Just a quick follow up to this post. I currently have
a video server in my house (it has all my ripped
mp3's, DVD's, and videotapes that I've converted into
Divx/Mpeg2 format. I've got freevo working
(essentially a fancy front end for mplayer) to display
movies ect to the tv out on my nvidia video card. The
computer is quite noisy and because I was cheap and
used an old server case... has some heat issues. The
$10 walmart fan makes a ton of noise. But its
currently sitting in the master closet in my house. I
hooked the tvout signal via RCA cable to a Radioshack
RF modulator (it was $50) and added this to a combiner
(a $10 rip off at radioshack... but hey I was on a
roll). So now, I can turn to channel 105 in my house
and use my RF remote to play what ever recorded show I
want. Pretty slick. Works on all TV's. The picture
is pretty good*. No noisy boxes near any of the tv's
ect...
*BUT here's the big but... the cable signal is really
dirty. You need to build a notch filter (based on the
frequency of the channel that you're using for RF
modulation) to get a clear signal. You can buy a box
for this filter but its $200! (Talk about a major rip
off). So just whip up a notch filter and you're
done... probably about <$10 in parts (assuming you
don't let yourself get parts raped by Radioshack!).
I'm currently working on getting my web page up...
I'll post when I'm done along with my filter design.
But you can surf to any old EE web page and find tons
of suitable notch filter designs. They usually have
the equations floating around and its just plug and
chug.
In my spare time (which is next to none).... I keep
meaning to hack around with the nupel video headers in
mythtv (Again Issac I really like your project here...
definately a very professional effort... but I have
some deep seated issues)... to get it to accept/save
generic nupelvideo, & divx streams. Also I was
planning on changing the filenames of saved programs
to show-episodename. This would allow the recorded
shows to be easily played from mplayer/freevo on
another box (mount via samba or nfs) - essentially an
easy 2 box solution.
Now, as far as the little via EPIA800 board... I think
this would be a great platfrom for a pvr. But you've
got about a PII400-450 or so in there. Not a lot of
horse power... but if you used mpeg1 probably
sufficient. So I'd suggest getting the flaskmpeg
libraries in to mythtv. I'd think you can do it.
Another data point on the EPIA board... it can just
barely play divx movies... you need to twidle the
settings to get them to play right... so be warned,
you don't have a lot of spare cycles.
-Chuck
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
http://news.yahoo.com
a video server in my house (it has all my ripped
mp3's, DVD's, and videotapes that I've converted into
Divx/Mpeg2 format. I've got freevo working
(essentially a fancy front end for mplayer) to display
movies ect to the tv out on my nvidia video card. The
computer is quite noisy and because I was cheap and
used an old server case... has some heat issues. The
$10 walmart fan makes a ton of noise. But its
currently sitting in the master closet in my house. I
hooked the tvout signal via RCA cable to a Radioshack
RF modulator (it was $50) and added this to a combiner
(a $10 rip off at radioshack... but hey I was on a
roll). So now, I can turn to channel 105 in my house
and use my RF remote to play what ever recorded show I
want. Pretty slick. Works on all TV's. The picture
is pretty good*. No noisy boxes near any of the tv's
ect...
*BUT here's the big but... the cable signal is really
dirty. You need to build a notch filter (based on the
frequency of the channel that you're using for RF
modulation) to get a clear signal. You can buy a box
for this filter but its $200! (Talk about a major rip
off). So just whip up a notch filter and you're
done... probably about <$10 in parts (assuming you
don't let yourself get parts raped by Radioshack!).
I'm currently working on getting my web page up...
I'll post when I'm done along with my filter design.
But you can surf to any old EE web page and find tons
of suitable notch filter designs. They usually have
the equations floating around and its just plug and
chug.
In my spare time (which is next to none).... I keep
meaning to hack around with the nupel video headers in
mythtv (Again Issac I really like your project here...
definately a very professional effort... but I have
some deep seated issues)... to get it to accept/save
generic nupelvideo, & divx streams. Also I was
planning on changing the filenames of saved programs
to show-episodename. This would allow the recorded
shows to be easily played from mplayer/freevo on
another box (mount via samba or nfs) - essentially an
easy 2 box solution.
Now, as far as the little via EPIA800 board... I think
this would be a great platfrom for a pvr. But you've
got about a PII400-450 or so in there. Not a lot of
horse power... but if you used mpeg1 probably
sufficient. So I'd suggest getting the flaskmpeg
libraries in to mythtv. I'd think you can do it.
Another data point on the EPIA board... it can just
barely play divx movies... you need to twidle the
settings to get them to play right... so be warned,
you don't have a lot of spare cycles.
-Chuck
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
http://news.yahoo.com