| Author |
Message |
wkearney99
Guest
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 Posted:
Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:34 pm Post subject:
Re: Any Comercially Available PVR's ? |
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| Quote: | I meant under. But if it serves *all* locations in the house, a larger
budget is easily justified.
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$1k is possible but going cheap at the start presents some hassles as you
upgrade. If you get a silent PC you often don't have enough expansion
capability. Usually in the form of not enough PCI slots. And even with
enough slots, picking the wrong motherboard presents IRQ sharing challenges.
Using external USB or firewire drives can mitigate some of the expansion
woes but usually at greater costs (monetary, space and power-consumption).
Then there's also the hassle of video card expansion. Like wanting better
video out features and not having a slot for it. Or wanting more outputs.
| Quote: | Ah, you're talking the sort of extender that's a 'set top box', not just
an
extension of the remote signals.
Yeah, that would be best for multiple clients I think.
|
Tough call. The extenders will add cost. One in each room is usualy a lot
more expensive than using a set of shared sources. Likewise, centrally
shared sources and outputs are generally easier to control. Remote boxes
don't usually lend themselves to centralized control. As in, not being able
to turn them all on/off for party mode or syncronized playback.
Tangentally, who makes devices that'd allow distribution of HD signals over
in-house RF coax? As in and HD RF modulator?
-Bill Kearney
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wkearney99
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:40 pm Post subject:
Re: Any Comercially Available PVR's ? |
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| Quote: | In that case, you can't have two dual tuner boxes since TiVo doesn't make
a dual tuner box for cable. You can have two single tuner boxes or even
four single tuner boxes if your goal was to be able to record four things
at once.
|
Regular standalone Tivos can use ethernet to watch programs recorded on
other devices. Unfortunately DirecTV units do not have this ability.
And neither of DirecTivo or SA units have any sort of shared recording
logic. As in, conflicts and juggling of recordings won't be shared across
multiple devices. Although that's not really all that much of a 'drawback'
for how most normal people would use it. But for the recoding fanatics I'm
sure they'd love the idea. If they're that gung-ho they're already using
multiple VCRs so using multiple Tivos won't be all that much of a switch.
-Bill Kearney |
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Randy S.
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:49 pm Post subject:
Re: Any Comercially Available PVR's ? |
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wkearney99 wrote:
| Quote: | I meant under. But if it serves *all* locations in the house, a larger
budget is easily justified.
$1k is possible but going cheap at the start presents some hassles as you
upgrade. If you get a silent PC you often don't have enough expansion
capability. Usually in the form of not enough PCI slots. And even with
enough slots, picking the wrong motherboard presents IRQ sharing challenges.
Using external USB or firewire drives can mitigate some of the expansion
woes but usually at greater costs (monetary, space and power-consumption).
Then there's also the hassle of video card expansion. Like wanting better
video out features and not having a slot for it. Or wanting more outputs.
|
One plus of the central distribution design is that you don't have to
worry about noise too much. Much easier and cheaper to put a bit of
money into sound insulating the closet. Just make sure it's ventilated.
But I would think in a centralized design, most of your communication
will be over network (fast or gig ethernet most likely for the best
bandwidth) if you're using extenders.
| Quote: | Ah, you're talking the sort of extender that's a 'set top box', not just
an
extension of the remote signals.
Yeah, that would be best for multiple clients I think.
Tough call. The extenders will add cost. One in each room is usualy a lot
more expensive than using a set of shared sources.
|
Possibly, but you don't have to worry about signal loss (since
everything is digitally networked), and the units themselves don't
necessarily have to be too expensive, I would expect them to be in the
$100-$200 range once they're more mature. Right now they're way too
bleeding edge.
| Quote: | Likewise, centrally
shared sources and outputs are generally easier to control. Remote boxes
don't usually lend themselves to centralized control. As in, not being able
to turn them all on/off for party mode or syncronized playback.
|
I would think extenders could easily build in functions for features
like these. If those become popular features I'm sure you'll see them
available widely. The biggest problem is that other than MCE's extender
definition there are no standards for these devices. MCE is definitely
ahead of the curve here.
| Quote: | Tangentally, who makes devices that'd allow distribution of HD signals over
in-house RF coax? As in and HD RF modulator?
|
Yep, that is tricky. I believe that HD over Coax *is* a defined
standard but isn't widely used.
RandY s. |
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Mike Hunt
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 08, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject:
Re: Any Comercially Available PVR's ? |
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On 2005-11-08, wkearney99 <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
In that case, you can't have two dual tuner boxes since TiVo doesn't make
a dual tuner box for cable. You can have two single tuner boxes or even
four single tuner boxes if your goal was to be able to record four things
at once.
Regular standalone Tivos can use ethernet to watch programs recorded on
other devices. Unfortunately DirecTV units do not have this ability.
|
If you hack it, they can.
| Quote: | And neither of DirecTivo or SA units have any sort of shared recording
logic. As in, conflicts and juggling of recordings won't be shared across
multiple devices. Although that's not really all that much of a 'drawback'
for how most normal people would use it. But for the recoding fanatics I'm
sure they'd love the idea. If they're that gung-ho they're already using
multiple VCRs so using multiple Tivos won't be all that much of a switch.
|
If you hack it, there is code out there to help with this.
--
This is my .sig |
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