Want to turn my W7 desktop into an extender

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How do I go about on doing this?

I have a Windows Media Center HTPC running. What I now want to do is a couple of things.

1. Run my desktop computer as a media extender so I can watch Live TV; IE: Whatever is on the HTPC, I want to be able to stream it to my desktop PC if I wanted.

2. Watch recorded media on my desktop computer.

Desktop computer is running Windows 7 Pro and Windows 7 Home.

Is this possible? If not with Windows Media Center, then I am willing to move; what I would like in an HTPC setup.

  • The ability to play casual games. Think console type games that can easily be played with a controller. I intend to have two 360 controllers connected to the HTPC for gaming purposes.
  • The ability to record a series of shows. I don't want to have to search for my favorite shows each week to record them.
  • The ability to stream media from the HTPC to any PC in my network running Windows 7.
  • The TV Guide. I love the guide feature with Media Center. I'd really like that in whatever software I go with.
 
Well after making this thread, I decided to try something.

I setup a mapped drive on the W7 desktop that maps to the Recording drive/directory on the HTPC.

I then opened WMC on the W7 desktop and pointed the Recorded TV directory to the mapped drive.

So now I can at least watch TV recorded on the HTPC on any W7 PC, I just need to add the mapped drive to the computer.

Still trying to figure out the Live TV part though.
 
Can't make your extender. XBOX 360 is pretty much your only choice right now (unless you want to buy one of the other discontinued products). Closest you can get now that you figured out how to watch your recordings (you will only be able to playback those that arent flagged as copy-restricted) is if you have a networked tuner. I have my main htpc that serves to 4 xboxes around the house and then I set up my main desktop to access one of the available tv tuners. Since I only use it to watch live tv it works well. But sometimes I realize I set something to be recorded on my desktop and unfortunately the xboxes cant access the recording.

Ceton will be releasing an extender by the end of this year.
 
Well im not stuck on WMC. Are their any other options besides WMC? Im willing to go a different route.
 
Depending on your tuner theres methods to share live tv with other computers on the network.

Easiest is the silicondust tv tuners. These are tuners that don't go into an PC connect to your network directly these are great if you want to watch live tv on multiple computers on a network.

Ceton infinitv4 can also do it, but I've never tried it when I had one.

As long as you don't have any copy protected content it can be shared through a normal shared protocol on windows or DLNA.

Copy protected content can only be shared through a media center extender like an xbox 360.

I personally have found this setup better IMO when it comes to sharing content, especially if you have channels that are copy protected. On the extender you can also add/remove recordings if need be.


Another option is MythTV, but you're stuck on WMC if you want to view and record copy protected content.
 
which tuners are you using? If you don't care about cable card I would look into mythtv. Their backend frontend setup is awesome. You can have your main htpc be both a backend and frontend and just build clients to be frontends. You can also use mythtv in conjunction with xbmc if you were using mediabrowser or mymovies in your current setup.
 
It's analog cable, no cable card on the tuner.

I'm not even sure what tuner card it is; I robbed it out of something. I think its an ATi card of some sort.
 
instead of trying to share the tuner, just buy another one for the desktop since you're just doing analog you can get those pretty cheap on ebay. I got two of them for like $45 or $50. I think newegg would new ones under $75.
 
Basically it comes down to money vs time

MythTV - $0 cost (assuming tuner is compatible and you have parts for your second pc) but time needs to be invested to get it working. While a lot of it is setup automatically via the installer there is still a learning curve.

Xbox360 - $125 (I have bought two 4gb slim versions at this price on fs/ft forum) or $199 new (should be about $150 or less during BF). This will allow you to keep your existing setup and will be the least time consuming.
 
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Really don't want to have to splice into my cable line anymore than I have to. The more I split it, the weaker the signal gets. I'm using Cable Internet, granted I have a "Home Run" where the line is split in two ways. One goes directly to the cable modem (where my computer is) and the other goes to another splitter that distributes the lines to the rest of the rooms in the house. I even think one of those lines are split somewhere down the line as well.

For now I will just settle with living with only being able to watch what I've already recorded on my desktops.

Though I will begin trying out new MC software until I find one that does what I want.

I seem to recall using MediaPortal not long ago that did what I want; will have to look into that again.
 
Skillz said:
Really don't want to have to splice into my cable line anymore than I have to. The more I split it, the weaker the signal gets. I'm using Cable Internet, granted I have a "Home Run" where the line is split in two ways. One goes directly to the cable modem (where my computer is) and the other goes to another splitter that distributes the lines to the rest of the rooms in the house. I even think one of those lines are split somewhere down the line as well.

For now I will just settle with living with only being able to watch what I've already recorded on my desktops.

Though I will begin trying out new MC software until I find one that does what I want.

I seem to recall using MediaPortal not long ago that did what I want; will have to look into that again.
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If you are not interested in Live TV, XBMC is probably a good options for you. In fact it is starting to be able to do live TV too but I haven't looked into it in detail and I think still requires some tweaking. Its benefit is that its free and handles all the media types you listed earlier. You can point it to a shared drive and playback.

You can get it for Linux which would not require you to buy an OS. However, I've tried it from windows. I Think it may have to do with MPEG licenses, but from the Windows based XBMC, I can play Media Center's .wtv files off another computer. So you can use a Win7 computer as your Recorder and play video from the XBMC computer. However, this depends on whether your cable company might do something to block this. It seems that where I am at the moment Comcast is relatively forgiving for how they flag recorded video.

You can also get mcebuddy which will take the Media Center .wtv files and automatically have them converted to another format and that way the Linux XBMC will be able to play the files.
 
I have my HTPC setup with 3 tuners in it. I also have a HDHomerun Dual plugged into the network for live tv on my extender machines or if need be recording a 4th or 5th show. I point Media Center to the shared drives on the HTPC & have all content available to my extender machines or any pc in the house for that matter.
 
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