Question for the Experts: Television Hard Disk recorder and Internet box for tv

[milanbenes]

It was worth the effort IMO.

One of the main motivations for building it was because at the time I was working overseas. AFAIK no "off the shelf" PVR allows you to copy a months worth of recordings to an external hard drive and watch them on another box in another country. Actually AFAIK no single box PVR allows you to watch & record DVB-T, DVB-S, blurays, DVDs and streaming TV, or to edit recordings to trim the adverts out so you can archive them. I believe some of them might let you stream the recorded TV around your house now though.

I'm sure the humax boxes are great but wouldn't have done what I needed, plus they didn't sell freesat ones at the time.

doobab, hats off, it sounds amazing !

your title is confirmed

I think you've found your plan b

Milan.

[TimberWolf]

You've been able to copy recorded shows to USB disks for years now. Point taken about a combo DVB-T/DVB-S/Bluray etc though. I tend to rip my Blurays and play them back through Plex anyway. Saves the kids scratching them to death.

I've never bothered stripping out ads etc. It's not that onerous pressing fast forward, and it probably takes more time to strip out the ads anyway.

Milan as far as the Mac goes, you never see the OS, it boots straight into Plex. TBH though, it doesn't sound like you really need an HTPC, more likely just a set top box.

Anyway each to their own.

My old ultra-cheap PVR (LiteOn) allowed editing of recorded content and also allowed better control of playback with things like single frame advance than my Humax.

[doodab]

You've been able to copy recorded shows to USB disks for years now.

Can you watch them on a PC? That was the main bugbear with my sky box, no way to get at the recordings.

I've never bothered stripping out ads etc. It's not that onerous pressing fast forward, and it probably takes more time to strip out the ads anyway.

I do it sometimes for things that will get watched a lot, like kids TV, mostly because the adverts are fooking annoying and there tends to be more adverts than program with the shorter kids shows.

[hyperD]

Benes old chap,

You can CAT6 cable the entire benes castle with an ethernet port in every room, stick a couple of wall mounted monitors/LCDs/Plasmas with an NMT, get a 10Tb NAS box, rip Bluray DVDs with AnyDVD onto it, and use the NMT remote like a telly remote to stream films around the house.

There's even youtube, picasaweb, some live streaming etc

Loads more set tops around since I asked the question to the esteemed board a year or two ago and bought a coupla Popcorn Hours.

If anyone knows any more internet/entertainment fusions then let me know

[Fred Bloggs]

Will one of these work for what you want it to do?

[milanbenes]

HyperD me old fruit,

thank you.


this thread has shown how immature the whole subject area is, no one really knows a solution, need to wait for this area of home technology to mature


how are you doing ?

Milan.

[hyperD]

Hi there milan,

Desperately building up the depleted warchest after the big upheaval last year, but starting to grow the secure fiscal foundations again, thank you.

Yes indeed, it's an exciting and rapidly growing area: when I first looked there was a sparsity of information about home tech systems, mostly coming from the USA.

I've been impressed with the popcorn hour systems but they are for those that are network savvy, so most of us guys will have an edge. There's no need for me to have a TV licence now for instance.

Until they become mainstream household devices, they will still be slightly expensive, cludgy geek toys for now, but the potential is there.

Hoping you are well in Euroland and the passat is plenty cheapness/quickness!

[milanbenes]

Hi Hyper,

glad to hear the warchest is being replenished and the financial foundations are being laid to prepare for forward looking growth

I can imagine last year had its unpleasantries so I hope life gets back to fun as it should

Pecker up lad :-)

Milan.

[hyperD]

Thank you for your kind sentiments.

in response to you other point, we laid 700m of cat5 at Benes Hof during the construction.
two end points in each room

Excellent, you have literally laid the foundations for streamed entertainment in der Benes Burg - well done - that should be future proofed for 21st century entertainment for some time!

Winter wheels on the Passat! Aye indeed, it's not long now. I wonder how long I can safely cycle - I thought the acorns on the road were bad enough, but black ice could be, well, moirdoir!

[chef]

this thread has shown how immature the whole subject area is, no one really knows a solution, need to wait for this area of home technology to mature

Milan.

On the contrary, it's now become so specialised that there's a solution for your exact requirements.

For instance, if I asked I want to buy a car with power or a new pair of sports trainers there'd be a similar suggestion of varied solutions to the problem