small drive for the various operating systems???

Im trying to keep power consumption to a minimum hence the decision to leave the drives out.

PogMoThoin

Hellrazer wrote: »

Is it worth putting in even a small drive for the various operating systems???

Im trying to keep power consumption to a minimum hence the decision to leave the drives out.

Not if you're only using it as a media centre. You only need a drive if you need Windows

Johnboy1951

Hellrazer wrote: »

Is it worth putting in even a small drive for the various operating systems???

Im trying to keep power consumption to a minimum hence the decision to leave the drives out.

Only if you have a wish to use an operating system for accessing the internet generally.
They can be on USB stick also .... and run 'live' from there, just as Openelec does.

Personally I don't see the point in having hardware that is very capable of running as a general purpose PC and at the same time not allow it to do so, by not having an operating system other than such as Openelec.

As was mentioned, it might be a better idea to use a light weight Linux distro, and install XBMC on it ..... you then get the benefit of both.

I find the benefit of Openelec 2 is that it has an easy set up for my USB DTT dongle for LiveTV, and I will be adding a Satellite tuner also before Xmas so I will then see if the set up for that is as easy.

I will make my own final decision on whether to use Openelec or not after I have checked it against all the hardware I will be including.

Hellrazer

What size usb drive would be the best for the various add ons etc for Xbmc??

Have a spare 4gb one here thats not in use.

Plan to use a 1gb to do the install onto the 4gb one.

That enough??

Also just discovered that one of my ram sticks is faulty leaving me with only 256mb.Any ideas how much ram openelec uses??

Johnboy1951

Hellrazer wrote: »

What size usb drive would be the best for the various add ons etc for Xbmc??

Have a spare 4gb one here thats not in use.

Plan to use a 1gb to do the install onto the 4gb one.

That enough??

Also just discovered that one of my ram sticks is faulty leaving me with only 256mb.Any ideas how much ram openelec uses??

Openelec itself is light ..... maybe 150MBs or so .... but what might be needed when XBMC is decoding and or displaying video I cannot say ..... never looked.

Maybe PogMoThoin has checked .....