Mac2008, a bit scary how you described my set-up. :)
Yes, that's the concept. Move the disk to a TV where there's no cable/aerial connectivity and a foreign TV. Actually, I have one of each - a DishTV DVR and a HTPC - the DishTV is where the aerial connection is and the HTPC is for the kids so we have better control of what content they watch.
The appliance has clear advantages as mentioned above, and the HTPC serves a different purpose. My view in brief:
Appliance: simple, easy to use, cheap, quiet, can be left on most of the time, just does TV HTPC: complex, more expensive, can do more than just TV (skype, web browsing, music, photos) with a better interface for each, noisier (fans etc) than appliance
Each has its own use and considering the appliance is only $150 or so, it's a simple equation to put it where you just do TV. Of course if you have plenty of cash and time, a HTPC does make an awesome experience.
Add smart TVs to the equation and things get interesting... :)
Ralph: Hi Mac2008, thanks for the info. I didn't realise all HD content is encrypted. I can understand the premise behind it all actually.
Personally, I can't really understand it. I understand what they want to do, but this doesn't do it.
The Freeview restrictions just stuff up legitimate users who aren't very tech savvy - say, for example, they want to record something in the living room (where there is a good aerial connection) and play it back in another room. Nothing morally wrong with that, and the sort of thing people with two VCRs do all the time.
Anyone who wants to archive the program or upload it can simply put a TV tuner (costing circa $90 from the likes of JB HiFi etc) into a computer - clean HD recording, no restrictions, no problems.
They merely cripple functionality and the whole experience for technically illiterate legitimate users, annoy technically literate legitimate users who have to jump extra (trivial) hoops to go around the problem, without really adding anything in terms of content protection or "stopping the evil pirates" in return.
JimmyH: [ They merely cripple functionality and the whole experience for technically illiterate legitimate users, annoy technically literate legitimate users who have to jump extra (trivial) hoops to go around the problem, without really adding anything in terms of content protection or "stopping the evil pirates" in return.
what are these trivial hoops? i've not yet needed to playback and encrypted recording on my pc but have tried with VLC to no avail.
I'm setting up the T1020 for my partner's parents. However, side by side, it is not able to pick up the Korean channels DTT CH40-43 compared to my original DSE DVB-T Receiver (G7503).
JimmyH: [ They merely cripple functionality and the whole experience for technically illiterate legitimate users, annoy technically literate legitimate users who have to jump extra (trivial) hoops to go around the problem, without really adding anything in terms of content protection or "stopping the evil pirates" in return.
what are these trivial hoops? i've not yet needed to playback and encrypted recording on my pc but have tried with VLC to no avail.
Agreed - stoopid restrictions! Setting up an HTPC is a relatively trivial hoop (for geeks on Geekzone but not, admittedly, for the average grandparent). HTPC's can be as quiet as an appliance box to the point of silence, and pretty much as power efficient. No getting around the increased cost of build, or the tech requirements, I'll admit.
Oh - and with something like MythTV, you set up one backend box (which can be louder and more powerful, since it could be in your basement) and use it to serve multiple cheaper, quiet front-end boxes attached to your TV's. And you can use your laptop(s) to acess the server and watch and record liveTV, listen to music, view picture library, play games etc.
@703: I assume the T1020 can do a manual tune, if you know the transmission details of the Korean channels you want to add? Check out the manual.
Loaded a few Videos to a slow and a FAST USB stick to see what formats that I can play, using Connectivity Media Centre.
What seems to happen it goes into a very Slow response, when selecting the Movie or starting the movie, the delays are around 30-50 Sec, even when you try to put the unite into standby from the Connectivity Media Centre, I have had the same problem a few times with recorded TV shows, and a previous unit did this before with recorded shows that I reported it as lockups, seems to get it knickers in a twist and end up in this slow response mode.
Very easy to see when you have say 10 movies and you are trying to select one, normally works OK, then goes in the frees up mode that take about 32 Sec to select the next one, then when you try and play it you get the same thing.
AVI Playback
Would not play back a AVI with the Video Stream encoded in Visual (divX 3 Low)
The other problem is no sound with AVI's if the Audio stream is encoded Mpeg Audio (MP3) its ok if its encoded in AC-3
So AVI's work if you have the right Audio coding, and MP4 is ok and MKV
But the Connectivity Media Centre need fixing to stop the temporary lockups.
JimmyH: [ They merely cripple functionality and the whole experience for technically illiterate legitimate users, annoy technically literate legitimate users who have to jump extra (trivial) hoops to go around the problem, without really adding anything in terms of content protection or "stopping the evil pirates" in return.
what are these trivial hoops? i've not yet needed to playback and encrypted recording on my pc but have tried with VLC to no avail.
The one I clearly outlined in my post. 1. Take any recent laptop running Windows 7 2. Plug in $60-90 USB tuner stick from a mainstream retail outlet & connect to aerial 3. Job done!
Unrestricted, unencrypted recordings on the computer. Slightly strange wrapper, but freely available software can transcode, compress, convert or whatever you want to do.
JimmyH: Personally, I can't really understand it. I understand what they want to do, but this doesn't do it.
The Freeview restrictions just stuff up legitimate users who aren't very tech savvy - say, for example, they want to record something in the living room (where there is a good aerial connection) and play it back in another room. Nothing morally wrong with that, and the sort of thing people with two VCRs do all the time.
I agree also. Which is why if DishTV does end up doing this idea where you can play back any recording from any of their models on any other DishTV receiver, it will help to provide a solution to this problem - well for non geeks of course. Geeks already have their own systems as mentioned already.
And even $135 for a 1080P video playback device in the room with no TV aerial is not fully outrageous. Given some time prices will continue to come down, making it even better.
Ralph: Mac2008, a bit scary how you described my set-up. :)
Yes, that's the concept. Move the disk to a TV where there's no cable/aerial connectivity and a foreign TV. Actually, I have one of each - a DishTV DVR and a HTPC - the DishTV is where the aerial connection is and the HTPC is for the kids so we have better control of what content they watch.
Ah well it must be a good idea then if someone is actually doing it. So I suppose you have no issues using the DishTV T1020 recording many of the kids programs, which are usually in SD, and then playing back on the HTPC?
Yeah, had seen that, but family had hit "don't update" button. Know of any way to start off the update sequence? Will updates then happen OTA instead of from the website then?
Ah well it must be a good idea then if someone is actually doing it. So I suppose you have no issues using the DishTV T1020 recording many of the kids programs, which are usually in SD, and then playing back on the HTPC?
Well, I'm still having a fair trouble transcoding the SD MPEG-TS to avi so that my low-spec HTPC can play it. AVS Video converter does a fine job but more than 50% of the time the audio doesn't come through. Looks like VLC can handle the audio properly but most other players (media player classic, kmplayer, ffmpeg) have issues with it. MPEG repairing give an error on audio PID, but haven't been able to properly repair it. Demuxing and then resyncing to the avi was painful and error prone. VLC audio save always comes up with a file of 0 bytes.
Fortunately for me (or specifically, they kids), SpongeBob is on most days, so there's no lack of saved content, so if I have to delete 50% of the transcoded content, there's still enough to keep the kiddies busy.
In short, no simple way to make it all happen, meaning I'm tempted just to buy another T1020. Pricespy looks to have some reasonable prices. Maybe a Christmas present to myself. :)
It has been an interesting exercise into learning the details of the video/audio container and transcoding though. :)
I'd be interested in hearing if anybody has any luck successfully transcoding SD from the T1020.
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