To begin, apologies if this is in the wrong section or if any of these specific subjects have been covered here; what I am seeking is not specifically if this will work in the technological sense, but more if this planned system will work as best as I have come to understand the individual components involved.
Ever since MCE 2005 came out I have been dreaming of a time when I could design and put together a full fledged home theater solution. As such I have followed the technologies of HDTV, HDMI and YCbCr among others, but have yet to actually work with it.

The following is a flowchart of sorts, that illustrates the mad ramblings of my mind, and I will explain in detail what I hope to achieve from this system.




Essentially I want the HTPC to act as the brain of the overall system. Output from the HD Terminal goes via YCbCr to the HDPVR (Hauppauge) and HDMI to the Receiver to be able to watch Live tv without the feed having to go through the PC. The HTPC will also act as a domain controller and fileserver for the rest of the network. Software on the HTPC will consist of GBPVR for the recording scheduling (via Intranet/Internet), and iTunes to store the digital information in a library.

AppleTV will be employed to grab the iTunes library and display to the HDTV. Reason for this is I prefer the overall interface of AppleTV for its simple and intuitive interface (also because I can control it with my iPod Touch) -- it's not just me that will use this system but my GF as well. As far as displaying HD content through the AppleTV the 720p limitation is fine for now as the TV I have purchased is a Samsung DLP (1280x720 native resolution). By the time I am ready to display true 1080p I'm pretty sure the 1080p broadcast content will be in abundant supply and AppleTV should be up to date. At that time it would also be pretty simple to drop a Blu-Ray player into the system (via the receiver)

The overall goal here is to provide a symbiotic relationship between functionality and ease of use, while remaining in my element (Windows network admin). The whole system will be controlled by 2 remotes, iPod touch for the AppleTV (which also doubles as my music player, so syncing that with the iTunes library will be a snap) and a Harmony remote for the Receiver, TV, HD Terminal -- I probably could control the AppleTV with the Harmony as well, but where is the fun in that ;)

The only issues I am not 100% clear on are as follows:
- Will the HD Terminal successfully split the signal between Analog and Digital output?
- Will I be able to successfully automate HD and Digital TV recording scheduling without the actual software (GBPVR) interfacing with the STB for channel selection? I understand that I would not be able to watch Live TV and record at the same time, but the goal is to have a Library of HD content to watch during conflicts when I am home during a recording.

If anyone has knowledge of GBPVR and can answer point two it would be great, but I get the feeling that this is a primarily MS MCE focused community (TGB), if not no biggie there is a pretty informative community that follows GBPVR.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to any light that can be shed on this topic.




Gabrial

I think W2k3 is overkill for a project like that. XP and SageTV would be simpler. You can get it to look like appletv atleast.

You're right in Server 2003 being over kill, I had it confused in my mind with Windows Home Server which shares its core with Server 2003 SP2. As far as Sage goes, you're right I could go with it and it would suffice, but is a home theater something you really want to make personal compromises on?

I think the whole point behind everyone's home theater (and probably why there are very few alike) is the individual tastes and preferences of the user. Whats the point in building it if you're not going to enjoy it?

I'm just stuck (mostly) on the multiple outs on the STB. I believe the particular STB is the Motorola 6412 non PVR model.

The other issue is probably best posed to the particular GBPVR forums, just thought someone here might have an idea.

Sage is definately not a compromise. It can do everything and way more than most home theater programs. I'm switching soon. It even has a WHS plugin.