Whole house video distribution

[browe]

I would like to build a single video server for my house. I would like each TV to have the capability of pausing the video they are watching as well as deciding what to watch from a central menu. If someone is in the master bedroom, they should be able to navigate to a menu of shows/movies and play it. The same for any other TV in the house. Basically a standard TIVO-like device.

Can this be done with this product? If not, is there another product that will do it?

Thanks,
Brian

[jkoon]

Yes but you will need a PC or some other device (like a Hauppauge MediaMVP for example) on each tv

[geoffstewart]

I have a question.. do you need to be able to have each TV watching/pausing different content at the same time?

If no, then you could redistribute the video out of a single PC through the coax in your house on a particular channel and use IR repeaters/RF remote to allow any TV to control it. In this case you need BTV, a RF modulator and some remote control gadgetry.

It's more likely that you want each TV to be watching something different at the same time. In that case, you need BTV running and network connectivity to each TV. At each TV you need a rendering device. That device could be PC running BTV Link, a MediaMVP, a UPnP player, etc. Depending on what type of features you want, you would select an appropriate rendering device. For example, BTV Link has the full functionality that BTV has (setup recordings, delete recordings, see all shows, etc.) BTV Link runs on PC so you have the cost of that plus a BTV Link license. MediaMVP is a little less functional in that you can do crude recording setup, but not with the same control as BTV Link. There is a BTV custom interface for MediaMVP that works well for me. MediaMVP has only a wired version but wireless bridges can work. MediaMVP is around $130 CDN. I've never played with UPnP players but BTV can share the recordings on the network with these devices. There would be no control of recordings and the interface won't resemble BTV's but it may do what you need. Not sure how much these cost.

Hope that helps.

Geoff

[browe]

Originally Posted by jkoon

Yes but you will need a PC or some other device (like a Hauppauge MediaMVP for example) on each tv

jkoon...assuming I don't want to spend the money on a PC at every TV, besides the MediaMVP, what are my options from other manufacturers?

Also, how do you tie "saved" shows in with this device so you can play them?

[browe]

Originally Posted by geoffstewart

I have a question.. do you need to be able to have each TV watching/pausing different content at the same time?

It's more likely that you want each TV to be watching something different at the same time. In that case, you need BTV running and network connectivity to each TV. At each TV you need a rendering device. That device could be PC running BTV Link, a MediaMVP, a UPnP player, etc. Depending on what type of features you want, you would select an appropriate rendering device. For example, BTV Link has the full functionality that BTV has (setup recordings, delete recordings, see all shows, etc.) BTV Link runs on PC so you have the cost of that plus a BTV Link license. MediaMVP is a little less functional in that you can do crude recording setup, but not with the same control as BTV Link. There is a BTV custom interface for MediaMVP that works well for me. MediaMVP has only a wired version but wireless bridges can work. MediaMVP is around $130 CDN. I've never played with UPnP players but BTV can share the recordings on the network with these devices. There would be no control of recordings and the interface won't resemble BTV's but it may do what you need. Not sure how much these cost.

Hope that helps.

Geoff

Geoff...thanks for the response. Each TV should act independently of each other so I would want to pause/watch content on each one. We have a large family and that means more people coming over either with other children or other adults.

From what I can tell from the BTV Link page, the video is displayed via the video card in the PC. Is this correct? Basically I want independent streams coming from the video server to a specific TV. But I want that TV to be able to save recorded shows to a shared central server. This will be a new construction so all TV's will have network connections if necessary.

Also, I do not want someone in the living room to be able to change the channel of what the person in the master bedroom is watching.

Thanks!

[jkoon]

Originally Posted by browe

jkoon...assuming I don't want to spend the money on a PC at every TV, besides the MediaMVP, what are my options from other manufacturers?

Also, how do you tie "saved" shows in with this device so you can play them?

BTV creates mpeg-2 files (.mpg) of the recorded shows. So in theory any device that will let you play back mpeg 2 recordings over the network ‘should’ work. The only issue would be making sure the device could handle the high res/bitrate recordings (I used to have a program for my Playstation2 that would play media back but it couldn’t keep up with the high bitrate recordings of my pvr-250).

Also it should be noted that this method does not let you timeshift live tv, you can only play back recordings that have completed.

[jkoon]

Originally Posted by browe

From what I can tell from the BTV Link page, the video is displayed via the video card in the PC. Is this correct? Basically I want independent streams coming from the video server to a specific TV. But I want that TV to be able to save recorded shows to a shared central server. This will be a new construction so all TV's will have network connections if necessary.

If you were to setup a large BTV & Link network the designed layout would be to have a BTV (server) machine which took care of all of your recording duties. Then on all of your tvs you would have a PC running Link and this would be how you would access all of the recordings that the server has created. The link machines will all have access to now only the recordings but to live tv (streamed over the network from the server).

So the server would have the tv tuner(s) and a large hard drive, were the link pcs really only need to be able to play back the video stream.

Hope that helps explain things a lil bit.

[btvfreak]

Each TV should act independently of each other so I would want to pause/watch content on each one. We have a large family and that means more people coming over either with other children or other adults.

BTV Link can do this for you.

From what I can tell from the BTV Link page, the video is displayed via the video card in the PC. Is this correct?

Correct

Basically I want independent streams coming from the video server to a specific TV.

BTV Link can do this as long as your server can handle all those streams.

But I want that TV to be able to save recorded shows to a shared central server. This will be a new construction so all TV's will have network connections if necessary.

You can schedule recordings to record on your server from any BTV Link client machine.

Also, I do not want someone in the living room to be able to change the channel of what the person in the master bedroom is watching.

You can have one LiveTV stream per tuner card. For example, if you have 4 tuners in your BTV server, then you can have 4 active, independent LiveTV streams. See the FAQ for more info about this.

[beerandchips]

Originally Posted by jkoon

If you were to setup a large BTV & Link network the designed layout would be to have a BTV (server) machine which took care of all of your recording duties. Then on all of your tvs you would have a PC running Link and this would be how you would access all of the recordings that the server has created. The link machines will all have access to now only the recordings but to live tv (streamed over the network from the server).

So the server would have the tv tuner(s) and a large hard drive, were the link pcs really only need to be able to play back the video stream.

Hope that helps explain things a lil bit.

This is what I do. Just finished it this past weekend. I love it.

sn

[nanook105]

I can vouch for this working. I have two BTV servers and four BTV Links. One of my BTV servers is pretty much dedicated to recording (four tuners). The other is a backup for recording, and pimary for live TV for the links.

I think that you will find that your viewing patterns will change as you get into these products. I also have BM for three of my TVs, and I would estimate that at least 50% of our viewing is movies using DVD Library. Of the other 50%, at least 90% is used watching recorded shows (nice to skip comericals). The 10% live TV is almost all sports related (I still haven't gotten used to watching a sports event after I already know the outcome).

[btvfreak]

I wish I could setup a wired gigabit ethernet network in my apartment since I could then run a setup like this. Streaming video over my wireless-g network just doesn't cut it. Running cat6 everywhere is not good for the WAF.

If anyone has a wired network setup that does not involved running the wires through walls, but in plain site instead, then please share your experiences and equipment of choice.

[Kilrsat]

Purchase cable that matches your carpet color.

Purchase staple gun and 1/2" staples

Staple cable right along corner of wall/floor (works even better if you have slightly shaggy carpet and can nestle it down in there. This works well because with most (probably all, but I just want to be safe) carpet installs place a thin piece of wood right along the walls that the carpet actually gets stapled into. This wood should be easy enough to staple into around the network cable and you don't risk damaging your actual flooring.

I've done something similar to this, only using cheap hammer in cable clips, for both my speaker wiring and network cabling. These stand out a little more than staples (especially since mine are white plastic) but if you could match the clips to your carpet color this would work too. I'll try and get a few pictures tonight so you can see what it looks like.

[btvfreak]

Thanks Kilrsat! What networking equipment do you use or would recommend? I was thinking about getting a D-Link gigabit switch.

[HomeyFour]

Originally Posted by btvfreak

I wish I could setup a wired gigabit ethernet network in my apartment since I could then run a setup like this. Streaming video over my wireless-g network just doesn't cut it. Running cat6 everywhere is not good for the WAF.

If anyone has a wired network setup that does not involved running the wires through walls, but in plain site instead, then please share your experiences and equipment of choice.

I have a .g wireless lan setup, and I've been able to stream multiple BTV Link machines without hitch, recoding at the "Best" capability.. hmm. I also live in an apartment - I've strung a fair amount of Cat5 underneath our carpeting, actually.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by btvfreak

Thanks Kilrsat! What networking equipment do you use or would recommend? I was thinking about getting a D-Link gigabit switch.

When I migrated to a GB network, I replaced all of my cards and switches with TRENDnet. Been very happy.