[mythtv-users] Secondary viewing location help

[Allen Edwards]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 9:36 AM, jansenj
<jansenj+myth at gmail.com<jansenj%2Bmyth at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> I have an HD fontend/backend currently connected to an HD TV via DVI
> and spdif to my amp.  I am trying to come up with a solution to be
> able to watch my recordings in another room as cheaply as possible.
>
> Here's the catch I just use OTA (hdhomerun), so 90% of my recordings
> are HD bandwidth.  Note: I do have wired Ethernet to the secondary
> viewing location.
>
> So I've got a few thoughts and looking for any comments or feedback.
>
> 1. For $230 I could get an AppleTV, but its not clear to me how easy
> it is to get that working for HD recordings, if I went this route, I'd
> love to maintain the apple SW for the ability to rent movies if I
> desired. Either way, cracking the unit would not be an option as I
> don't have or have easy access to an Intel Mac.  Is this still a
> viable option for processing 1080i MPEG2 using a myth gui on an Apple
> TV?  I've read several success stories for using Apple Tv for SD
> recordings, but not as many for HD recordings.
>
> 2. Cost prohibitive option would be buying a mac mini, space would
> prohibit a shuttle PC even if you could configure one cheaper that
> could still handle HD.
>
> 3. HD capable upnp player.  But I haven't had any experience setting
> up the backend to play nice with a upnp media player, is there a how
> to on configuring an XP or VISTA piece of SW that I could test out the
> upnp capabilities of the backend? Plus I understand you loose all
> commercial skipping abilities.
>
> 4. Cheapest option would be if I could use the existing hardware to
> mirror the digital video and spdif audio on the analog counter parts
> (TV out of the video card and headphone jack of the audio), then run
> analog cables to by second viewing location, but I don't even know
> where to start or if it is even possible with this option.  I realize
> using this option as stated would only allow 1 recording to play at a
> time, but that is acceptable for now.  I'm guessing someone has
> thought of this before, but I have yet to see any indication that
> anyone has done it.  Basically run two independent frontend sessions
> off the same CPU.
>
> 5. And of course I could transcode every HD recording down to SD and
> use an MVP, but I'd rather not have to wait for a day for the
> transcodes to always finish, plus that is a lot more electricity to
> use if I transcode EVERY recording.  Besides, in 0.21, there was not
> an obvious way to drop resolution, but still maintain MPEG2
> compression.  Can anyone help me in that department if it sounds like
> thats the best option of those I've described.
>
> I've been thinking about this stuff for the last 6 months and have not
> made much headway, any comments or feedback would be much appreciated.
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>

1) I use 2.4GHz P4's with XvMC or SLIM as frontends.  Not too
expensive especially when they are left over from upgrades.

2) You can use a modulator and a RF to IR module to us the remote from the
other room.  The remote transmits RF due to a special "battery" that is an
RF transmitter and a half length battery to make up the difference.  The RF
Rx is put near the myth box.  I think you can have two instances of myth on
one box but I don't know how to control them with the remote as on my
system, both instances respond to the remote commands.  ie. doesn't work.

3) You can run coax to the other room.  One for video, one for audio.  I
have done this and can explain what I did if you ask.  Doesn't help with the
remote. I just did it to be able to watch what is being watched in the other
room.

Cheers

Allen
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