Can I record seven TV channels simultaneously & digitally?

[Nords]

Help me design my "dream media" system to my family's viewing specs.

As our local cable company slowly tightens the screws on analog broadcasting, I can see that we're going to be forced to pay more before (if ever) a la carte pricing kicks in. We also are facing obsolescence and I probably only have a few years left on our current system. I'm trying to look ahead a couple years to design a media system that works for us before our VHS VCRs finally quit.

Keep in mind that I don't watch TV. Spouse & kid watch their fair share but when I'm on my own I don't even turn on the set. I view a couple PBS documentaries or DVD movies a year but it's very hard for me to sit still and watch from beginning to end. I know what's out there because I'm in charge of recording it, but I haven't watched a complete TV show since "Star Trek: Enterprise" went off the air. Our kid has her Netflix subscription but we grownups don't watch many movies and we've never seen a scene from "The Sopranos." Spouse doesn't even have a DVD player hooked up to the main TV.

Today we're paying $47.55/month for local broadcast channels and the "Standard" cable lineup. No set-top box or premium channels. The only reason we're not at the "Basic" pricing level is HGTV and a smattering of other popular teenager channels like Disney, ABC Family, MTV/VH1, and an occasional ESPN. So our incentive to change would have to beat a monthly fee of, say, $75.

I split that cable signal among a TV, a TV/VCR, and five more VHS VCRs. (The TVs are 21" & 32" CRTs without HD capability.) I have a sixth VCR on the reserve stack but it's not connected to the signal. This system records approximately 10 hours per day which spouse fast-forwards through one of the five VCRs for the actual 90 minutes of content that she's interested in watching. Spouse listens through headphones plugged into a 1990s receiver, or we route the audio through a pair of 1983-vintage stereo speakers. We tape anytime something's on, day or night, and sometimes as much as eight hours at a stretch. On a "normal" day I'll have three VCRs running during the 7-9 PM primetime slots. A "max peak" day (every few months) will tie up five VCRs. Two decades of evolution is not pretty but it's functional, robust, and easy to maintain. I have a couple hundred blank VHS tapes but I'm having a heckuva time finding replacement VCRs & remote controls, and that's going to be a show-stopper (literally!) in about five years.

I have a VHF antenna in our attic that receives all the local broadcast (analog) signals, most of them better than cable, so until they go off the air I won't need a service to give me "local" programs.

My "dream system" would be able to simultaneously record up to seven signals (from wherever) onto one or more DVRs which would all be able to play back through one TV. We'd need to be able to dump an occasional program to to a second TV but I don't see spouse spending a lot of time burning & swapping DVDs. It could be a cable or even something wireless. I just want to have the operating procedures at the lowest common denominator and a minimum of network admin hassles. Since I'm starting from scratch (and have saved plenty over the years with this old technology), price is not as much of an issue as standardization, ease of use, & reliability. We don't want latest & greatest.

Is anyone using anything even remotely similar to our current system or my dream system? Has anyone had to solve this problem yet?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You'll have some challenges. Stuff like mythtv, sagetv, windows media center edition and so forth can offer some of the functionality of a tivo with a fair bit of effort on your behalf.

Seven tuners is going to be a challenge. I havent looked lately but last time I checked I only saw one and two tuner boards. Might be a four tuner kicking around. You might not have enough PCI slots in your machine for that many boards. You'll want hardware mpeg encoding and that means an expensive bunch of h/w. Even at that, you might run out of disk bandwidth storing 7 streams (and presumably watching some of them).

Now thats been said...what seven things are on all at the same time? I've got a two-tuner tivo and I rarely get a collision with a 3rd program.

Comcast is getting tivo s/w back on their two tuner box. You can use several of those. HD content is doable on them, but you get a lot more hours of storage by recording SD. They're only about ten bucks a month.

 

[TromboneAl]

There's got to be a better solution than recording seven streams.

I'm guessing that DW is pretty sure she's not going to watch Teletubbies, for example, so there's one stream you can eliminate.

The point is, that you're thinking of recording everything and then deciding later what to watch. But with a good DVR, it's easy to decide ahead of time what you'll want to see, and only record those shows. The recordings are all nicely labelled, so you don't have to scan through other stuff.

We usually have too much stuff to watch, and we only record one stream.

Also, if you have 7 recorders going 10 hours a day, assuming each takes 20 watts, that's 1.4 KWH a day, or $90/year at $.175/KWH.

 

[TromboneAl]

P.S. Maybe the bunny (not CFB) watches Teletubbies.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

No teletubbies here. Its Caillou all day, every day. Sometimes a request for Barney.

 

[Sam]

My "dream system" would be able to simultaneously record up to seven signals (from wherever) onto one or more DVRs which would all be able to play back through one TV.

Nords, replacing the VCRs with the DVRs would be too obvious and costly, right?

I am not aware of any single DVR that is capable of handling 7 simultaneous inputs. I don't think the hardware is fast enough to encode that many analog inputs. The disk is not fast enough to record the data.

A possibility is a multiple processors computer with two or three fast disk array controllers, each connected to its own set of hard drives. And 2 or 3 video controllers, each handling 2 or 3 video inputs. I think all these components are available today, but the cost could be prohibitive.

Anyway, let us know when you have a solution.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

the cost could be prohibitive.

The good news is, you can heat the house off of it!

The bad news is, you live in hawaii.

 

[Kwirk]

I have a similar situation but no good solution.

We have a Comcast HD DVR with 2 tuners. It can record 2 shows while playing back a third. I've added a 400 GB external hard drive to expand the capacity. Generally works well and rarely dips below 90% full. This is the system DW uses for most of the HD and digital (scrambled) channels. This is rented from Comcast for $10/month, a good deal if you think about the cost of buying equipment with a limited useful life. The drawback is that there's no simple system for copying anything to DVDs.

We also have a media PC with Windows MCE. There are 2 standard def tuners on a single PCI card that operate within MCE recording analog cable shows. There's MyHD, an internal HD tuner card with its own software to record unscrambled HD/digital cable content. The PC also has a Fusion USB HD tuner with an antenna connection for recording off the air HD. The Fusion has its own software. The PC has 1.25 TB of disk space but DW could fill a lot more. I don't know if DW's ever used all 4 PC tuners at the same time but it would probably work. The PC is a pain to maintain but material can be transferred to DVD.

Finally we have a Panasonic DVD/HDD recorder with a single tuner that records standard definition cable shows using a cable mouse to control a digital cable box as tuner. This system can be used to record standard definition analog and digital shows. Unfortunately, decent DVD/HDD recorders have become rare.

That's a total of 7 tuners recording to a variety of hard drives. DW rarely uses the 2nd MCE tuner or the Fusion. DVD's are only used for material that we want to share with family or if we need to free up space.

If you find a great solution I'll be very interested.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Did you have to hack MCE to do four tuners or does the newer version run more than 3? The last time I checked it, it only ran three and badly at that.

Kinda neat to use an old xbox and my new xbox 360 with media center extender as the "remote", but it took a while getting used to using a game controller to pause and play...

 

[Kwirk]

Did you have to hack MCE to do four tuners

Only the the analog card with 2 tuners runs from MCE. The HD card and the USB HD tuner run with their own (less than ideal) software.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Ahhhh...I should have read the post a little more thoroughly. Makes perfect sense now...although I thought I saw some registry hacks to allow MCE to do more than a couple of tuners...

yep...there it is...
The Green Button - Howto: Setup 3 analog Tuners (Pinned)

Theres even a piece of software to save you the registry editing...although I think I'd be more likely to do it by hand than download and run a piece of software from some guy in the netherlands...

 

[Kwirk]

The trick would be to get XP MCE to do digital cable. OTA digital can be done with some effort but digital cable is definitely not supported. DW has learned to use the MyHD and Fusion software so I'm not eager to fix something that's not broken. Besides, DW is too busy [-]watching[/-] freeing up disk space to let me tinker.

I have a recently acquired copy of Vista Home Premium but I haven't explored its capabilities re digital cable/HD.

 

[Nords]

Now thats been said...what seven things are on all at the same time? I've got a two-tuner tivo and I rarely get a collision with a 3rd program.

Agreed, it's all crap and seven is probably max peak. For example, Thursday's lineup is sitcoms on one broadcast channel from 7-9 PM, drama on a second broadcast channel from 7-10 PM, a local home-improvement show from 9:30-10:30 (Oceanic Cable only, would probably lose that one if we unplugged), VH-1 Rock Honors from 7-9 PM on a fourth channel, PBS from 6-midnight on a fifth channel, and HGTV from 8 PM-4 AM. According to Zap2It that's one of the busiest nights of the week, but occasionally things stack up 6-7 deep-- especially if A&E or TLC are doing something spouse wants to keep an eye on.

The scheduling reminds me of the good ol' watchbill-writing days. Being able to do it with software & downloads, or having spouse do her own, would be an unexpected bonus.

We have a Comcast HD DVR with 2 tuners. It can record 2 shows while playing back a third. I've added a 400 GB external hard drive to expand the capacity. Generally works well and rarely dips below 90% full. This is the system DW uses for most of the HD and digital (scrambled) channels. This is rented from Comcast for $10/month, a good deal if you think about the cost of buying equipment with a limited useful life. The drawback is that there's no simple system for copying anything to DVDs.

A Comcast/Tivo setup would be great. I'd be willing to add one of those and retire a couple VCRs every few months. I guess the worst problem would be switching & sorting among hard drives with the remote(s), and our 1980s-vintage audio system would probably have to be replaced by something one-tenth the cubic volume, weight, power use, and price. And if I could swap "files" between the DVRs that'd eliminate the need to sneakernet DVDs between two rooms.

I guess while spouse & kid are shopping for shoes in Mainland malls this month I'll wander over to Best Buy and the other electronics stores...

As for the cost, you just can't put a price on marital bliss or your 21st wedding anniversary. I'm sure that "electronics" will pop up in the rotation before another slug of carats.

 

[kathyet]

We have 3 tv's set up with direct tv we have vcr's, dvd's on 2 and a direct tv dvr on one, if it comes to the point of not getting things taped on the vcr or recordable dvd we could get another dvr from direct ...I did see a new type of dvr or system that copies your recorded programs from all types of recorded systems movies etc to a dvd that is new it was at costco a while back it even copied old movies but like most of those thing it could be confusing to work..our recordable dvd is becoming a problem the remote isn't working.

I actually posted about that new system I found at costco on raddr's page a while back if I can find the link about that new machine I will post it here.

kathyet

 

[W2R]

It has been so long since there were two shows on that I REALLY wanted to watch, that I threw away my VCR last year. It was fun to just toss it in the trash can and liberate myself from what arguably might be considered to be obsolete technology. I hadn't used it in over five years and haven't missed it!

Nords, I wonder if just the desire to have a system such as you describe says something about ER and how different it must be from working life. You have so much time to devote to this.

Now (dare I say this?)... From my (working) viewpoint, I wonder if this is really what you wanted and had in mind when you planned to ER? For me the desire to record 7 channels at once would be a red flag that it was time for more introspection and self-adjustment, to make sure I was spending my life and freedom doing what would truly make me happy. On the other hand, we are all so individual and different, and maybe I am really out of line with these thoughts.

 

[Nords]

Nords, I wonder if just the desire to have a system such as you describe says something about ER and how different it must be from working life. You have so much time to devote to this.

Sure, in my working days I'd just pay the bill and move on to the next problem. Only in ER have I had the time to scrub all the bills and adjust coverage & services accordingly!

It's not a trivial $$ issue, either. Now that I have the time, we've literally saved hundreds on insurance & utilities every year for the next five-six decades. We never would've found a photovoltaic solar system, let alone bought it & installed it, if we weren't retired. We never would have found all our Craigslist bargains if we didn't have the time to search for them, the flexibility to drive down there right away, and the cash in hand to pay for it.

Now (dare I say this?)... From my (working) viewpoint, I wonder if this is really what you wanted and had in mind when you planned to ER? For me the desire to record 7 channels at once would be a red flag that it was time for more introspection and self-adjustment, to make sure I was spending my life and freedom doing what would truly make me happy. On the other hand, we are all so individual and different, and maybe I am really out of line with these thoughts.

No, no offense taken, I don't watch the [-]crap[/-] stuff. It's about marital bliss. I'm a nuclear engineer who always plans for the max peak worst case (and then doubles it). I've been the media system administrator for over a decade (I ER'd five years ago) and I'm just trying to simplify its operation so that I don't have to spend a lot of time/trouble on it.

I don't know if anyone has noticed this yet, but VCRs are about as commercially available as IBM Selectric typewriters. I can't even find them at Goodwill or pawnshops anymore. Try to find a VHS video rewinder or a head cleaner, too.

Spouse enjoys fast-forwarding through the commercials & repeats. She enjoys watching what she wants when she wants to. Our kid has learned a lot from the occasional PBS or Oprah video that we've thrown her way. We've all learned a tremendous amount from HGTV that's fundamentally changed my views on home improvement. But I can see that the infrastructure is 18-24 months from implosion and that I need to do something about it.

Luckily, as an ER I can anticipate the problem instead of reacting to it!

 

[riskaverse]

I use 2 dual channel TiVo's giving me the capability of 4 record and 2 playback sessions all concurrent. The added functionality of the season passes without duplication make it a very rare occasion when I have a conflict where a program won't record. In that case, I can usually swap out one of the existing scheduled recordings to a different time slot after looking for a duplicate broadcast. I started with a cable TiVo, but dumped it after about a year because of the superior recordings that a satellite signal produced. The TiVo's record the satellite signal in it's compressed format so when playback is initiated, it is decompressed exactly the same as if it was being broadcast. I think I get over a hour of recording per gigabyte. The TiVo's use standard PC drives, so I boosted them to 120 and 160 G. I start deleting things we haven't watched in 4 months, but I could probably increase that to a year before I ran out of space. I also had to modulate the TiVo's onto the other TVs in the house, and with such a complex system, you need to buy a fairly expensive remote(s) with high WAF's to handle the switching easily. (WAF = Wife Acceptance Factor). I have a couple of VCR's and a DVD recorder too, but haven't found a use for them in a couple of years.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Plausible solution...I'm thinking all y'all dont get directv out there in HI but I never looked.

I believe the comcast recorders can be set with separate remote control ID's. 3-4 boxes, same # of remote controls, piece of colored tape on each one, 4->1 S-video pushbutton manual AV switch

Unfortunately that'll cost you 30-40 a month. If you can get directv, Its an extra $5 per receiver per month.


I think you could build a big burly media box and use appliances for remote tv's...but it'd be expensive, the softwares sort of suckball, and you'd have daily tech support stuff to deal with.

Not the ingredients for marital bliss.

Let me put it a different way...I thought about doing this a little under a year ago, looked at the options, the costs and the advantages and completely ruled out building my own media box or going with a commercial PC based solution. Three dual tuner directivos and one may be taken out of service soon.

So simple to use, Gabes been turning the tv on and starting barney and caillou by himself for almost a year now.

 

[whitestick]

The Tivo that records to DVD is the Humax one, don't know if it comes in dual tuner or not, I just have the single tuner version.
Question for you with multiple dual tuners and conflicting programs. I've noticed a tendency for some channels to begin programs at times other then on the hour, i.e. some will start at 6:55 and go to 7:55, while others start at 7:05 and go to 8:05. This has on numerous occasions caused me to not be able to schedule one or the other program due to the overlap. When this occurs, and it seems to be more frequently now, does this end up causig you to jumble things to balance which Tivos will be recording what to also deal with this offset craziness, or is it just something they are doing here in North Dallas by Time Warner?

 

[TromboneAl]

Our TV viewing has developed into a set [-]rut[/-] routine. Each night we watch (all recorded on the DVR): Leno, Conan, National News, Local News.
It doesn't take very long to watch those two hours of TV, since we skip all commercials, all "When we come back..." commercial intros, all sports news, and news about sewer rates in neighboring towns.

For the weather, all the necessary information is contained in first day part of the five-day forecast graphic, so there's no need to see the satellite images and doppler radar.

Then we have the automatic skips: Any news story on the middle east, all Iraq war coverage, any sports guest on Leno, Ross the Intern, etc.

If there's time left over, we watch a movie or other show.

I actually feel bad about how much TV we watch, but I'm tired enough at night that I just want to be passive and be entertained. I have to admit that I enjoy it and look forward to it.

.

 

[kcowan]

Timeshifting usually helps us avoid conflicts with just 2 recorders. Watching the recorded stuff and skipping commercials makes the viewing more intense. But we prefer it to the aggravation of commercials and all the time-wasting techniques (filler) that networks use. The specialty channels have a rich variety of stuff but usually it is never broadcast at a convenient time.

I think if we had 7 recordings going on, I would get the job of channel-changer. Sometimes our favourite sports like Wimbledon are broadcast when we are busy. Biggest problem seems to be more material to watch than we want to spend.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've noticed a tendency for some channels to begin programs at times other then on the hour, i.e. some will start at 6:55 and go to 7:55, while others start at 7:05 and go to 8:05.

That stuff makes me crazy. I think it was NBC that started it and then fox and fx picked it up. Its nationwide.

I'm not sure if they're trying to bundle more minutes of commercial time into the "hot" show or just trying to get people to overrun their watching so competitive follow-on shows are already on.

Oddly, it seems the shows actually run in the 00-59 minute range the majority of the time.

The dual tuner HELPS fix this. But you'll still have a problem if you're recording two shows that run to :01-:05 and a third show starting at :00.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

...I wonder if this is really what you wanted and had in mind when you planned to ER? For me the desire to record 7 channels at once would be a red flag....

Even after seeing Nords' reply, I was left with the same thought.

How about a looooong family camping trip or a round-the-world voyage in a catamaran?

Scratch that. Harmony is a pearl of great price.

 

[SecondCor521]

I don't know if anyone has noticed this yet, but VCRs are about as commercially available as IBM Selectric typewriters. I can't even find them at Goodwill or pawnshops anymore. Try to find a VHS video rewinder or a head cleaner, too.

Interesting. I have been considering adding a VCR to my A/V mix for a while now, and there are about a dozen VCR's at the nearest thrift store, all between $10 and $15 each. Most look to be in perfectly fine shape.

PM me if you're interested in them. I'd be glad to buy a few and ship them your way. I can't tell if you would want them as my eyes glaze over at the complexity of y'alls TV setups. I have an old color TV with rabbit ears and a DVD player.

2Cor521

 

[TromboneAl]

I've noticed a tendency for some channels to begin programs at times other then on the hour,

I've even wondered if they do this to discourage recording. My DVR picks up the true start/stop time of the show, but a few times the movie has run about two minutes past this. You choke on your popcorn if get to that point, and find that there's no more. One I remember was the movie Sliding Doors which isn't resolved until the very end. Luckily we recorded it again another time and saw the whole thing.

Now I usually check for the ending credits before I get into a movie.