Roll-your-own cable?

drasnordrasnor Starship OperatorHawthorne, CA Icrontian
edited December 2005 in Internet & Media
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 :fold:

Comments

  • redchiefredchief Santa Barbara Member
    edited December 2005
    buying a TV station comes to mind. It worked for Ted Turner.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    The problem with that is that I want to be able to watch DVD's that I currently own which are licensed only for home viewing. I'd have to pay out royalties etc. to broadcast.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • edited December 2005
    drasnor wrote:
    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 :fold:


    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.
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    madmat wrote:
    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.
    Nah. I think it could be done now, but it would take alot of dedication and programing.

    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.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    Build yourself a home-entertainment server with a TV tuner and lots of HDD space (and a decent CPU for video encoding/decoding), load up XP MCE 2005 on it, then buy an Xbox 360 and use it as an MCX. I'm not sure if an MCX can pipe live content down from the Media Center PC, but if it was prerecorded you could for certain, and have your timeshift capabilities with that.

    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.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    As far as software goes, I think you can do most of this with MythTV (Linux). That's not a bad idea with the OTA HD though the selection is pretty sparse in my neck of the woods (we get all of 3 HD channels and two are just upconverted analog stations). DVD images off the hard drive would probably be easier on the wallet too.

    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 :fold:
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    Can't you feed TV out on a MM card from the hdd?
    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.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    I don't think so. The only MM cards I've ever seen only do S-Video, Composite, or RGB out.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    I saw an article in News on digital TV: I think TheSMJ has the right idea. The best way to do this is to put up a gargantuan storage array and put a HTPC with each TV. Channels are changed on the HTPC while the TV receives video on its auxiliary input. The HTPC can download shows and movies on demand or on a schedule from the storage area network and upload any time-shifted video it recorded.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    This site might be old news to you guys, but I found it very interesting.
    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.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    edcentric wrote:
    This site might be old news to you guys, but I found it very interesting.
    http://www.digitalconnection.com/Default.asp...
    Ed, there is going to be a lot of scrambling by people updating their Christmas wish list when they see that.

    Why don't I have any rich relatives? :bawling: ;D
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