Watch TV Over Home Network

Hey!

So I've done a lot of research over different cable companies and such since I haven't had TV since last year around easter time (Dish Network screwed us over big time)

So I would like to know how I can watch TV in my living room and then possibly on 1-3 other laptops...

I want to be able to watch different channels at once, this is the main point of having this setup, because we all have different TV tastes and end up being at home at the same time....


So does anyone know of any good companies? solutions? programs? setups?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Can't believe someone has not replied to this yet. Slingbox is one of the best things to do that. For what you want you might have to get more then one though.

 

Yeah I know I was amazed at how long its taking

But anyways, I knew about the slingbox but my problem is getting "at least" the TV and 1-2 laptops running simultaneously showing different channels on each one...

So you can see how the problems is not the # of Slingboxes its the receiver/cable top that distributes the seperate channels and whatnot to different TV's/Cables...

 

Honestly? No one knows?

*bump*

 

Seriously?

*bump*

 

I am far from an expert in the area, but since I have not seen any replies recently, I will take a shot at it. You can try some Freeware call Orb ( http://www.orb.com/) that allows you to transmit video without the purchasing a Slingbox. I played with it last year with some success. Another piece of software is TVersity ( http://tversity.com/) that is similiar.

All of these are software based so you will need a desktop / laptop to transmit your video. There is hardware that will convert HDMI over CAT5e/6, but that costs some serious $$$ ($400-$500).

If you are looking @ DirecTV, they have Beta software available that will allow you to watch anything DVR'd over a network in full HD. I use it to watch DVR'd shows on my laptop & works great. It is called DIRECTV2PC ( http://www.directv.com/directv2pc/).

Hope this helps!

 

Awesome!

Yeah I knew about the PC part and all


But I specifically want to use the TV and a Laptop at the same time, with two seperate channels...

My idea I had was to use the DVR's signal in real time as it records a channel and grab that like a couple seconds after it is written to the DVR, so its almost real time you get my point?

I dont want to buy 2 cable subscriptions and hopefully not have to pay $50 to have a second TV/BOX

 

You could put the DVR on your TV & buy TV Tuner cards for your laptops. You would not be able to watch your DVR'd shows on them (like the Direct2PC option), but you could always watch regular cable TV (not digital cable). If you buy an HD TV Tuner card with QAM capability you typically can get local HD channels over regular cable. My laptop has a built-in tuner & that's what I do.

I just don't know of another option that does not require the expensive hardware equipment.

 

I was typing this out as you guys posted I guess:

So NOBODY know how to watch TV/DVR on a laptop at home while watching TV/DVR at the same time watching DIFFERENT content!?

This is pretty lame, its 2009 people, this is a joke
I am completely baffled at how far back we are, whenever I travel to china and I watch a little 5 year old watching TV on his god darn watch I just want to headbutt a wall until I go unconscious

I cannot find ANYTHING about anybody watching TV on a laptop and tv at the same time, yes maybe 2 TV's but with additional $$$
I had 2 TV's working once here perfectly fine, but I still cant find out how to watch a second fully controllable live feed of TV/DVR on a laptop on the same network (POSSIBLY away from home without interrupting whoever is watching TV while im gone)



This is just completely ridiculous, no one online has any info on how to watch TV on a laptop from a DVR/TV while allowing the TV to play it's own content? Were almost into the second decade of the 21st century and this isnt even mainstream?




Heres the simple picture that hopefully explains it all:

I walk into the livingroom and say goodmorning to my younger sister watching tv and doing homework
Then I walk back into the kitchen and enjoy a cup of coffee and eat some breakfast
I pop open my laptop and walk outside onto the deck (no its not a mile away from the router, its got solid signal)
I boot up, run a program, VOILA I watch tv/news/a DVR recording
In this process I dont interupt my sisters viewing experience and I can finally enjoy the 21st century tech

OR

I come home from school on a friday
I turn on my PS3, load GTA4 or Guitar Hero and chillout with some friends
My sister walks in and bickers about my using the TV
I just tell her to go grab her laptop and watch TV on it
VOILA problem solved


I simply want to be able to STREAM TV/DVR over my home network while allowing someone to watch TV on their own at the same time.




If there really isnt any solution than I will be left completely baffled and I will be questioning why there is any point in even living in the 21st century.
And I will definitely go ahead and freakin' fund my own company to fix this highly basic for the 21st century problem




Sorry if I am rambling but its been 4 days of research, hundreds of websites, dozen emails, some calls, this is ridiculous

 

I must say, making fun of people's lack of knowledge is a great way to get help. You never specify how the TV is hooked up. I have a media center PC that i built. Its connected to standard cable. Via media center I can watch one channel on it, and another live channel on an extender at the same time (I have a dual tuner). Put a second dual tuner in and now I can have 4 live channels at once. Not to mention, all recorded shows and other media are extend able. If you have to go through a cable box this won't work, but given your lack of information, this is all I can offer.

Chill out dude. TV is in a major transition and people are trying to prevent the kind of things you want to do. If the cable company can offer it to you and charge you for it, they would prefer to do that.

 

That's probably the reason why only a few people have helped him.

Anyways... to answer the OP's qusetion.

You'll need an HTPC with x amount of TV tuner. Since the cable in US are DTV, you'll need multiple cable box with spliter in front of the coxial cable. YOu'll need to hook up x-number of cable box to the x amount of tv tuner.

Now if the above part is done properly, you can now watch x amount of channels simultaneously. You can use windows media center, vlc player, slingbox,...etc to stream the signals to a extender which will playback the "video".

 

I've always wanted to figure out what the RJ-45 port on the back of digital cable boxes was for...

Perhaps if you own the box (ie; not renting it from your cable co.), you can try figuring that out.

Now, here is the theory that might give you some ideas. The tuner will only lock onto one frequency at a time, unless you have a dual tuner DVR (or a digital/DVR box that supports picture-in-picture). That means that unless you have a dual tuning device, you are locked to one channel, no matter what.

It's a neat idea, but I would take this question to a real networking board, and see what they can do. If you are good at programming, and hardware, you could possibly see about hacking apart a cable modem, and using that.

 

THANK YOU!
Finally!

Ask for any additional info if you need any


So I am probably going to be looking at a setup like this:

-Dish Network Advantage (2 DVR's, 1 Dual Tuner Cable Box if i'm not mistaken)

-Slingbox HD (Hooked up to the 2nd DVR)

-HD TV? Looking at some online, I am still clueless about what to get (2 HDMI minimum, plethora of anyting would be cool, I just need it to work with pretty much whatever I throw at it and display insane quality for <$1500 hopefully)


I have some questions:

-Is there anyway to transfer DVR recordings between DVRs? I am sure Dish Network most likely means it uses 1 DVR with Dual Tuners inside? And then 2 Seperate Set Top Boxes that get coaxial?

-I can control the DVR and Dish Network Set Top Box with the Slingbox right?



My whole budget for the TV, Dish Network, Slingbox, Speakers and everything else is hopefully $2000 tops,

 

Why not just upgrade the "slingbox HD" to a single HTPC with dual TV tuner. It serves as DVR, TV tuner, HD video broadcasting and a HTPC. It's cheaper than 2 slingbox and it does the same thing. But you're limited to LAN or WLAN.

You can use windows media center to share your tv braodcast through wireless (wireless N or LAN preferred for HD videos). It comes free with Windows Vista. You can also share media with Windows Media Player or VLC player.

Also, it's possible to use your PS3 as media extender and you can watch TV through it.

 

I think that having an HTPC in the mix will basically confuse the living crap out of anybody in this household and limit the TV to me...

I will most likely go with Dish Networks dual DVR (Dish Advantage) and hook up the second one to a slingbox HD, and if I really have time I will take out my old Dell and buy a dual TV tuner and work with that and see what I can do



But the whole idea here is simplicity, and MAC compatible...

How can I be paying for Dish Network and run a dual TV tuner?
Remember, I want to be able to watch TV on my laptop AND TV at the same time watching different content
I dont think paying for 1 TV can result in 2 seperate channel viewing just by hooking up a dual tuner? Or am I mistaken?
And I always want to be able to access my DVR from both the laptop and TV...



Sorry for stressing all of this, but there really seems to be no one that knows exactly how to do this, without buying multiple setups and paying double each time you add another stream and not to mention your not even sharing DVR

 

Here's what I do, you need Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate (or Windows 7 I guess).

Connect your main PC to cable using a TV Tuner (I use an OnAir/AutumnWave Creator USB tuner). Set it up in Windows Media Center and try watching a few channels. Now, provided you have an Xbox360, you can simply pair your PC with the Xbox360 and watch television over your network. Xbox360 has media center built into it. (You do actually have to launch it to use it though).

I'm not sure if media center can also stream the video to other laptops, I don't think I've ever seen that in action, now I'm curious! *goes to investigate*

 

I should mention the best over the network anything device is a HAVA its high quality, can stream full HD(almost no device streams full HD), and can even stream over the internet (so you can watch your home cable while traveling for instance) it has IR blasters so you can change the stations on your receiver via the software on the computer your watching it from.

I plan to get one at some point as its the ultimate solution for having multiple game consoles on my computer monitor and being able to record gameplay footage for reviews or youtube videos.

The only reason this is not the solution for you is I saw you want to be able to tune multiple stations, in that case you need a tuner that can do that and a service to go with it.

off topic but since I just built my modular arcade adapter and hacked my game consoles cables into rj45 I could even play video game systems in my house from a different room Thats cool stuff, you would plug the controller into the rj45 jack on the wall and it would be connected to the console in another room.

Anyways I did a lot of research on media extenders (like the xbox 360 can do), HTPCs, this and thats.

The HAVA was the most no-nonsense, no hassles, fool proof & future proof device. It just has a ton of video inputs and converts any input it has into a network stream. So it has a lot to offer, no software issues like htpcs, no format issues like extenders, no service issues with tuners.

Also there is the Western Digital movie box thing that is a great replacement for a htpc for many people a very small box that you connect an external hdd to and it plays movies from the hdd for you. Cheaper and more elegant and again easier than a htpc.

 

that WD thing you're talking about is WDTV. It's selling for about $100. It's basically a small size computer with a media player in it without hard drive.

 

yep two of my mates have them, both like it and both agree that it was better than building a htpc. very small size, easy for the family to use, cheap, low power, high support for file types & updates expanding it, and full hd

I think I am going to get one sometime too as I gave my htpc to my stepdad and now i need a way to watch my digital movies in the living area, I cant stream over the network anymore but just got a 400gb external so will work great for this.

 

You can compare WDTV to HTPC. HTPC has dvr capbilities and many enhancement which WDTV doesn't have.

If you only want playback ability, an HTPC will still be cheaper. A bare and basic old p4 desktop without hdd with a cd-rom and a gig of ram (everything could be bought for under $50) could achieve everything that WDTV can for less.

WDTV is for non-tech people who wants a simple way to play their downloaded videos.

 

a htpc will not be cheaper $100 is all it cost for one and it uses no space/power the power draw of the p4 alone would make up the cost difference pretty fast not to mention the space/heat it would take.

but your right its for non tech people, its called my family and kids and its why i gave the htpc away because nobody ever used it and it was more than they wanted to handle. the wdtv is like just any other part of an entertianment system.

 

Nice nice thanks for all of your answers

But it still confuses me because I want to watch TV on my MACBOOK over WIFI in my home =/
HAVA is only for XP/VISTA, but even so, Slingbox seems to still be the winner.
Wait! Not to mention you have to use HAVA's wifi so I can browse and chat while I watch TV [>.<]

DirecTV has a beta for their HD DVR that connects to your home network so I will definitely be checking that out


So I am still stuck with the decision between DirecTV's HD DVR with that beta that acts like a slingbox, or Dish Network that clearly has a 2 DVR plan, and is cheaper...

Anybody have Dish Network or DirecTV or anything else and care to share their experience and all of the benefits?
Especially you guys who use it over your home network or have 2+ DVRs etc...

 

This right here is honestly one of the harder parts to implement, since you want satellite.

Unless you plan on streaming it to view in quicktime/VLC, and change the channels via telnet, I haven't found any good satellite software out there (Though EyeTV might possibly do it) for the Mac. The hardware side is even slimmer...

 

Thats why I keep mentioning the SLINGBOX

So if I have a coax cable from the dish, can I split it and watch 2 seperate channels using 2 seperate tuners or a dual tuner?
Thats kind of what I understood through all of this...

 

If its satellite you will usually need two recievers on the dish itself. At least, thats what DirecTV requires.

 

Oh right!!!

I completely forgot... DVR needs 2 receivers and tuners...


So I will have to ask them to install 2 TV's but technically I will then just route the HDMI to the Slingbox or HTPC or whatever that I will use to stream the TV content right?

 

With satellite, you don't need to necessarily, but it's a good idea to run two cables from the LNB (the part on the dish that does something), and you will usually run those into a DiSEqC switch, which then run to however many rooms you have ports for on the switch.

However, each cable going to the LNB is for a different satellite, not for multiple boxes. (ie; One points to a dish at 110°, the other at 119°).

 

So I will have to tell Dish Network or DirecTV or whoever to install 2 dishes...

Since if I run the cables to a DiSEqC switch, all it does is split the antennas receiving content? So if I switch channels on one TV, it switches all similar ones? Now im confused again

 

Hey just to add another question to this topic, any idea how you can stream a tv connection to both a mac and pc without a wireless connection, meaning have the device transmit the connection and connect to it in an ad hoc way.

 

They shouldn't need two dishes, unless HD requires that for some reason. Our DirecTV dish at home has one dish, with two receiver heads on it. Each of those feeds a different box in the house (2 boxes) and thus we can watch satellite in two rooms, on separate channels.

 

I'm not sure if its what your looking for but you can check out HDHomeRun http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun That MAY be what you are looking to do?

 

Hmm doesnt work with mac, unless you get 3rd party software, still doesn't contain an internal wireless device to connect to your wireless network.

 

Well, wireless or wired, its still a home network see what I mean
So this isnt just WIRELESS, its the whole TV BOX to PC/MAC thing

Can you record stuff on your DVR as you watch TV?

So if I get DirecTV will I be able to watch TV on 2 TV's and record DVR on 2 seperate DVR's right?

What I mean is basically this, you watch TV on your first TV WHILE you record something on the DVR, and then your (wife lets say) watches TV on your second TV WHILE recording something she wants on her DVR


Is this how its going? Because if it is, this is how im going to roll, instead of a second TV, hook that baby up to a slingbox and HOPEFULLY im set

 

But my problem seems to be lying within the DVR/TV BOX then

Because I dont want a TUNER/DVR/TV BOX really because that replaces what im paying for when I buy a TV subscription...

So what I'm really looking for is a solution to watch TV/DVR on 2 seperate TV's on 2 seperate DVR's (or one central one that can handle watching TV on 2 TV's and record 2 Things at once, hence basically 4 tuners?!)

 

Is it me or did someone reply and the reply is now gone?