Components needed? (TV over PC question)

[Chris Martin]

I'm moving into an apartment in a few months, and I'm working on an
"entertainment PC".

I'm working on the TV side of the design at the moment, and I've come across
a lot of information, so I was hoping to get a breakdown of the different
hardware / software essentials.

What I want the system to do:

Get TV input from our cable.

Output to a nearby TV.

Record shows, in entirety or in part (such as tivo, so we can pause and
rewind).

Be able to record one channel while watching another.

Broadcast over my network.


Now, I'm going to list those things again, but this time with my hardware /
software interpretation of what I will need to do this. I'd love feedback
on whether this is correct or even close, please.

Get TV input from our cable. - Tuner Card.
Output to a nearby TV. - Video card with TV out.
Record shows, in entirety or in part (such as tivo, so we can pause and
rewind). - Software, should come with Tuner card.
Be able to record one channel while watching another. - Multiple tuner
cards? A specific tuner card?
Broadcast over my network. - Software such as SnapStream
(www.snapstream.com).

Alright, how off am I in my assumptions?

Thanks in advance,
~Chris

 

[Will Dormann]

Get TV input from our cable. - Tuner Card.
Output to a nearby TV. - Video card with TV out.
Record shows, in entirety or in part (such as tivo, so we can pause and
rewind). - Software, should come with Tuner card.
Be able to record one channel while watching another. - Multiple tuner
cards? A specific tuner card?
Broadcast over my network. - Software such as SnapStream
(www.snapstream.com).

Alright, how off am I in my assumptions?

Sounds about right. For watching one channel while recording another,
you'll probably want two tuner cards. Perhaps a two-tuner card, such
as the PVR-500... assuming the software/os supports it.

I don't have any experience with SnapStream, however. MythTV works
quite well for me.

 

[Chris Martin]

Sounds about right. For watching one channel while recording another,
you'll probably want two tuner cards. Perhaps a two-tuner card, such
as the PVR-500... assuming the software/os supports it.

I don't have any experience with SnapStream, however. MythTV works
quite well for me.

I saw something on MythTV, I'll go check that out right now, thanks. Happen
to know pro's and con's of multi-tuner cards versus a card with a single
tuner? The system I'm building is gonne be rather high end, uber-memory,
raid 0, couple gigs of low latency ram.. so I'd hate to have the system
start hiccuping because one tuner can't handle it as well as two can, or two
seperate tuners interfere with each other, etc.

Thanks for the quick response, looking forward to more.
~Chris

 

[JAD]

ATI 'all in wonder' vidcard.. tuner plus video RCA in/out

 

[Chris Martin]

I don't think this would allow for watching and recording at the same time
or broadcasting over a network.

 

[JAD]

broadcasting over network is a software thing ( I believe there is a
Microsoft TV protocol).. all you need to do just about anything, is to
use the cable box or VCR to supply the the second channel. there are
little restrictions that can be annoying but with a little knowledge
and ingenuity its pretty cheap way to go. also remember that audio
though a computer, is controlled by the sound card.

record and watch 'different' channels? right?

 

[Will Dormann]

I saw something on MythTV, I'll go check that out right now, thanks. Happen
to know pro's and con's of multi-tuner cards versus a card with a single
tuner?

Well, the Linux support for the PVR-500 is somewhat questionable at the
moment. I believe they just added preliminary support (whatever that
means) to ivtv for the card this month:

http://www.byopvr.com/displayarticle252.html

A pair of PVR-250 cards, however, might be the better bet as the support
for them is quite stable.

The system I'm building is gonne be rather high end, uber-memory,
raid 0, couple gigs of low latency ram.. so I'd hate to have the system
start hiccuping because one tuner can't handle it as well as two can, or two
seperate tuners interfere with each other, etc.

Would probably be overkill for a dedicated MythTV machine. Since the
PVR-250 does MPEG2 encoding in hardware, the CPU time required for
recording is nearly zero. Just whatever is required to transfer data
across the PCI bus to the hard drive. The only real requirement is a
healthy PCI bus implementation. Some older VIA chipsets lack in this
department, causing system hangs.

Having multiple PVR-250s in a MythTV system is quite common. While I
don't have this myself (yet?), it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm questioning your choice of RAID0, though. A TV stream from my
PVR-250 requires something like 3-5MB/sec (depending on quality
setting). Two simultaneous streams would hardly stress any halfway
modern hard drive. Are you sure you want to risk losing all your data
if a single drive fails? I currently record to a RAID5 NAS unit.

 

[Chris Martin]

Yes, record and broadcast different channels. So in that case I would need
two inputs, correct?

 

[JAD]

the all in wonder has a 'tuner' input and a 'audio/video RCA' input
also. you can switch between these inputs from within the software.
while watching TV you can be recording a different station on the
computer.

 

[Chris Martin]

Well, the Linux support for the PVR-500 is somewhat questionable at the
moment. I believe they just added preliminary support (whatever that
means) to ivtv for the card this month:

http://www.byopvr.com/displayarticle252.html

A pair of PVR-250 cards, however, might be the better bet as the support
for them is quite stable.


Would probably be overkill for a dedicated MythTV machine. Since the
PVR-250 does MPEG2 encoding in hardware, the CPU time required for
recording is nearly zero. Just whatever is required to transfer data
across the PCI bus to the hard drive. The only real requirement is a
healthy PCI bus implementation. Some older VIA chipsets lack in this
department, causing system hangs.

Having multiple PVR-250s in a MythTV system is quite common. While I
don't have this myself (yet?), it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm questioning your choice of RAID0, though. A TV stream from my
PVR-250 requires something like 3-5MB/sec (depending on quality
setting). Two simultaneous streams would hardly stress any halfway
modern hard drive. Are you sure you want to risk losing all your data
if a single drive fails? I currently record to a RAID5 NAS unit.

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about writing to a NAS unit. One of
the reasons I wanted to set this system up was the learning experience it
would give me. I've only used basic networking equipment (low end home
networking stuff, basic linksys routers, some random switches and hubs).
I've never set up or ran a dedicated server or a NAS. Might be something I
should look at.

Here's an odd question, maybe you or someone reading the thread could
answer:

I'm moving into an apartment, which is pre-wired for internet. How would my
home network work across this stuff? If I have a computer in one room, and
a computer in another, and they are both plugged into the wall, what's the
setup like? Are all rooms in an apartment wired together into one loop and
then pulled out at a single point, creating a small subnetwork, or is it
just one big network with no divisions? Is that something that varies from
apartment to apartment? To get my own network, do I need to assign myself a
domain / workgroup so that the people in the next apartment over aren't
going to be browsing my shared folders?

Bit off topic from the OP, so I apologize for this, but it's relevant
because it'll change the way I set up my system.

 

[Chris Martin]

I had read somewhere that the drivers for the ATI-All in Wonders caused
conflicts with a lot of the TV software that is available, and that stand
alone TV tuners would work better because of that. In your experience, this
is not the case?

the all in wonder has a 'tuner' input and a 'audio/video RCA' input
also. you can switch between these inputs from within the software.
while watching TV you can be recording a different station on the
computer.

<SNIP>

 

[JAD]

I haven't had the need to use network broadcast yet. If something
becomes popular enough the drivers will work themselves out. Most
driver hype I find is misinformation, but I will look into that and
see if there are any confirmed drivers problems.

 

[JAD]

there should be a central room where all room cables come together. In
my experience its been a 'phone' line network that apartments offer, I
have seen 'condos'' rigged for LAN.

 

[Will Dormann]

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about writing to a NAS unit.

The main reason I do it that way is because my frontend system is a
small form factor unit (Asus Pundit). There's only room for one hard
drive. For a single stream, the 100Mbit ethernet is fine. If I ever
decided to go for multiple tuners, I'd most likely need to go for
Gigabit ethernet. (or a dedicated MythTV backend server with internal
hard drives)

One of
the reasons I wanted to set this system up was the learning experience it
would give me. I've only used basic networking equipment (low end home
networking stuff, basic linksys routers, some random switches and hubs).
I've never set up or ran a dedicated server or a NAS. Might be something I
should look at.

I have a dedicated NAS made out of an old K6-III box. No monitor, no
keyboard, just the box. The dedicated MythTV unit is the Pundit as I
mentioned before. The nature of the NAS and the MythTV require them to
be on all the time. (if you want it to have full Tivo-like
functionality wrt. scheduling recordings)

My personal computer, however, isn't in the loop anywhere. I can turn
it off whenever I want without missing any recordings or anything like that.

Here's an odd question, maybe you or someone reading the thread could
answer:

I'm moving into an apartment, which is pre-wired for internet. How would my
home network work across this stuff?

Depends on the apartment I guess. From a security perspective, I should
sure hope that they have the apartments isolated from eachother. You'd
probably need to ask. If that's not the case, I wouldn't plug a single
thing in until I got a firewall set up.

 

[sdeyoreo]

I had read somewhere that the drivers for the ATI-All in Wonders caused
conflicts with a lot of the TV software that is available, and that stand
alone TV tuners would work better because of that. In your experience, this
is not the case?

I had All-In-Wonder. If and when the TV drivers screw up, you need to
mess with the video card drivers too. Now i use seperate TV card and
video card, WinTV & ATI Radeon. Ps. WinTV has lotsa third party stuff
written for it.

 

[Chris Martin]

The apartment is definately wired for LAN. I'm right outside of Washington
DC, the "upscale" apartments and all that. Paying an arm and a leg, but
it's a great place.

 

[JAD]

cool...watch for what tom mentioned.....if its a link to all
apartments, and they are supplying the internet, then watch out if
your going to open 'shares' without a FW.

 

[Gary J. Tait]

the all in wonder has a 'tuner' input and a 'audio/video RCA' input
also. you can switch between these inputs from within the software.
while watching TV you can be recording a different station on the
computer.

But both use the same encoder chip, limiting one channel at a time
being input to the computer. A dual tuner PVR card or a single tuner
PVR card with the AIW would fulfill the needs.

 

[David Maynard]

I had read somewhere that the drivers for the ATI-All in Wonders caused
conflicts with a lot of the TV software that is available,

It isn't just the 'drivers', it's the hardware: not a bt8xx chipset.

and that stand
alone TV tuners would work better because of that.

Yes. Not only for the drivers but to separate the tuner from the display
card. You can't stream to and from the same slot, aka the display card, so
the way you get to 'see' what's being input with an 'all-in-wonder' is the
card bootstraps the video input straight to the display on the card itself.
That means, however, not ANY judder eliminator, or any filtering software,
can work with it.

You don't want an All-In-Wonder.

 

[David Maynard]

the all in wonder has a 'tuner' input and a 'audio/video RCA' input
also. you can switch between these inputs from within the software.
while watching TV you can be recording a different station on the
computer.

You can switch but both can't operate at the same time and you can't record
from one while watching the other.