Roll-your-own cable?
drasnor
Starship OperatorHawthorne, CA Icrontian
Ok, I'm not sure which forum this is most appropriate for so here's my best guess. I have an idea I'd like to hear your opinions on:
As someone that doesn't really like what's on TV pretty much of the time, I'm thinking about trying to build my own content system for my home. As it stands, I have a pretty sizable DVD collection including movies and TV shows that spends most of its time doing nothing because it's easier to channel surf than to go figure out exactly what I want to watch and load it.
What I'd like to do:
Be able to watch and time-shift ordinary cable stations.
Have private stations by genre (Sci Fi, Anime, Action Movies, Comedy Movies, etc.) that automatically load and play DVDs out of a jukebox network or recorded files from a hard drive array according to a schedule I specify.
Be able to request previously-recorded files and DVD's to play on demand without getting off the couch.
Be able to queue up a stack of DVD's to play in sequence on demand (useful for watching TV shows spread out across multiple DVDs).
Be able to watch the same or different content in different areas of the house.
I've already identified that DVD jukeboxes will probably be necessary, probably one or two per private channel. A HTPC will probably be necessary to control everything and set up programming schedules. A massive hard drive array will probably be needed for time-shifting all the stuff on cable.
I don't know how I'd actually add channels to the cable signal except that there would have to be some sort of device that generates a signal for the house and a computer that patches the outside cable into slots on the interior line and adds new signals from the HTPC.
Since this is a hypothetical problem, let's not worry about cost of equipment except to note that certain pieces of equipment are expensive.
How would you do it?
-drasnor
As someone that doesn't really like what's on TV pretty much of the time, I'm thinking about trying to build my own content system for my home. As it stands, I have a pretty sizable DVD collection including movies and TV shows that spends most of its time doing nothing because it's easier to channel surf than to go figure out exactly what I want to watch and load it.
What I'd like to do:
Be able to watch and time-shift ordinary cable stations.
Have private stations by genre (Sci Fi, Anime, Action Movies, Comedy Movies, etc.) that automatically load and play DVDs out of a jukebox network or recorded files from a hard drive array according to a schedule I specify.
Be able to request previously-recorded files and DVD's to play on demand without getting off the couch.
Be able to queue up a stack of DVD's to play in sequence on demand (useful for watching TV shows spread out across multiple DVDs).
Be able to watch the same or different content in different areas of the house.
I've already identified that DVD jukeboxes will probably be necessary, probably one or two per private channel. A HTPC will probably be necessary to control everything and set up programming schedules. A massive hard drive array will probably be needed for time-shifting all the stuff on cable.
I don't know how I'd actually add channels to the cable signal except that there would have to be some sort of device that generates a signal for the house and a computer that patches the outside cable into slots on the interior line and adds new signals from the HTPC.
Since this is a hypothetical problem, let's not worry about cost of equipment except to note that certain pieces of equipment are expensive.
How would you do it?
-drasnor
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Comments
-drasnor
Me, I'd wait about 10 years for some enterprising person to invent a stand-alone device that does all that then buy it.
I say 10 years because that's likely how much development time it will take to make something that complex and how long it'll take for the processing to evolve into a small enough package to be dvd player sized, of course by then the DVD will likely have gone the way of the dodo and we'll be renting movies on some sort of flash format.
Get a massive array, rip dvd's to pc (somehow), make the program and connect the pc to the tv via the "video input thingy". Maybe find a pc remote control that somehow can also control the tv (universal?). Change the channel to the video one and it gives you a menu. Select your genere and off you go.
It can be done, there's just no demand for it (or people just don't know it could be done).
As for what drasnor wants, I haven't seen any programs that does specifically that. I think Nero can play your videos and tv channels (if you have the tv tuner), but I'm not sure if by genere or tv channel like. Haven't really played with it.
For TV, I say ditch the cable. Put a good antenna on your roof (I got a low-profile GE amplified antenna that is 6ft long, but lies flat on the roof for $50), and an HDTV card in your media server. In most locations near major cities, you can get all of the network stations in an OTA HD format for free. Not only that, but when you get HD content over the cable or dish, they compress it - you actually get higher quality video in the free OTA broadcasts. If you want to supplement the free network content, then spring for cable if you just can't miss those Sopranos.
Get this all done by the end of January, and you can kick back and watch Super Bowl XL in HD. That's one place you probably don't want to timeshift, but the commercials should be good to watch anyway.
//edit: I would definitely play the DVD movie content off of images recorded to your HDDs, rather than from a juke-box of DVDs.
The idea behind bridging to cable is so that I can hook up ordinary TV's and have all the private content added transparently. No special boxes on the TV itself so you can add lots of TV's to the system (one per bedroom, etc.) and not have to worry about running RGB all over the place. In other words, I want to use the tuners on the TVs and not have my media server use its own tuner and pipe the output to the auxiliary inputs on the TVs (because this fails the criteria for being able to watch same/different content on different TV's.)
-drasnor
But how to make the various genre files look like chanels, that is the hard part.
Sounds like you need a PCIe raid contoler for that 8x500GB disc aray.
-drasnor
-drasnor
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Default.asp
Networkable DVD palyers? Video signal converters (six different conversions)?
34" flat screen CRTs?
More stuff than I can imagine.
Why don't I have any rich relatives? :bawling: