Mailing List Archive: Video Distribution System

Does anyone have experience with this animal?

http://www.smarthome.com/7717.html

Seems pretty nice for $160 with 2 inputs and 5 TV connections. That would
let me have access to my MythTV box from any TV if I had a RF remote that
would reach the base. (ATI comes to mind)

From my understanding you'd just find a clear channel in your range (might
need a low-pass filter to keep cable company trash from causing
interference...another $40) and put one of these sources on it. Say,
channel 99 becomes MythTV. Now you can tune channel 99 on -any- TV and get
MythTV...that would be VERY sweet.

This particular one also has a second input for whatever and supports both
close and distant TV's, possibly getting you off a bit cheaper due to not
needing to purchase amplifiers or the like.

-Rob

Hi Rob,

Looks like great minds think alike. This is exactly
what I have setup at home now. I currently have a
beastly dual pIII 550 with about 1/2 Terrabyte of hard
drive space acting as my home media server. I hooked
this system up via an RF Modulator (Radio shack ~ $50)
into a combiner (Again Radio Shack, but it sounds like
the smarthome dongle would do the trick... perhaps
even deal with some noise for you too?) and merged
with my cable signal. I had to put a low-pass filter
on my cable signal before I combined them though. I
had a lot of color washout and distortion otherwise.
The Low-pass filter was $40 or so fron On-Que... but
you could make a generic filter that blocks anything
above 50 mhz I believe (that's like channel 84 or
something like that). I use an ATI RF remote to
control the system (I had to get a couple extra usb
cables to position the receiver correctly though). My
only major issues so far are as follows:

1. Sound is too low (This is probably due to the fact
that I split sound from my snd card into 2 paths. 1
to a shielded mic cable for my dual zone sound system,
and the other into the RF modulator. I think I'm
going to rewire and go straight into the RF modulator,
and pick up an FM stereo transmitter for the sound
system.

2. Picture quality blows! *** Note, I still haven't

gotten the modelines to work right. If I plug in one
of my smaller tv's with S-video on it directly to the
computer, reboot. I get a great picture. Then while
the machine's running, swap cables and plug it into
the RF modulator. I've got a great picture (on all
but 1 TV)... just don't reboot. Unfortunately, even
when I do the reboot w/tv trick, I still can't get a
"color" picture on my nice Sony 27" TV. Its a bit
old... a 1996 ?! but for some reason, it takes the
signal and filters out all of the color. It looks
clean/crips (even when I don't do the tv reboot trick
on the server)... but It's black and white. Any
ideas?

P.S.: But its really cool to wander the house during
parties, adding to the playlist with mythmusic on any
tv in the house. Also, its neat to start watching a
movie downstairs... pause it... go upstairs to finish
the laundry, and as you're folding just watch from
your upstairs tv.

-Chuck

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