That's probably because the problem is usually solved by putting in an analog to iptv appliance and having a set top box per tv. Which admittedly isn't what you were looking for. But as long as your network can handle it, it'll probably scale a whole lot better. And not drain 10% as much of your time.
-Anders Sent from my iPhone On 9 dec 2010, at 17:22, "Matthew W. Ross" <mr...@ephrataschools.org> wrote: > About 5 minutes after I posted my question, I remembered MythTV. I have never > played with it, but I am aware of it's capabilities. It is an excellent > solution to this idea. > > I think I'll be doing a bit of searching for MythTV "premade" systems this > morning, or see if there is an outfit that provides the MythTV service with > comercial support. That might just fit the bill. > > I am surprised that there are not other vendors (such as Hauppauge) do not > have a version of this already available in a couple of plug-and-play boxes. > > > --Matt Ross > Ephrata School District > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Kramer, Jack > [mailto:jack.kra...@ur.msu.edu] > To: NT System Admin Issues > [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com] > Sent: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 > 06:01:24 -0800 > Subject: Re: Distributing TV over IP > > >> Have you ever heard of MythTV? It's a linux program (which has since >> spawned several media specific distributions) that acts as sort of a >> distributed DVR - you have a "backend" with tuners and storage and then as >> many "frontends" as you want which display the content. You would need as >> many tuners as you want to be able to watch simultaneous channels, and at >> least enough storage to handle the amount of simultaneous watching you >> want since MythTV will buffer to HDD and then send that buffered content >> to the frontends. You can have multiple backends to allow for more tuners >> than will fit in a single physical box. (Remember that a tuner can only >> watch one channel at a time because each channel is a different frequency >> on the cable.) >> >> A good tuner card for Myth is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 500 - it's a >> hardware encoder card so the host CPU won't take a big hit from the tuning >> process and it fits two analog tuners on one PCI board. Grab that and a >> box with a lot of PCI slots - a full ATX board can have up to six? - and a >> reasonable CPU (my old backend had a single core 2.2ghz Athalon). Stuff a >> couple of 1 or 2 TB HDDs in there to provide for local backend storage. If >> you're not planning on recording shows you don't have to worry about >> transcoding from the native MPEG-2 that the card will record in because >> Myth will clear caches over 24 hours old. If you pack the box full of 6 >> tuner cards, that gets you 12 simultaneous channels - or record 11 >> programs and watch 1, etc. Setup is very simple. Digital tuning is easy >> enough too - you can just buy a tuner capable of decoding ClearQAM and >> working with MythTV or grab a product called the HDHomeRun - it's an >> Ethernet-attached dual ClearQAM/ATSC (over the air HD) tuner that's fully >> MythTV compatible. >> >> Frontends are a little more difficult since you'll need a machine with >> some sort of analog TV out if you intend on using CRTs - older NVidia >> cards are good for that and they also provided accelerated decoding of >> MPEG-2 video. If you have flat panels anything with a modern CPU/GPU works >> - you can do it on pretty much any Intel Atom-based system if you don't >> intend to have more than 720p content, and an Atom with a NVidia ION GPU >> will work for 1080i/p content. (Or better, of course.) The only part that >> gets interesting is setting up an IR remote control - you'll use the LIRC >> package to do that and you'll have to find a control script that supports >> your remote. Not usually that difficult since most IR remotes for computer >> these days use the Microsoft MCE remote standard that they invented for >> Media Center. Newegg is a good place for those. >> >> My TV setup at home is kind of similar to what you want - I have a backend >> with 4 tuners that records the inbound TV and then multiple frontends >> (living room, bedroom, my workstation, laptop, etc) that attach back to >> that box. I have my system setup to record shows based on my preferences >> using the DVR features which it then transcodes to MPEG-4 for storage - I >> can do a couple hundred hours on the 500GB disk in that machine. Might be >> nice to offer to your teachers so they could record programs for their >> classes and then show them at a later date? >> >> ---- >> Jack Kramer >> Computer Systems Specialist >> University Relations, Michigan State University >> w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 >> >> >> >> >> On 12/8/10 7:41 PM, "Matthew W. Ross" <mr...@ephrataschools.org> wrote: >> >>> I have an interesting one for the list... >>> >>> Our school district has cable television available to each school through >>> the local cable company. We have a new(er) school which we are now >>> looking at providing television services. In our older schools, the cable >>> company ran coax to each classroom with a centralized industrial >>> splitter... giving many channels a grainy, less than ideal image. >>> >>> Hey, it's the 21's century... can I push the video over IP? >>> >>> Here's what I'm envisioning: Cable comes into our MDF, and we have some >>> kind of encoder that takes the signal. Then, throughout a building we >>> have some decoders which happily take the feed from the encoder and play >>> it to whatever kind of TV it's plugged into. The decoder would be able to >>> control which channel the encoder is sending... and for extra points the >>> decoder's remote can control the TV's power and volume. >>> >>> Does such a solution exist? >>> >>> Some more details: The cable company only provides basic cable for free, >>> which does _not_ require one of their own decoding boxes. I know that the >>> signal that the basic cable provides is ye-old-analogue signaling, plus a >>> few of the new digital channels. My expertise in TV signaling is >>> extremely limited, so I don't know much more than that. >>> >>> Has anybody had experience with this kind of TV distribution over IP? >>> (Not to be confused with IPTV.) >>> >>> I know this could go crazy... Multicasting, Recording/DVRs, user >>> security, PC clients, etc... but let's start with what would be very >>> basic (Live TV only) and cheap. Thanks for any input! >>> >>> >>> --Matt Ross >>> Ephrata School District >>> >>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >>> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>> >>> --- >>> To manage subscriptions click here: >>> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >>> or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com >>> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >>> >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> --- >> To manage subscriptions click here: >> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >> or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com >> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >> >> > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
