Remote TV viewing

[sbrooks]

What is the generally accepted method for watching BTV from a remote TV.

BTV with (2) WinTV-PVR-500 http://www.hauppage.com/pages/produc...pvr500mce.html in the Server.


Potential Setup #1. BTV Server hardwired via 100MB Ethernet to each TV location (3) in all using the Hauppauge MediaMVP http://www.hauppage.com/pages/produc...pvr500mce.html but I also saw a comment about not being able to play a file over 1GB which rules out DVD's. :-(

Potential Setup #2. BTV Server output to 3 DVD Payers all set to Channel 3. Connect via Coax to each of the 3 TV's and setup remote blasters to control the BTV and DVD players.

Potential Setup #3. (1) BTV Server and (3) BTV-Link's with 3 PC's, one for each TV.

Potential Setup #4. ?

I am looking for a central Server so I can set programs to record and be able to play back from any tv plus do pause / rewind of live TV from any of the 3 TV's in my home.

I see lots of comments but I want the BTV to be remote from all three TV's.

Am I nuts or does the technology this just not exist to this extent yet?


Links to other post will be appreciated.

Thanks for any comments in advance.

[Crooze]

I used an old laptop to run BTV Link and use a single channel cable modulator to distribute the video to the rest of my house. So it's on every TV on channel 125. I had already been using the laptop to control my X10 stuff so with the help of Girder I already had the remote stuff figured out.

[cmcquistion]

I've tried a couple different setups and the power and flexibility of having a true BTV Link machine keeps me coming back to that, over and over.

[CollinR]

Agreed, look into Via Epias and the like. No need for a powerhouse on the client side. This also allows for exploration of other or future products. PC DVD players are dirt cheap and PC LCDs (or better yet CRTs) aren't too bad and way higher quality then their comparable TV couterpart. Having the PC out there also allows for further shared hardware and software not just TV.

[cmcquistion]

EPIA's are certainly appealing, but I've read nothing but bad things about them, in this forum. From what I've read, people have not had good experience with their onboard video and BTV.

If you want a ~slightly~ larger setup (mini-ATX), for just as much money and far more horsepower, the MSI K8NGM2-FID motherboard (onboard Nvidia 6150 graphics), paired with the cheapest Socket 939 CPU you can get will outperform any EPIA system, with BTV. I've built several BTV Link systems on this platform.

[CollinR]

Scratch that just Mini-ITX boards in general. Epias are the cheapest because they have a Via CPU souldered on. They have the capacity just not with a bloated windows install running as well. There have been Intel chipset Mini-ITX mainboards that accept P4/Mobile CPUs. Something more like this
http://www.logicsupply.com/product_i...roducts_id/393

I call basically all softdrinks "coke" too.

[cmcquistion]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Scratch that just Mini-ITX boards in general. Epias are the cheapest because they have a Via CPU souldered on. They have the capacity just not with a bloated windows install running as well. There have been Intel chipset Mini-ITX mainboards that accept P4/Mobile CPUs. Something more like this
http://www.logicsupply.com/product_i...roducts_id/393

I call basically all softdrinks "coke" too.

Those are cool, but you're dealing with crappy Intel integrated graphics. That is going to run into the same problems as the EPIA's; poor performance with BTV.

[CollinR]

Alot of the Epia's specific problems don't come directly from their video hardware. This is why they work fine for many many other video apps outside BTV. Intel integrated graphics and what Via has onboard are both better then whats inside a mediaMVP which appears to work okay. I also suspect they may have been tring to encode video with it as well, an Epia is surely not up to that task while tring to display it realtime. Most of the problem is inside WXP and more in BTV depending on parts of XP. The Motorola DVRs that the cable co pumps out have half the processing power of an Epia but their single purpose firmware makes much more efficent use of it. Another issue I have seen that poses problems is people encoding at 720x480 and displaying it at 1920x1080, thats just silly and it takes power to scale it that far and results in a junky percieved image quality because 60% of what you see was generated while scaling up 200%+. It would be much better IMO if BTV had a PIP function that allowed you to watch multiple things at once on that display. Me personally I only display at ~about~ 640x480 in the top right corner, a multiplexed CCTV feed in the lower right corner @320x240 and usually a web browser taking up the remaining approx 800x766 on the left side. On a 50" plasma @ 1366x768 BTV still gets about the same amount of screen as a 25" 4:3 TV set and the video is as close to 1:1 as I can get it so my picture quality looks excellent and boo koo cool and WAF factor.

If you know someone personally with an Epia I would be happy to try and give them some help, see if we can't trim some fat off the OS and maybe just some helpful pointers in the configuration.

[pwlong]

I'm using ThinkPad laptops as my BTV link boxes (see .sig for details), and believe it or not, they work fine for HD playback. They're also extremely quiet and generally unobtrusive. Of course, the downside to laptops is the relative difficulty (or in some cases, the lack) of upgradeability. I'm using them now because they're available and they work. When I finally get around to upgrading them, I'll be able to build the next-gen Link boxes to spec: PCI-e x16 slot, laptop HDDs, passively cooled video card, HD-DVD drive, whatever.

So count me among the number of folks who prefer the control, customizability, and upgradeability of a dedicated BTV Link PC.

[CollinR]

Here is another possiblity.

http://www.ajump.com/ajump/product.a...2D99%2D6440123

[cmcquistion]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Alot of the Epia's specific problems don't come directly from their video hardware. This is why they work fine for many many other video apps outside BTV. Intel integrated graphics and what Via has onboard are both better then whats inside a mediaMVP which appears to work okay. I also suspect they may have been tring to encode video with it as well, an Epia is surely not up to that task while tring to display it realtime. Most of the problem is inside WXP and more in BTV depending on parts of XP. The Motorola DVRs that the cable co pumps out have half the processing power of an Epia but their single purpose firmware makes much more efficent use of it. Another issue I have seen that poses problems is people encoding at 720x480 and displaying it at 1920x1080, thats just silly and it takes power to scale it that far and results in a junky percieved image quality because 60% of what you see was generated while scaling up 200%+. It would be much better IMO if BTV had a PIP function that allowed you to watch multiple things at once on that display. Me personally I only display at ~about~ 640x480 in the top right corner, a multiplexed CCTV feed in the lower right corner @320x240 and usually a web browser taking up the remaining approx 800x766 on the left side. On a 50" plasma @ 1366x768 BTV still gets about the same amount of screen as a 25" 4:3 TV set and the video is as close to 1:1 as I can get it so my picture quality looks excellent and boo koo cool and WAF factor.

If you know someone personally with an Epia I would be happy to try and give them some help, see if we can't trim some fat off the OS and maybe just some helpful pointers in the configuration.

I understand what you're saying and you're right. The problem isn't necessarily that the EPIA doesn't have enough power, the real problem is BTV's framework not being designed to really utilize the power. MythTV is working fine on EPIA systems, so it can obviously be done, but Snapstream's BTV is really targeted toward traditional accellerated GPU's, like Nvidia and ATI. BTV doesn't work well with VIA, Intel, SIS, or other graphics solutions.