OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
William R. Walsh
group!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The OptiPlex 210L has been cleaned up and put into use in what is
probably a very unexpected role. I'm using it as a DVR, with a
Hauppauge Computer Works Win-TV-HVR-1600 that was sitting around for
way too little money at a local computer parts dealer. So far I've
been recording to an external USB 2.5" 7200RPM 100GB hard disk.
It actually works pretty well, now that I've updated all the WinTV
drivers and software and installed more RAM. At first it had a lot of
problems with being unable to record video without corrupting it. The
latest software and drivers solved this problem.
I've been watching and recording digital TV since getting all the
kinks worked out. It's really surprising how hard this actually seems
to push the Intel Pentium 4 531 CPU, which is almost constantly at 60%
utilization per Windows Task Manager. I don't know if that is the
fault of the Intel GMA 915, although I doubt it. The manual only says
that watching ATSC TV "is a processor intensive task" for most
systems. Picture quality on a Samsung 15" flat panel is very, very
good.
Interestingly, the board does have a Conexant hardware MPEG encoder
with embedded ARM CPU on it. Hauppauge says that this part provides
assistance when encoding video from the analog tuner. They don't say
anything about the ATSC tuner and hardware assisted MPEG encoder.
But it does work, and it seems to work pretty well for what the system
is. I let it burn in recording whatever was on several different
channels over the course of the night and found that it worked
perfectly as of this morning.
William
Tom Scales
There is no encoding on an ATSC stream. It just writes it to disk as it
is already compressed MPEG2.
Go to www.snapstream.com and download the trial of BeyondTV. You'll get
hooked.
William R. Walsh
> There is no encoding on an ATSC stream. It just writes
> it to disk as it is already compressed MPEG2.
Ah! I should have known that...
> www.snapstream.com and download the trial of BeyondTV. > You'll get hooked.
I did that late last night after your suggestion. It's definitely
interesting and an improvement over the Hauppauge WinTV application.
About the only thing I couldn't do or find out how to do was delete
the TV channels I don't get. The automatic scan got hung up on a few
and wouldn't continue.
Otherwise, it makes a strong case for utility and ease of use. And it
even works with the remote control.
William
William R. Walsh
> > You'll get hooked.
In some ways, Beyond TV is great, and definitely has the potential to
get me "hooked". It's certainly better than WinTV 6. In other ways, it
has some letdowns. The built in help system is very obviously
incomplete, especially in the area of DVD burning. The OptiPlex did
not have a DVD burner in it, so I hooked one up over Firewire. I had
restart BeyondTV to get it to notice and then it took off.
Then I found I couldn't just burn the shows I'd recorded to a DVD
video-formatted disc. The button was greyed out, and the help system
had no information as to why that was so. I finally searched the web
and found that on SnapStream's own web site, they had information
explaining that burning MPEG2 transport stream files is not directly
supported unless you take the intermediate step of "squeezing" them
first. But it doesn't *tell* me that in the form of a "hey dummy"
dialog, and that information is missing from the help system.
I also am not totally crazy about the line in the EULA that says no
matter what, SnapStream will be collecting data from the application
so that they can see what people are trying to do with it and where
problematic areas are. (I sure hope they noticed my trying to find a
way to pick the channels I can get, and the disc burning adventure.)
You can't turn that "feature" off, the only option is to choose a more
conservative information collection and forwarding mode.
In other words, "It's MY Computer"
And finally, it seems that there is some reference to componentized
licensing that gets involved...that certain modules like DVD burning
and h.264 encoding have to be licensed separately. Because I tend to
run some software until long after the manufacturer has forgotten or
gone out of business, I want to know that I've got all the possible
modules and add ons for the package, in case I want to start using
them later on. I'd want to know that I'm getting the whole thing in
ine one package should I decide to buy a license, something SnapStream
doesn't seem to be clear about.
So it's definitely a very cool idea, but I'm on the fence about
actually buying a license when the trial runs up.
William
JayB
but I DO NOT like it at all.
cant remember the exact reasons why, but also very bloatey, i.e. too
many processes running as i recall.
i'm not quite sure what Tom sees in it, but to me it is unusable.
i think a step backward in functionality.
the hauppauge software works just fine for me.
William R. Walsh
> i also purchased a copy based on Tom's recommendation, last year,
> but I DO NOT like it at all.
Just because I want everything to be clear: What I posted is ***not***
in any way a condemnation or "attack" of any sort on Tom or anyone.
I'm pleased that he offered the recommendation, it's my understanding
that he does a lot of this sort of thing. I don't want to come across
as biting the hand that made the recommendation.
My posting is only a "thoughts and ideas" on things that SnapStream
could improve about their product. I doubt if they'll ever see it, but
stranger things have happened in this area before. Perhaps I will
write and mail (!!!!) them a letter, just because I can.
I didn't find the program "bloaty" at all, although it does have a few
separate helper processes running at times. In general, I like it
better than WinTV 6, especially for recording live TV. But there are
some very definite areas for improvement, and some of them could keep
me from buying into it.
William
Tom Scales
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William R. Walsh [mailto:wm_w...@hotmail.com]
> Posted At: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:13 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
I've been running it for 6 years. My family couldn't live without it.
3 servers (for a variety of reasons) and 7 Clients.
All HD.
Tom Scales
infrastructure with multiple TVs, servers and clients. All dedicated.
Works amazingly for me.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JayB [mailto:Ja...@audiman.net]
> Posted At: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:01 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
Tom Scales
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William R. Walsh [mailto:wm_w...@hotmail.com]
> Posted At: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:32 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
I took it well :) I knew what you meant. It isn't well designed to
run on a machine on which you are going to do other things.
Once you explore it, it is very cool, but not for everyone.
The coolest thing is the Hauppauge HD PVR. Still in beta, but records
Component Out from a Cable box, in HD, compressed to h.264 on the fly.
In other words, recorded HD with NO DRM.
William R. Walsh
> I took it well :) I knew what you meant. It isn't well designed to
> run on a machine on which you are going to do other things.
Well, not quite. Since I set it up, the OptiPlex has been dedicated to the
task. The Deskpro it's sitting on gets all the humbler day-to-day work for
the most part.
> Once you explore it, it is very cool, but not for everyone.
I really, really like some of the features. And it sure does work better
(much more quickly and with a lot less "lag" than WinTV) in most respects. I
think it just needs some polishing to go from "interesting" to "absolutely
great". I could really see having this as the "back end", plugged into the
antenna tap in the basement and another computer upstairs driving the TV and
playing recordings over the network.
This is really my first foray into these things. I've had an ATI TV Wonder
in my Dim8300 for a while, and I've only ever recorded TV with it once to
see if I really could. And it mostly worked. An HP Vectra PII with a
Hauppauge WinTV PCI board has seen a lot of use for capturing video stills
of silly little "TV shows" that I did with a camcorder and too much free
time some years ago. That actually worked well, although the PII didn't have
the strength to compress video at "live" speed. If I captured, I had to do
it raw and compress later.
William (definitely still exploring -- I must now go play with some freshly
squeezed video to see if I can put it on DVD! If you hear a loud boom, it
was probably me.)
m...@privacy.net
<newsg...@idontwantjunqueemail.walshcomptech.com>
wrote:
> I could really see having this as the "back end", plugged into the
>antenna tap in the basement and another computer upstairs driving the TV and
>playing recordings over the network.
Have you looked into Myth TV?
There is even a Usenet group for it
William R. Walsh
> Have you looked into Myth TV?
Yes, I have heard of it. I'm thinking of trying it. The only thing
that turns me off a little bit is the Linux aspect.
I want to love Linux, I really do. And for some things, it is
great...it is running my Linksys NSLU2 and wireless access point/
router, and it works great for these jobs.
But whenever I use it on the desktop, I always find some stupid little
thing that mars the experience, is much harder than it should be,
doesn't work at all and usually leaves me feeling irritated/wishing
that it weren't that way.
William
William R. Walsh
> I've been running it for 6 years. My family couldn't
> live without it. 3 servers (for a variety of reasons)
> and 7 Clients.
Now, when you say servers, do you mean computers that do nothing but
store TV that is being recorded on another computer, or do you mean
computers that combine TV recording with storage? What kind/model of
computers do this?
I take it the clients just play previously recorded TV? Are they
hooked up to TVs or computer monitors? And what computers did you use
for that?
I'm looking at doing the latter (one computer records and stores TV)
if I get into this, using the OptiPlex and a Massively Huge Amount of
storage attached via USB and possibly Firewire (if my needs exceed the
number of available USB ports, which I doubt).
I don't watch an awful lot of TV, but I think I could still enjoy the
DVR concept.
William
Ben Myers
William,
In effect, you are saying that Linux has made enough progress on the
desktop that it is now on a par with Windows, with its "stupid little
things that mar the experience." Or, if you consider Windows is full of
stupid BIG things that mar the experience, Linux is now ahead of Windows.
Of course, for me, it is a given that familiarity breeds contempt.
... Ben Myers
William R. Walsh
> In effect, you are saying that Linux has made enough
> progress on the desktop that it is now on a par with
> Windows, with its "stupid little things that mar the
> experience."
No.
I've written various rants on the subject when I've tried and failed
to do a certain thing, or only found the answer after a whole lot of
messing around, akin to this:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
And I've never published a one of them, for various reasons. (Mostly
lack of time to finish them.)
So far they would include:
1. The joys of configuring dial-up internet access on an older version
of RedHat. ("When the instructions are wrong...and this is much harder
than it should be anyway...")
2. Printing from Fedora Core 6 Linux on a Power Macintosh "Sawtooth"
G4. (Never got it to work at all...)
3. Getting MP3 playback working on the same platform as #2. (This I
finally managed to pull off, because the info was available but
scattered. It took an hour.)
4. Playing DVD moviews at all. (People don't talk about this, probably
due to legal ramifications.)
5. Customizing the gOS distribution of Linux by adding software to it
("you can't have root! you don't need root! don't even ask!") and
working with its equivalent to the Mac OS X dock. (Poorly documented
at best, so now it doesn't work at all and I'm not sure I care why.
Oh, and the process scheduler has some problems too...processes
running in the background at idle priority get shut out and starved.)
They all boil down to the same thing. I'm not a "non technical user"
by any stretch of the imagination. No, I don't program in assembler
(or even do a lot of programming at all) but I know what it is. I can
look at a motherboard and find the various major functional
components, and know where each function is performed. I read
datasheets for parts because I like knowing about hardware. I'm not
afraid to push the envelope with what I have. I've even given some
thought to designing hardware devices of my own where I feel what is
available is somehow lacking. I have developed some little bits of
software over the years in higher level languages. On the software
side I've done plenty as well...working across multiple platforms to
set up all kinds of different things...database servers, web servers,
domain controllers (on Mac OS X no less) for Windows users, client
desktops, user training, etc, etc, etc. I've used and feel comfortable
with DOS, Windows, Mac OS X, classic Mac OS, A/UX, OS/2, GEM, CP/M,
and even a very little of AIX and Solaris.
In other words, I honestly don't think I'm stupid when it comes to
this stuff. Nor do I know every little thing, either. I'm certainly
not afraid to read up on a subject to learn more about it when I don't
know. It is very little that manages to stump me for any great length
of time when it comes to computing.
Various projects I've attempted (see list above) on Linux sure have
made me feel stupid, though. And sometimes, the information I seek is
unclear, scarce or laced with an attitude of "if you have to ask about
that, you're a moron". I want to pull my hair and scream because I
can't find the answers I need and make it work, something I am driven
to do. That is what I'm getting at. And every time I've come back out
of my shell to give Linux another try, some little thing comes out to
bite me. That leaves me feeling bad.
Some people say that "the people behind that wrote it for free, you
should be glad they even bothered whether it actually works or not". I
don't universally agree with that, it suggests that whoever did it did
not necessarily take pride in and care about what they did.
I want to like the Linux platform. I really, really do. I can see the
promise it holds. It has gotten a lot better as more and more people
have become aware of it. But it still has a way to go.
And yes, Windows does make me just as mad from time to time. However,
I have yet to come into a problem there that I truly cannot figure out
or work around in some way.
William (Whew! I hope that conveys my meaning.)
m...@privacy.net
>Yes, I have heard of it. I'm thinking of trying it. The only thing
>that turns me off a little bit is the Linux aspect.
Agree with you on the Linux thing
I think the best thing to do is to use a desktop as
ONLY a Myth machine in that case and have another
machine around with Windows on it
olfart
<m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:u9uoo4tmbgadknvvj...@4ax.com...
I have an older box with Win 2000 and Ubuntu8.4 dual boot. Also have Win 95,
Win98 & Wim ME on VMs within Win 2000 and they are all easier to setup and
use than Ubuntu. . Every once in a while when I'm bored out of my skull I
boot Ubuntu....have a good laugh...and shut it back down
Ben Myers
FWIW, the various mainstream Linux distros have come a long way baby.
What happened with an old version of Red Hat, for example, does not
relate to the way that Red Hat or Fedora would behave today. Even the
somewhat legendary arrogance of Linux/Unix people has softened in recent
years. On the whole, they all realize that they have to do better if
Linux is to survive and thrive. For the fun of it, try a recent Linux
live distro on a computer that is not quite today's absolute state of
the art, i.e. 1 or 2 years old so you won't have the same driver
problems you would have installing and running Windows on the most
modern box. A live version runs directly from CD, won't mess with your
hard drive, and gives you the chance to test drive it... Ben Myers
Tom Scales
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William R. Walsh [mailto:wm_w...@hotmail.com]
> Posted At: Friday, February 06, 2009 9:55 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
> Subject: Re: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
>
I have two machines that act as servers, but also have TVs attached.
One uses the SiliconDust HDHomerun to record unencrypted Cable (QAM). I
have two HDHRs, so four tuners. That gets me the locals in HD.
I have another machine, also attached to a TV, that has older SD tuners
-- all Hauppauge. They record channels that are not locals, plus
'backups' of the local shows (in case the HD recording fails).
I actually am using a third machine as a server, attached to a TV, that
is usually a client. I'm using a Hauppauge HD PVR tuner which is still
pretty buggy, but way cool. It takes Component out of an HD cable box,
converts it on the fly to h.264 compressed video (same as blu ray) and
records it. In other words, all channels, including HBO, recorded --
without any messy DRM (so I can play them anywhere, including my
iPhone).
Then I have a bunch of machines running BTVLink that are all attached to
TVs. From a user interface, they look EXACTLY like BTV and can play
content from any of the servers. In my environment, only one of them
serves up content. The other two move their content to the common
server after recording. On a BTVLink machine, you can watch shows,
watch Live TV or schedule recordings on the server -- anything you can
do on a server.
This is the primary reason I have gigabit. It's not required, even for
HD, but if all the TVs are going at the same time, plus servers are
moving content, I saturate 100BaseT.
It's a ridiculous environment and can't be rationalized as cost
effective, but we absolutely love it. I haven't watched anything live
it years -- even sports. I start recording a game and wait about 15-20
minutes to start watching it. That way I can pause it, skip commercials
and time outs, anything I can do on a recording -- just with a little
lag behind live.
I also run BTVLink on my laptop, so if I'm in the mood, I can watch
recorded shows (or games in progress) from the porch or anywhere else.
I may even run coax down to the dock and install an Access Point on the
dock. That would let me get wireless from the boat out a bit on the
lake.
Tom
BillW50
Ben Myers typed on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:26:51 -0500:
> ... A live version runs directly from CD, won't mess with your hard
Careful with the Ubuntu Live version on a Windows machine. As I had
Windows XP on a SSD and Ubuntu on a flash drive. And after I was done
with Ubuntu, Windows XP wouldn't boot. It would just hang before
completely loading up. I restored the Windows registry with BartPE and
ERUNT and that worked great. I didn't believe Ubuntu would screw up
Windows, so I ran Ubuntu again two more times with the same result.
--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu
BillW50
Tom Scales typed on Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:25:43 GMT:
[...]
> I also run BTVLink on my laptop, so if I'm in the mood, I can watch
> recorded shows (or games in progress) from the porch or anywhere else.
> I may even run coax down to the dock and install an Access Point on
> the dock. That would let me get wireless from the boat out a bit on
> the lake.
Ever try those cheap UHF transmitters? As any tuner that can receive UHF
can receive the signal. The image isn't that great though, about on par
with a 6 hour VHS format. They can transmit up to 500 feet. I think they
are great and far better (problem-wise) than 2.4GHz TX/RX.
Tom Scales
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BillW50 [mailto:Bil...@aol.kom]
> Posted At: Saturday, February 07, 2009 7:19 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
> Subject: Re: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
>
G works fine for BTVLink as long as you compress the HD to DIVX (BTV
does it automatically). It won
Tom Scales
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BillW50 [mailto:Bil...@aol.kom]
> Posted At: Saturday, February 07, 2009 7:19 AM
> Posted To: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
> Conversation: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
> Subject: Re: OptiPlex 210L as a DVR
>
Try that again. I pretty much only watch HD, even on the laptop. G
streams it flawlessly as long as I compress it to DIVX 1280x720P. BTV
does that automatically if I want.
I can't live with VHS quality :)
BillW50
Tom Scales typed on Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:48:44 GMT:
> Try that again. I pretty much only watch HD, even on the laptop. G
> streams it flawlessly as long as I compress it to DIVX 1280x720P. BTV
> does that automatically if I want.
>
> I can't live with VHS quality :)
Oh that would kill those nifty UHF transmitters then. It is the easiest
way to get wireless video and audio though. I use it a lot with my
handheld color Casio TV. And the display is too small to see any loss of
quality anyway. I do have one HD big screen and one receiver. Although
HD isn't a big deal for me for some reason.
Ben Myers
> In news:gmj2id$dom$1...@news.motzarella.org,
> Ben Myers typed on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:26:51 -0500:
>> ... A live version runs directly from CD, won't mess with your hard
>> drive, and gives you the chance to test drive it... Ben Myers
>
> Careful with the Ubuntu Live version on a Windows machine. As I had
> Windows XP on a SSD and Ubuntu on a flash drive. And after I was done
> with Ubuntu, Windows XP wouldn't boot. It would just hang before
> completely loading up. I restored the Windows registry with BartPE and
> ERUNT and that worked great. I didn't believe Ubuntu would screw up
> Windows, so I ran Ubuntu again two more times with the same result.
>
That's interesting to know. Even more interesting would be to know the
specific Ubuntu distro, whether or not you reported the problem to the
Ubuntu folk, and how you prepared the bootable Ubuntu flash drive.
I have not experienced the same sort of problem, but, then, I simply
burn the Ubuntu (or Fedora or Mandriva or FeatherLinux or OpenSuse or
CentOS) ISO to CD or DVD as appropriate... Ben Myers
BillW50
Ben Myers typed on Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:02:07 -0500:
Well I had taken Ubuntu and used Unetbootin which takes any Linux Live
distro .iso and makes it bootable on any flash drive. I also did the
very same with Puppy Linux as well. And Puppy didn't mess with the
Windows registry.
puppy-4.1-k2.6.25.16-seamonkey.iso
ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso
unetbootin-windows-299.exe
So is it Ubuntu, Unetbootin, or something else to blame for the problem?
I never tried it on another Windows machine yet, but I should. I have
tried it on a Xandros Linux system and that was just fine. As far as I
am concern, Linux shouldn't be writing anything on a NTFS bootable
partition which has nothing to do with Linux anyway.
Ben Myers
to the current 8.10. And you're right. A live version of Linux has no
reason to write to any NTFS partition. I have no clue about setting up
Linux to boot from flash. Maybe the people who did the tools to prepare
the bootable flash software are the ones whose software messed up
Windows for you? Without some other software or hardware analyzer to
trace the events that clobbered the registry, we are all tilting at
windmills.
Let me suggest this: Repeat your Ubuntu 8.04 experiment with the hard
drive removed from the system, and do the same with a live CD. If the
flash flavor hangs the system instead of booting it, you will have found
the cause of the problem. For sure, the live CD won't, at least on most
systems. I often use it as a quick overall hardware diagnostic test on
a system I am about to refurbish, and the systems sometimes do not have
any hard drives... Ben Myers