[mythtv-users] Multiple Video Out - Anyone? or Stop Asking...

[Charles Choukalos]

Hi Dave,

I was thinking along these lines quite a while ago.  I
setup a server pushing the video out from the computer
to a radio-shack RF modulator (tunable, $60 for the
modulator I believe) and piped back into my RG6
distribution tree.  

I did have several issues.
1.  Time Warner was pushing a very noisy signal into
the
    house.  I hand built a low-pass capacitor (cut off
    was around channel 84 or something like that.  
    don't remember the frequency).  That let in my 
    el'cheapo cable and allowed me to pass my own
signals
    on any channel > 84.
2.  Video out quality varied by TV.  For some reason I

    never could get it to work well, unless I rebooted
    /restarted X with a TV physically connected to the
    computer.  Then I could swap RF modulator and TV
    and everything would work.  If I didn't do that 
    then I had a ton of problems.  Also older TV's 
    had some issues with the signal.  I swear my old
    sony kept thinking it was getting B&W PAL and not 
    color NTSC.
3.  Sound volume was really low.  This was soo 
    annoying.  I ended up trying to re-encode video 
    files to up the vol., but got a lot of distortion.
    this was what broke my "back".
4.  Used the ATI remote wonder (rf) for control.  
    worked great, except when the microwave was on
    then I had to go through some gyrations to get 
    something to happen.  Did have occasional issues
    with sticking keys, etc... never did figure out
    why.

The sound issue drove me to just dropping a front-end
in on my living room.

In your case you might be able to address the above
issues.  I'd think though you'd need a seperate video
card for each "channel" you want to broadcast.  You'd 
also need a seperate RF modulator for each of those
channels.  All in all probably fairly do-able.  As
far as the remote goes, I recall reading somewhere
that
you could tell the ATI remote-wonder to work broadcast
on a different frequency.  Perhaps you could setup 
something like that where you change the remote to 
a specific frequency to control your various channels.

Let me know if you have any questions... I helped a 
buddy try a similar setup so I can dig up the part 
numbers.  He cheated and bought some filter from one
of
the home automation companys to filter out the cable
company noise.  Not sure if he's still using it or 
broke down and just went with a front-end machine.

-Chuck

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