When my PVR decided to die, I decided to go down the media server route. I already had a Mediaportal setup on a spare pc fitted with a DVB capture card. This time I wanted to pipe the video round the house.
It occured to me that the best way to do this would be to feed the composite output of my graphics card into a Rf modulator, then into a distribution amp and finally though the coaxial cable into all my tv sets. Im not really a quality freak, if i can see and hear it then thats good enough for me :-).
After a quick look around I found that the only suitable modulators on the market where £30+, so I started to look around the lab, and stumbled upon an old Xbox Rf modulator made by Logic 3:
After a bit of case removal and pinout look up's, I managed to work out the slightly unusual wiring:
Outersheath: GND
Black: +Vcc ~5v
Yellow: Comp In
Red: Audio In
(sorry no pics yet, camera still being worked on ;-@)
I hooked up the composite output on my graphics card, audio from the sound card (both channels combined) and stole +5v from the molex inside the pc (Red wire). To test I just hooked up the coxial output straight into the tv, and basked in the slightly fuzzy image.
Upon further inspection, inside the unit is a small pot for tuning, a few tweaks and Perfect!
So far I've got the modulator hooked into a small tv amplifier and running straight though the wall to the rest of the house. tuning is a Tv specific problem, I have found my older sets tend to be easier to tune, than the newer self tune only ones.
I have got a Rf remote working on the system, so that it can be used all over the house and plans to add another capture card and properly house the whole job. So keep checking back.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Poor mans Tivo
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
hey nice work booya first post
This is the kind that is limited to channel 3-4 only?
That's cool. I did exactly the same thing with an Xbox converter that I got for $5 at Radio Shack.
Here are my notes from doing it. Some of my wires were a different color from yours. Must be a different brand.
Hope this helps someone.
Am I right in assuming each tv has the same output sent to it, and if any one changes the media being streemd all the tv's will change also? Plus I am guessing there is no way to change programs from the tv with a wirless remote or anything?
What I am looking to make on the cheap is a server which can accept multiple connections from small and inxepensive media pc's, I know I could just have hd's in all the media pc's but I would prefere to have my main pc as the centre, that way when ever I download a program etc, I can leave the pc running and just goto my room or the living room and watch the programs from the pc there while the pc has other processes running etc. Maybe if I pickup a few server components cheap on fleabay will look to have a real server running near to my pc and have them both hooked up, then I can switch the pc off and let the server stream the programs to the media pc being used, would be much more energy efficient imo.
Anyone got any ideas on this feel free to e-mail me on my new hotmail account Ultradigital@live.co.uk
I don't mind if this e-mail got spammed as long as someone sent some help along with the spam lol.
Cheers guys and good post m8.
Good Idea, I agree with mojo about multi-streaming. I found that with my nvidia graphics which has composite out I can output video to via composite and at the same time leave my monitor showing my regular desktop. I managed to do this using windows (Xtremly Poor) XP and the nvidia software. Even when vlc is minimized the composite still shows the video full screen. Would it not be possible to get a multi-output or multiple cards for one pc and do something similar. As I understand it vlc has some sort of interface you can use via http or something. Why not use some sort of interface system like this to single out the signal for a specific tv.
Thats is a good idea Nick, you can pickup old Nvidia cards (even Ati) for a few quid and an old mobo (or if you got one lying around), the only issue would be how to configure the whole lot, and can you even get more than one agp card to work with a mobo? if not reunning multiple mobos would be quite power consuming!
I seen a disk server on fleabay for £30, I understand that I could use that with Raid to host the media from 500/700gb hdd's etc, setting it up would be hard since I know little to nothing about servers lol.
Setting up a server is *very* easy in windows xp/server 2k3. It's just a matter of adding shares. You don't even need to worry about users if you don't want. It's more work to set up the harddrives and format them, which is to say, its easy.
Post a Comment