[ale] cord cutting for TV, SiliconDust, MythTV, recording to PC, etc.,

[DJ-Pfulio]

A few corrections ... inline.

On 04/09/2017 11:00 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'll try to answer inline as best I can.
> 
> On Sun, April 9, 2017 10:42 am, Narahari 'n' Savitha wrote:
>> Friends:
>>
>> I am trying to discontinue DISH NETWORK service.
>>
>> It requires I setup antenna.

If you want to receive OTA, then you need an antenna. The more you want, the
better the antenna needs to be, though there isn't any need to spend over $50
these days.  A $5 antenna might get 10 channels, IME.

>> I read JD's blog on this and it looks quite a bit of work and I am not a
>> very handy person.

For others ...
http://blog.jdpfu.com/2012/08/03/diy-hdtv-antenna-deployment-and-results

>> I have an internal antenna (paid 5 bucks on a sale) and it picks up a few
>> channels.  I feel external antenna is a good idea (need input on this)
>>
>> How to pick a good/great external antenna ?

Forget antennaweb.  tvfool.com is what you want. If you post your map to the
forums there, some TV expert will suggest an antenna - usually in the $100 price
range.  Remember, people who work in the business try to provide "the best"
reception possible, so they are biased in that way. Plus antennas not exposed to
weather effectively last 50 yrs, so over that time is $100 really  too much?

Antennas are like real estate - location, location, location. If you are in a
valley without line of sight to the transmission towers, forgetaboutit. Keep
paying dish/cable guys and move on with your life ... or put up a high pole with
an antenna facing the correct direction. TVfool can let you try out different
ground heights to see how much it matters.  10 ft higher DOES MATTER.

> What antenna you need depends on where you live and what channel(s) you
> really want to get.  Antennaweb (I don't recall if it's .net, .org, or
> .com -- google it) is a great resource to determine what you can receive
> and "how strong" it will come in.  That determines what size antenna you
> need.  I have a 3-ish foot antenna in my attic and I get pretty much
> everything except ION (channel 14 out of Rome).  And I don't get it
> because it's in the other direction.  I opted for a directional antenna
> which I point approximately 185-degrees to reach the main transmission
> sites downtown and on stone mountain.
> 
>>
>> What is the role of a tool like  Silicon Dust in this setup ? (My
>> understanding is SiliconDust converts video packets to  network packets)
> 
> Yes.  The HDHomeRun will tune the ATSC and give you an MPEG (or other)
> data stream, converting the ATSC to Ethernet for you.
> 
>> Where can Silicon Dust record to ?  Does it require a PC ?  Can we connect
>> a HD recorder from network ? (if there is such a device) ?
> 
> The HDHomeRun requires a recorder if you want to record.  You can record
> to anything you wish.  I use MythTV myself, which I run on a Linux box. 
> The nice thing about the HDHR is that you don't need a lot of processing
> power for recording (although you do need a lot of I/O in order to
> transfer to/from disk and for the MySQL DB it uses).

ATSC sends mpeg2-ts streams.  HDHRs doing OTA all send mpeg2-ts streams.
To "record", means saving an mpeg2-ts stream. It really is that simple.
However, there are different compression levels and resolutions, so how much
throughput a recording device needs IS IMPORTANT.  In the US, ATSC mpeg2
channels are just under 20 Mbps, so that is the maximum all the channels (and
subchannels) can use. Each station splits that bandwidth up however they like.
Some use it all for 1 HiDef broadcast and others shove about 30 separate streams
into it - the channel doing that really sucks visually.

>> If I record to PC from SiiconDust can it be done with Linux or it requires
>> Windows ?
> 
> See above.  You don't need Windows.

Or linux.  Any device capable of saving a URL can be used.  It just needs
sufficient network and disk I/O to receive and save the file.
http://blog.jdpfu.com/2016/12/13/recording-tv-from-hdhr-connect

Of course, your wife probably wants a TiVo like interface, so the software
providing that interface is important, at least to her.

>> How to stream from SiliconDust directly(or indirectly) to Apple
>> TV/Roku/Chrome ?

Don't know about apple anything. I have a roku. Don't know of any solution for
that,
https://www.silicondust.com/support/faq/#can-i-use-hdhomerun-with-my-roku-box
says no.  Roku supports h.264 and HDHR in the USA is mpeg2. Not compatible.

but ...
my plex server can feed the roku with recorded stuff no problem.  However, the
roku interface kinda sucks when compared to Kodi.  The plex server can also be
the TV recording machine and do 20 other things concurrently. Mine has a $50 MB
and a $50 Intel CPU, so hardly a massive expense.

If you standardize on Kodi as your watching interface, many things become
possible. Lots of HW will support kodi, including 4K devices and cheap amazon
"stick" devices which come with a remote.  I have a r-pi v2 which works fine,
silently. No HDD connected to mine, but if I did connect an externally powered
HDD, I think the Pi could handle 1 hidef recording at a time.

"chrome" what? Please clarify. You can watch live TV from an HDHR4 using any
DLNA client device on the same subnet.  VLC, Kodi, many android apps, and some
other players all work. That isn't the same as recording or having a pretty PVR
interface.

I've not had a single HDD failure with it. None of the HDDs holding media or
used to record media has failed here in at least 7 yrs.  Yes, I'm using 7+ yr
old disks in some machines.  Did have 2 2GB Seagate's fail at separate times.
They were in a RAID1 setup, not holding media.  No more Seagates over 320G here
still being used. Oddly, have a few of the 320G seagates from the early 2000s
still going great.  Those are used for temporary storage only.

> I don't know, I've never tried.  I have a MythTV Front End system attached
> to each TV and use that.  I do think you can also connect to MythTV via
> uPNP, but I've never tried so cannot comment on how easy/hard it is to set
> up.  You can google to see if anyone has?

Never got MythTV working. It isn't needed anymore from what I can tell.  A kodi
box with PVR software on the same subnet as an HDHR4 is all you need these days.

I get 69 different channels OTA, including Ion and PBS from Rome (52 miles
away). It comes in better than PBS on channel 8 (RF8) from stone mtn from here.
But lets be very clear - of those 69 - 50% are shopping and religious channels
which I remove from the listing. Basically, only 30 make it to my channel guide.