System for tv over ethernet

derol4

Hi all,

does anyone know of a system for distributing digital tv (and possibly analogue) over an ethernet connection.

This would be very useful for me as my house was wired well for ethernet but poorly for TV!

Thanks,
Derol

watty

You can either convert the TV to Ethernet and use a PC or Xbox or whatver to convert it back, VERY exepnsive and poor results compared with real TV,

Or use CAT5 adaptor from Video (even RGB)

Or use a Video Sender RF link.

IPTV is poorer quality. Slingbox and Sony type gadgets seriously reduce the quality. Using a TV card in PC and 2.4GHz+ and WME or VLC will only distribute to other PCs, Xbox, IPTV setbox etc and is costly.

bk

watty wrote:

IPTV is poorer quality. Slingbox and Sony type gadgets seriously reduce the quality.

Slingbox when run over a local network works at full resolution with little or no compression. Picture quality is excellent.

http://uk.slingmedia.com/page/home

The only issue is that you will need to use a PC to receive and play the video.

Actually I think Sling is missing a product opportunity here, a hardware device that receives the stream and outputs it to a TV.

paconnors

Try this I set this up in a location for a race night with 10 screens, http://www.bluedelta.co.uk/milestone_system.htm

watty

I've found as free solution of you have multiple PCs the free download of Windows Media Encoder can be customised for any quality / bandwidth to convert the live TV to streaming video. Much less PC power and any Xbox or PC can playback. If the PC has a video out then driving a real TV gives better quality.

VLC is less flexible and harder to setup but is also free and has Linux versions and Windows versions.

gerryo

watty wrote:

I've found as free solution of you have multiple PCs the free download of Windows Media Encoder can be customised for any quality / bandwidth to convert the live TV to streaming video.

VLC is less flexible and harder to setup but is also free and has Linux versions and Windows versions.

Can WME do transcoding on the fly?

I've used VLC to stream live TV , worked OK, but had difficulty selecting channels (it's supposed to be able to remotely change the PC tuner channel).

For a house with multiple TV's (pr PC's used as TV's), guess you'd need a server (or several) with capture cards connected to Sky boxes/DVBS cards/TV cards.

Multicast the O/P to reduce net usage.

Find some way to do remote channel changing, or else have fixed channels & select streams by port.

watty

Yes WME is very flexible. It can stream and/or produce files. I have streamed at 12Mbps on LAN and also at 28kbps on dialup.

YOu can always use an RF remote like pyramid, or WinLirc via IR on local PC and IP to remote PC.

Sparky

Yeah I used WME myself to stream to a few pc's and also used it to stream to a PDA over wi-fi.