Many of you have obviously built your own media centers.. just wanted to know - how long did it take to finish?  When I say finish, I don't mean just physically assembling it, but also spent the time to install it into your home setup, troubleshoot/debug everything, and get it to the point where all you need to use to control it is the remote and your wife and/or children don't keep hounding you about how to use it. :-)

Even if it's not 100% perfectly finished, how long did it take to get you to the point that you're at, and what kind of problems are you having?

Looking forward to hearing all of you :-)

It really shouldn't take that long to set up.  Where people usually run into problems is when they try to install all kinds of unneeded stuff on top of MCE, causes compatibility and stability issues.  If you stick with the base install, make sure you have all the needed drivers, and then install an mpeg2 decoder, that is all you need.  Keep it clean and lite and you should be good.

so.. how long did it take you to set up then?   40?  60?  100?  This should include the time to research the build, physically building it, connecting/installing it, and then troubleshooting it to the point where it's working trouble & bug-free.   It obviously shouldn't involve the amount of time that you had to wait for the parts to come into via the mail.

I'd like see some actual, quantifiable numbers, because I've seen alot of people on these forums post ingexactly what you just posted above.   I mean, sure - they get the system *working* - but never to a point that it's 100% trouble-free, and they've always had to troubleshoot it every few days because some bug came up; the shows stop recording, DVDs stop playing, video quality goes haywire, audio is out...

...in the end, an angry wife comes out with a frying pan/knife/spatula seeking revenge because she missed her fav show for that day. :-D

Although I agree with the answers above, I think there's an element of "it depends" here. I'm an obsessive MCE teaker, always trying out new things or trying to resolve the few remaining issues, much to the annoyance of the wife who, like yours, simply wants to watch her shows.

Base build took me 3 hours. One month on and I'm still tweaking.

mmnmaniac:

...in the end, an angry wife comes out with a frying pan/knife/spatula seeking revenge because she missed her fav show for that day. :-D

Heh, that's why I built mine while the wife was away on business.  :)  Anyhow, I'll try to answer your questions, but bear in mind I'm guessing a bit.

I probably spent two months reading hardware reviews and selecting the exact components that I wanted.  I'm a hardware junkie, which is part of why I took so long.  Once I chose my case, things progressed rather quickly.  I built the system in late June.

I spent one day putting the hardware together, and one day installing MCE and getting the basic setup working.  This was on a weekend, so essentially, it was a weekend project.  At this point, the system was "fully functional" in that it could record tv, play dvd's, etc.  However, it had a few small bugs, and I wanted to add a little bit of functionality.  I spent about two weeks tweaking and installing some extra software packages, like mceWeather, Volume Tracker, and atomic Clock Sync.  All told, I probably spent 20 hours bulding and 20 hours tweaking over those 2 weeks, so 40 hours to get it mostly there.  It was now the second week in July and there were still 3 bugs, described below.

I encountered a frustrating DVD audio bug that I have spent an unknown number of hours troubleshooting over the last couple of months.  Most of this troubleshooting was just pouring over forums and trying one little fix every 5 days or so.  The audio bug required the user to set the sound to s/pdif every time a new DVD was inserted.  It turns out this was user error, I didn't run the Speaker Setup Wizard after hooking up my receiver and installing the PureVideo codec, so MCE thought I had a two speaker system and kept resetting the DVD output to that.  Proabably another 40 to 60 hours, mostly research, and a lot of kicking myself last week when I fixed it.  It's September now, 3 months from when I first built it.

So, just 2 more bugs.  I haven't done much research because I can live with them, and I haven't fixed them yet.  First, I get a short stutter in playback whenever a recording starts.  I'd like to fix it, but it barely bothers me so I'm not willing to screw around with too many hardware settings.  Second, a couple channels are choppy regardless of whether I watch live or record them.  I beleive this is a problem with the strength of my cable signal, and haven't bothered to fix it yet.  When I get around to it, you can probably chalk up another 20+ hours to fix these problems.

Finally, remeber that most of the people on these forums are enthusiasts.  We tinker and tweak until things are absolutely perfect.  We'll spend days trying things that others won't spend more than an hour on.  So, the amount of time spent by people here is not necessarily an acurate reflection of how long it will take you to build a system.  All things considered, I had a fully functional system after the first weekend, but I'll probably be tinkering, tweaking, and swapping hardware for the next 5 years.

Short Answer: 20 to 40 hours.

- the Hun

going on 2 years and still working on it.  its never done.  your just happy until the next new thing comes out then your off and breaking it again.  Just when you think you have it.  something dies or you kill it overheating it.  then you get that fixed but the drivers didn't clear so now something else broke.  then you get it all ready and poof, rollup released..  then the patch to the rollup.  then you think you have it and damn need batteries for the remote.  then you dance around a jig and viola, vista comes out.   then you start over and upgrade some parts.   oh wait thats cool, I can control my lights.  time to rewuire the house..   00o0o pretty webcam, I can see the door without getting up.  off to set that up.   wait, is that an oven with a mce interface?  I gotta have that.  who doesn't want the timer to go off and you just click "warm" on teh screen and go get it later..

If you want a lot more specifics.  I have a really long thread on the current mce setup I run, I don't even know how old this thing is anymore.  http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/99458.aspx

If you want set and forget, theres many mce only oems that make very reliable systems that work right out of the box.  they cost more though.  but at some point your going to change it.

 

These are some really great responses guys.. I'm just wondering why more people haven't replied back yet.  Anyways, I just wanted to see if my suspicions were right.  Most people I know usually build their machines physically in a short time, but then 90% of the work remaining is to get it to what I called "condition 1" where everything is ready to use, no bugs.  Seems like getting it to just *work* is the easy part, but making it work flawlessly is extremely difficult.

Thoughts? 

I guess the reason for the limited number of replies is that no one really ever finishes them!

my 1st proper, working machine was a long and drawn out process. It's my gaming rig, I bought the OS, some tuners, extra hard discs...being a student that took a bit of time. I can honestly say the first time I installed the OS and went about setting things up it was all very wrong, there's a certain amount of figuring out install orders, what bits of software the machine does and doesnt like...but I got the bug.

my dedicated mce machine, in contrast, flew together in a few days, again getting the hardware was the most drawn out part but that gave me time to plan. The first machine taught me a lot about installing stuff, which codecs to use and more importantly not use, how to get DTS working, how to get standby working. I run a pretty lean build, just the required codecs, antivirus, antimalware, mce weather & rss readers. Most of the content is streamed for a server so its got a pretty small laptop drive in it.

Oh I thought the temps were high so one satureday I added a blowhole, that added an hour or 2. Now it faithfully sits under my tv, just waiting for a hidef tv or a projector!

I started building my first MCE machine last night, so I will tell you when I am done. I have built go knows how many pcs, which have ranged from 2 hours from scratch to OMG not that damn machine again.

I guess the one thing I have learned in my many years of building is not to skimp on hardware. Buying kit with names like MrPC, PCFast etc, with boxes that look like they were printed on an ancient inkjet is a gauranteed recipe for disaster. As is buying from Computer Markets, too many times in my younger days have I bought from some dodgy market trader who assured me that he'd be here next week if my £20 ASIS or ABUT motherboard didnt work, only never to see him for dust.

Hardware does go wrong and you really need a decent supplier who will RMA it if it does fail.

BTW I dont count PC Worl* as a decent supplier. I was horrified that their staff are expected to take manuals / handbooks home to try to learn about their products, they have no training at all. And being asked to leave our local store by security when I told one of the sales people that they were talking absolute b$lloc*s when a guy asked for a cross-over cable (to play games with his brother on his pc) and the assistant said that there was no such thing and he needed to buy a 50quid networking kit to do that.

If somebody is seling me technical hardware, I at least expect them to know what they are talking about, not just jabber on inanely.

/rant off

Also keep in mind that school for many didn't start too long ago.  busniess people are about to enter 4th quarter.  The new tv shows have started..

Its an forum about tv, things like new series will cause a reduction in posts.

Also, not everyone builds their MCE from scratch. I bought a Gateway 840GM (MCE pc), and an ATI x800XL. Other than updating the ATI drivers, it all worked out of the box. I did waste a couple of hours trying to get ATI's media center working, before trying MCE which worked.

TheReaper:

Also, not everyone builds their MCE from scratch. I bought a Gateway 840GM (MCE pc), and an ATI x800XL. Other than updating the ATI drivers, it all worked out of the box. I did waste a couple of hours trying to get ATI's media center working, before trying MCE which worked.

Hey Reaper,

What did you connect your media center to?  TV/Monitor?  What connection was used? (VGA/DVI/component?)  Did you also hook it up to a receiver?  If so, does it have SPDIF digital-outs?  Does the DTS/Dolby Digital passthrough work?

Just wanted more details on what the setup was. .it's pretty easy to just connect a screen via VGA without much tweaking.. just stereo output is pretty easy also..

Thanks!

Vengence_Irl:

I guess the reason for the limited number of replies is that no one really ever finishes them!

my 1st proper, working machine was a long and drawn out process. It's my gaming rig, I bought the OS, some tuners, extra hard discs...being a student that took a bit of time. I can honestly say the first time I installed the OS and went about setting things up it was all very wrong, there's a certain amount of figuring out install orders, what bits of software the machine does and doesnt like...but I got the bug.

hey vengence,

so, all-in-all, say if you had to build the dedicated mce machine first.  how much time do you figure you'd have to spend on it?

The great experience you got from building the first 2 machines obviously carried over & greatly helped in building your dedicated mce machine, so I just wanted to get a rough estimate on how much time a "green rookie" would have to spend if s/he were to build one from scratch. (i.e. add the time spent learning how to build the first two machines minus the two physical build times, and then plus the total time spent building the MCE machine)  How much was it total?

Thanks! :-)

Thats tough to gauge, I'd say if your fairly confident with windows, do your hardware research and read up on the install guides, minus the hardware build times, you could have mce up and running properly in a total of 6 to 8 hours, after 2 or 3 builds you'd get it down to 4. Being generous I figure 2h or 3h for the OS + windows updates, another 1hr for hardware drivers & reboots, another 1/2hr for optional software, copying over media depends on the size of your collections, then setting up mce and tweaking shoulnt take very long. Then troubleshoting; this is also very very variable, S3 and S4 problems, DTS and 5.1. My hardare is usually very well behaved and most of that works straight off or with minor regtweaks.
Accident (&I) would recommend that for a new build you install everything gradually over the course of a few days and see what breaks it and what doesnt. it makes troubleshooting particular issues simpler in the long run.

Its all about prep work though. Getting the right drivers for all hardware, decoder, & optional software all on a disc before you go partitioning and installing windows saves a lot of time

I basically don't spend much time at all building and/or finishing a machine.  After nearly four years of building Media Center PC's I don't spend much time at all fooling with mine.  I know what hardware works for what I need to do, and if I don't ten minutes of research here clears it up.