Where to from here? - Page 2

Our TV is not a browser (nor is it capable of being so on its own, unlike yours apparently). It is not a computer display. It is a TV, and we watch TV. THAT is the distinction. We watch TV as opposed to interact with/fiddle with a computer.



You will tell 7MC where you live and which cable service you use. But for clear QAM, your provider presents channel numbers like 47.1028. The guide service is not set up for knowing those, at least mine isn't. The guide service *is* set up to understand the "cable box" channel numbering scheme that is delivered to and maintained with the help of the cableCARD, or translated automatically by the cableCARD (using the cableco delivered channel map that lives on the cablecard) into "normal" channel numbers. The cableco may change those underlying funky channel numbers at any time; without cableCARD to manage everything under the hood, YOU are the human engine that manages knowing what those funky channel numbers are and what guide channel you have to tell 7MC to use when working with that channel.


Linksys and HP and everyone else did away with extenders, but Microsoft kept at it and kept everything up to date on XBox. XBox works great; a couple hundo for an extender is the going rate for Moxi and the like, or is what you'd put into hardware for a remote Myth or Sage machine.

You could indeed put the 7MC in the basement and use only extenders, and have complete control over television. It's the other stuff 7MC does that you can't do over extenders, and that's another reason to have the 7MC box plugged directly into the TV. Netflix, for example, is superb on 7MC.



...or to a rooftop antenna, which is another superb solution. And frankly, I might want RF directly out of the wall into the TV--just like I've been doing for years--in order to have a simple backup for the family to just "watch TV" when the 7MC box flakes out.

Not "if" it flakes out, but WHEN.



Wait a minute now: consider where you are, on a ReplayTV forum. You're among a bunch of us who don't need the latest gadgetry; we're happy with stuff that WORKS. Including analog TVs. In fact, I have one extender hooked via RCA to RF adapter into a 20" 1986 Panasonic television that's probably the best TV I've ever had--sound familiar, Replay owners?

Babble on about new technology all you want, this is the wrong crowd for that. Anyone who's here watches TV--he doesn't fiddle with the latest A/V gear that changes every ten minutes.

TVs will continue to have RF tuners for a long, long time. About the only thing that could possibly change that in the near future is if Apple were to choose to take over the TV market. Remember the original iMac? No floppy? USB? WTF? Apple decided that's the way the world would work, and that's indeed what happened. Same would happen if they got into selling televisions.

While it's true that native CableCARD decryption probably won't happen, the Ceton card already supports tuner network bridging and the Silicondust HD Prime will be a networked device, so any 'copy-freely' content should be useable by Myth. This won't work for TWC, Brighthouse, etc. customers where most channels are locked down, but is great for Comcast, Verizon, etc. where they're not.

The Ceton card does not support clear QAM or anything else without a cableCARD. Dunno why, but that's how it is.

The Silicon Dust model already has a non-cableCARD brother, so that's a non-issue--just use that instead of the more expensive cableCARD tuner if clear content is what you need.

It's not just a matter of "copy freely" content. You have to get the content to your system FIRST--and the tuner is the gateway. If the DELIVERY of the content is encrypted to where it requires a cableCARD for decryption, then you won't be able to get it under any circumstances in anything but Media Center. Whether it's set for copy freely or not AFTER it's been delivered, is a completely different situation.

So you're saying Comcast and Verizon are like WOW, where they are delivering content in the clear? Because I'm guessing they're not actually delivering it.

WOW delivers its standard lineup, 90 channels or whatever of SD, in the clear so that anyone with a digital tuner can get what they always got with an analog tuner--straight out of the wall. Is Comcast doing that?

WOW is also not setting any copy restrictions on the content once it's delivered. Now, I'm just getting the standard commercial channels (plus Starz/Encore, since they throw that in for no extra charge), and am not getting HBO/Showtime. But nothing is copy restricted. That means ShowAnalyzer can work on everything I record.

If I had a cableco that marked everything with DRM such that ShowAnalyzer wouldn't work, that would be the end of my watching TV. I'd stick with Netflix and fill the available TV-watching hours that way.

Remember, there are only so many hours in the day--and at the end of the day, it's only television.

Sorry. It wasn't my intent to denigrate your setup. Your setup seems to be a reasonable facsimile of ReplayTV capabilities extended to HDTV.

My remarks have been in the context of the thread subject: "Where do we go from here" (My emphasis)

In that context, I am pretty well convinced that the DLNA architecture is where I personally want to go from here, because I believe that is the architecture of the future. At the moment, I am not entirely certain the parts I have mentioned will hang together as well as I would like, or give me all of the capabilities I still have with ReplayTV (at least until 7/31/2011).

Some other software I am looking at as pieces of the puzzle:

• Serviio
• Remote Potato

Particular issues I am uncertain about:

• "pause Live TV" - This has always been a slight misnomer in that it always involves some form of buffering that introduces a delay. How short a delay does it have to be to constitute "live"? Five minutes? Five seconds? (I think the latter is about what ReplayTV has) It appears that the best you can do using current DLNA architecture is to initiate a recording on the server and begin serving the recording after a short delay. You can then pause the playback. I actually use this scheme with RTV frequently with sports, because I find it seems to work better than simply pausing, if I ant to do "instant replays" in addition to simply pausing and resuming.
  
  I personally believe the long term direction of "pause live TV" is for the TV to provide that built in (regardless of program source). Provide a CF slot, and if a CF chip is present, use that as the maximum duration of a pause. Low end CF thruput is an order of magnitude greater than needed for recording HDTV. You can get more than an hour's worth of CF memory for around $10 today, ten times that for around $50.
  
• Overlapping shows. You are familiar with the mind games the networks are playing with DVR users. Some networks have particular shows that always end a minute or so after the hour. NBC begins numerous dramatic shows a minute or so before the hour, and end them when the next show starts, also before the hour. We presently alleviate the issue by always targeting certain channels to one DVR, and certain other channels to a different DVR. We can start a recording early with RTV, but issues arise if we want to record back to back shows, because the RTV will not end a recording a minute before the hour. This creates numerous complications. Hopefully, more advanced software on the recording machine can take countermeasures to foil these silly network tactics.

Sounds like if you only want to watch clear QAM with the 2250, you should pipe it through the adapter I now use with the RTV. I didn't know that.


...or have the TV access 7MC via a network.


Agreed. There will always be TVs connected directly to the RF. My bedroom TV is right now.

I agree this is the ReplayTV forum. But, I have used ReplayTV for years not because I am in love with Replay, but because it has provided the best viewing experience. And, you yourself have stated you abandoned the Replay for new technology, without looking back. Everybody here is going to be moving beyond Replay sooner or later and the question of this thread is not whether to use new technology, but rather which technolog(y)(ies) is/are best to replace ReplayTV capability.

...and (in my case, at least) continue to connect to my RTVs.

Among my requirements for a new TV is that it will, in fact provide inputs compatible with my RTVs.

My 55xx RTVs provide composite, S-video and component outputs in addition to RF. The signal on the component outputs is 480p. My current Sony TV will accept only interlaced signal on its component inputs, which requires me to use S-video for reasonable picture quality. But, the TV has only one S-Video input, so to be able to switch RTVs (for whatever reason) I have to pipe the outputs through a switching mechanism (an AV receiver).

The new LCD TVs I am considering will accept 480p on their component inputs, and they have dual component inputs. So, I will be able to connect both RTVs, plus RF, plus Ethernet, plus USB, etc., etc..

I am not looking to limit choices. My objective is to expand choices. My primary objective is not technology for its own sake, it is technology that provides the best viewing experience. Just like you.

Does Microsoft still require the $50/year Xbox Live membership to access Netflix?

The $50/year Xbox Live membership is ONLY for accessing Netflix on your XBox.

Under Media Center itself, on the MC box itself plugged into the TV, there's nothing extra to pay or do. The choice is just there, and you choose it. Sign in, and you're done. All that can be done from the remote, even, if you don't have a keyboard handy.

Well it's for way more than that, like ESPN3 and Hulu Plus access and all the other Xbox Live gaming stuff, plus tons of other video on the net. But yeah, you don't need the sub to use the Xbox as an extender.

If the content is copy-freely, the Silicondust Cablecard box will decode it and present it on the network in the clear (that is my understanding from a brief read at their forums, but we'll see once it's released). This is way more than the clear QAM channels, it's any channel that's not protected, which on Comcast means everything but the premiums. Doesn't matter that the channel is encrypted or not, all that matters is that the CCI byte is not set on the content. That's what makes Myth viable in the future.

Go ahead, put a clear QAM Hauppauge unit or similar into a box and run 7MC. Have it scan for channels. See what channels the clear QAM tuner can tune and which it cannot.

My system contains commercial, non-premium channels with copy-freely content, channels that are NOT tunable without a cableCARD to decrypt the signal.

No clear QAM tuner will be able to tune these. Only systems with the cableco's cableCARD that's been authorized for those channels will be able to tune them. The Silicon Dust unit will not be able to deliver these channels unless authorized by the cableCARD. No cableCARD, no authorization, hence no delivery.

Yet the shows record as copy freely on systems that DO have the cableCARD that authorizes the delivery of the shows.

The encryption of the signal as delivered is separate from the DRM on the show itself.

I'm just going to get a tivo with lifetime. I keep getting outbid on ebay, but I will keep trying for a cheap one.

Please reread what I said - the upcoming SiliconDust Cablecard box (i.e., HD Homerun Prime) will decode these channels and deliver them to any client, even Myth, if the content is copy-freely. I fully understand the limitations of clear QAM tuners, since I'm running a 7MC box with an Avermedia Duet now. It gets all the locals in HD and that's it, but the SD Prime *should* be able to send the rest of the copy-freely channels over the network (with a Cablecard, of course) to any client that supports the IP stream from it.

The gist is that if you're lucky and your cableCo does not protect much content, 7MC will not be the only OS that can record and playback the content when this box comes out. I think it is supposed to ship this summer (for $250 w/3 tuners), but we'll see.

I seriously doubt that.

This is a 1/2 truth. The HDHomeRun Prime will deliver Copy Freely content to any device that implements the DRI (other than MCE, this means SageDTV and MythTV today). HOWEVER, on many MSOs, most content is Copy Once. For instance, I'm on Time Warner and I would say that 90% of my channels are Copy Once - meaning that this solution is essentially useless for me.
As a side note, the Ceton InfiniTV is available today and does the same thing.

No CableCARD-based (required if you want encrypted digital) solution is going to give you unencrypted files for everything - the spec prohibits it. Many devices will give you copy freely content though.


re: 2, you can have your PC go to sleep and the Xboxes will wake it up.

FWIW, I've been using an OCUR-based solution for about 4 years. I don't think I've ever lost content due to stuff dying/an OS install dying. If you treat your HTPC like an appliance (and not a PC) you will generally not have issues

Not true.

Only the recordings that were made AFTER the backup will not be watchable. Everything made prior to the backup is good to go.

Time to investigate Windows Home Server and its integration with 7MC.




Hang on here. Your older and much less energy efficient ReplayTVs were all on 24/7. That "power" button did nothing but trigger the blue light and turn off the video output from the Replay. Otherwise, everything was going FULL TILT BOOGIE.

So tell us, why is a modern energy efficient PC--one single unit--running 24/7 somehow MORE of a concern????? Other than you're trying to invent something out of thin air.

BUT: the 7MC machine can sleep, no problem. It wakes up when it needs to record, then goes back to sleep. The extenders can wake the main machine just enough to serve the shows, without being fully on.

What more do you want compared to your multiple energy hog Replays running 24/7?

I think I'm confused. If my 7MC machine has some hardware failure of some sort, and if I replace that piece of hardware (cpu, motherboard, whatever) with a new piece, will my shows be viewable?

And if restore from backup, why would my NEW recordings since my backup be unwatchable?

http://www.sevenforums.com/media-cen...e-restore.html

Newly recorded DRM-protected content will not be watchable should you restore from an older backup. Any DRM-protected content will not be watchable should you reload the OS.

My system doesn't have any DRM-protected content, so I don't really care.

But there was a LOT of faulty information thrown around in erickotz's post.

Then you also didn't bother to read the SD webpage for the box, which states:

HDHomeRun PRIME supports streaming access-controlled copy-freely channels to other DVR applications including MythTV. These are channels that you subscribe to, are encrypted on the cable system (access-controlled), and do not impose restriction on use inside the home (copy-freely).

Only TWC and Brighthouse (I think) label most of the cable channels as copy once. The biggest cableCo, Comcast, does not.

I have no idea what 'the DRI' is, but I believe that any software can receive the copy freely channels from the SD Prime with a Cablecard and the right code. There's no DRM on the IP stream after it's been decrypted by the box, because the content is copy freely. Same as on WMC, where any PC can play this content straight from the .wtv files because it is not protected.

I can't imagine you'll have to worry much about the Windows operating system, if you are not constantly adding, subtracting programs, surfing to websites, downloading files, programs, reading email attachments, etc.

Get it going with a clean install running WiRNS and it should remain very stable.

As in shut down, or just asleep?

Your experience is yet another reason I say, make yourself a cable box/DVR that's dedicated to those duties and not used as a general purpose computer. The more things you do on it, the less stable it will be overall. Just let it record and serve shows, and maybe do the commercial skip processing, and you'll severely minimize the chance of random crap messing you up.

Sleep--specifically, the S3 state.

That is, if you want to. Me, I leave it on 24/7. I figure with four tuners, it's unlikely to be down much anyway...

I repeat: set up your cable box/DVR as minimally as possible, doing only what's absolutely necessary to watch and record TV.

The more crap you put on a computer--ANY computer--the greater its likelihood of failure.

BTW, do you know you can move shows from your DVArchive tank into 7MC, using a utility built for the purpose? No need to have DVArchive on the 7MC box itself; once they've been moved from the Replay to a local drive, use the utility to export them to your 7MC setup permanently.



I don't know off hand. I've seen this behavior, but every time it eventually tunes in the program. I do see some evidence that it will keep trying; some shows end up starting 30 seconds or more into them.

As well, I have gotten (but not lately!) the "cannot record, cannot find a signal" error message when I sit down and turn on my TV. It's been sitting there awhile. Sometimes two or three of those errors are stacked up, waiting to be dismissed--and likely had been sitting there quite awhile, waiting for me to acknowledge them.

With four tuners, it goes through them as available until it can get a signal.

I have an amp in the basement and pretty good signal overall, but that doesn't mean the cableco is perfect or never does maintenance. Sometimes I've gotten horribly digitalized, stuttering shows; maybe once or twice, but still. I know it's not my box, it's the cableco. Stuff happens.

Thanks for all the posts Adam about 7MC, I've fired up my server tonight, 5.5TB Raid5 fed by two HVR-2250's for analog channels and a Ceton4 coming next week for the HD channels. I tried recording 4 shows at once and while watching one and it worked like a champ!

I used;
Intel DH67CL mobo with integrated HDMI and SATA Raid5 controller.
i7 CPU, as I may use the PC for other functions.
1x 120GB Intel SSD for the OS, boots in about 40 seconds.
4x 2TB Seagates for the Raid, Media Drive.
iStar BPN-DE340SS Series HDD Cage, 4 bare drives slip into the space of 3x 5.25" drive bays, really nice for easy HDD hot swap outs (my number 1 Replay chore was drive swaps).
Win7 Pro, 64bit, to see all the RAM (8G) and the large raid drive as a single volume.

I purchased ShowAnalyzer and loaded it with the advanced option to set all of it's working folders onto the Raid to keep the SSD free for the OS. I can't find any documentation for the program and haven't quite figured to get it to auto analyze shows as well as just how it integrates with 7MC's player. So far it's not doing anything so I need to point it to the show folder and somehow activate a plug-in for it to work in the player?

All in all I really like the setup and look forward to fine tuning it further.

Next on the list is an MC remote and Rx to integrate the commands into my Pronto plus an X-Box 4G extender for the bedroom...

Fun project and it seems very stable!