Starting from Scratch - what's your ideal setup?

Mec-a-nic

Hello boards.ies

I'm a technical person, I built PVRs from old PCs and analogue tuner cards and messed with many media boxes down the years. HOWEVER I'm moving to a new house, cutting the cord on the mediocre cable service and can finally install my own dish/aerial. I also want to make my life simple (1 or 2 remotes / 0 or 1 STBs) and I'm willing to throw money at this since my current, 720p setup is 10+years old.

So, if you had to set up a new TV corner with FreeSat HD, from scratch - how would you like to do it?

1. Satellite Tuners - I can't see what are 'premium' satellite STBs - are DVB-S tuners built into all TVs now? I want to be able to record/timeshift while watching another station so would need dual tuners? Is any new TV going to have this or is it best to separate the tuning/recording into an external box that can be changed more easily/cheaply?

2. Dish - I think the Astra constellation at 28.2°E will provide all the (UK, FreeSat, HD) stations we would ever need, so 1 dish should do. Is there anything less ugly than the 'Sky' type dishes and can I futureproof this by using a 2/4/6/8 LNB? (for additional rooms later on?)

3. I know this is the Sat board, but any TV/STB that can also combine a Saorview HD into the same TV/STB/EPG would be lovely.

4. Internet 'reception' (Netflix) I assume is built into everything these days.

Thanks for the help - it may even become a sticky some day

The Cush

Mec-a-nic wrote: »

So, if you had to set up a new TV corner with FreeSat HD, from scratch - how would you like to do it?

1. Satellite Tuners - I can't see what are 'premium' satellite STBs - are DVB-S tuners built into all TVs now? I want to be able to record/timeshift while watching another station so would need dual tuners? Is any new TV going to have this or is it best to separate the tuning/recording into an external box that can be changed more easily/cheaply?

2. Dish - I think the Astra constellation at 28.2°E will provide all the (UK, FreeSat, HD) stations we would ever need, so 1 dish should do. Is there anything less ugly than the 'Sky' type dishes and can I futureproof this by using a 2/4/6/8 LNB? (for additional rooms later on?)

3. I know this is the Sat board, but any TV/STB that can also combine a Saorview HD into the same TV/STB/EPG would be lovely.

4. Internet 'reception' (Netflix) I assume is built into everything these days.

Thanks for the help - it may even become a sticky some day

1. Premium off the shelf satellite receiver would be a Freesat PVR with twin tuner, series linking, 7 day guide etc. No equivalent TV.

Saorview are launching their Connect service maybe later this year, no real info on it yet but one model will be a combi box. Looks like a FTA sat receiver, probably no 7 day guide, no info on separate/combined epgs. Maybe Netflix included.

Some TVs have DVB-S2 FTA sat tuners, others don't. Some have Freesat but most not. Freesat TVs must be set to UK to activate the Freesat setup which means the Saorview channels are stored in the 800s randomly but manually sortable. Separate epgs.

Walker and Nordmende have a few TVs in their range that have combined epg, FTA sat, no Freesat, no 7 day guide, sat channels start at 300.

2. Look though the various online sites for the different dishes, at the end of the day there isn't much difference between them. The physics of collecting and focusing the signal remains the same.

3. There are Linux based STBs which will combine the 2 services but require a bit of setting up. There are threads here on the forum discussing them.

4. I guess smart TVs will give you access to Netflix but not every device.

Johnboy1951

I think you are approaching this incorrectly considering what you posted

if you had to set up a new TV corner with FreeSat HD, from scratch - how would you like to do it?

can I futureproof this by using a 2/4/6/8 LNB? (for additional rooms later on?)

IMO you need to know from the beginning how you intend to distribute the media streams, whether from LiveTV, Internet streaming, stored media and so on.
That will determine a lot hardware-wise.
Will you want to be able to access your setup from a laptop, tablet or phone?
Can your access points be rigidly fixed or do you want flexibility?

Having those facilities will also influence things greatly.

The tendency in the last number of years has been to have all the tuners in one location and distribute media on the LAN to the client devices to view. The client devices have no need for tuners, just some means of calling for and displaying the streamed data.

Even Sky has gone this way with their latest offering - Sky Q

So for a single TV the set up would be completely different to a set up designed for use in multiple locations throughout the home, by many different client devices.

Example:
http://www.vboxcomm.com/retail?gclid=CN_C7PL13dQCFcaV7QodrfoG2w

You need to be sure what you want to achieve.

Zilog

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

...
Example:
http://www.vboxcomm.com/retail?gclid=CN_C7PL13dQCFcaV7QodrfoG2w

JohnBoy1951, have you used the VBox, is it any good?

Looks very interesting. Now, I run MediaPortal myself as a TV Server and it's very reliable, but then I'm also running Plex, Squeezeboxes, etc. so have use for a server.

However the VBox looks ideal for my parents, where the same level of tech isn't needed, and more importantly doesn't need to be maintained!
Is it reliable, goes it pull full EPG correctly, are Saorview and satellite on same list (all of which MediaPortal does)?
The price for the quad tuner combo solution looks really interesting, not much more than the same amount for PC tuner cards.

Sorry to barge in OP

Johnboy1951

Zilog wrote: »

JohnBoy1951, have you used the VBox, is it any good?

Looks very interesting. Now, I run MediaPortal myself as a TV Server and it's very reliable, but then I'm also running Plex, Squeezeboxes, etc. so have use for a server.

However the VBox looks ideal for my parents, where the same level of tech isn't needed, and more importantly doesn't need to be maintained!
Is it reliable, goes it pull full EPG correctly, are Saorview and satellite on same list (all of which MediaPortal does)?
The price for the quad tuner combo solution looks really interesting, not much more than the same amount for PC tuner cards.

Sorry to barge in OP

No, I have not used the VBox myself, but there was a very interesting thread about it here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057690820

I use an old Dell P4 Dual Core, with TBS tuner cards as the backend. It runs Libreelec, with Tvheadend to manage the tuners, channel list, recordings etc etc.
I have client devices at the TV points, and PCs, tablet, phones etc can also access all the media both live and recorded from the central storage.
The client devices also run LibreElec and are either R-Pi or NUC in my case.

That old Dell was saved from the dump and repurposed.
It hasn't missed a beat since.

Mec-a-nic

Zilog wrote: »

Sorry to barge in OP

No Problem at All.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I think you are approaching this incorrectly considering what you posted

Example:
http://www.vboxcomm.com/retail?gclid=CN_C7PL13dQCFcaV7QodrfoG2w

You need to be sure what you want to achieve.

Thanks! Johnboy1951. I had already looked for a central media system but couldn't find anything straightforward (I no longer want to wrangle Hauppauge cards and linux modules inside the home) but this looks ideal. I'll happily throw my savings at this and some CAT6 or WiFi n , the new TV will have to wait until this dinosaur dies (the kids just want iPad stuff anyway). What do you use as 'clients' at TVs and other dumb displays, DMP enabled devices or a bunch of RPis?

emaherx

Zilog wrote: »

JohnBoy1951, have you used the VBox, is it any good?

Looks very interesting. Now, I run MediaPortal myself as a TV Server and it's very reliable, but then I'm also running Plex, Squeezeboxes, etc. so have use for a server.

However the VBox looks ideal for my parents, where the same level of tech isn't needed, and more importantly doesn't need to be maintained!
Is it reliable, goes it pull full EPG correctly, are Saorview and satellite on same list (all of which MediaPortal does)?
The price for the quad tuner combo solution looks really interesting, not much more than the same amount for PC tuner cards.

Sorry to barge in OP

I use the VBox with dual Sat and Terrestrial receivers and it works great. It has low power consumption compared to a PC and is very stable.

But you need to supply it with an XTMLTV file for the EPG. You don't have access to the OS of the box so you need to run an EPG grabber on another device to generate the XMLTV file. Luckily you can have one of your client devices do this job such as a R-Pi running Libreelec.

Yes EPG can be combined into a single guide and channels arranged any way you like.

The one annoyance I have is you have to select OTA EPG or XMLTV for all tuners so you need to include Terrestrial channels in your XMLTV file also.

As for not needing maintenance... it's been OK in this regard but channel changes require manual intervention like any other FTA devices.

Johnboy1951

Mec-a-nic wrote: »

Thanks! Johnboy1951. I had already looked for a central media system but couldn't find anything straightforward (I no longer want to wrangle Hauppauge cards and linux modules inside the home) but this looks ideal. I'll happily throw my savings at this and some CAT6 or WiFi n , the new TV will have to wait until this dinosaur dies (the kids just want iPad stuff anyway). What do you use as 'clients' at TVs and other dumb displays, DMP enabled devices or a bunch of RPis?

Fixed-position client devices here are
R-Pi
R-Pi 2
NUC
broken laptop (no screen)
and after that all PCs, tablets, phones and laptops.
(one of the TVs has both Sat & Terr tuners but are not used. I tried but it was frustrating as changing from a Saorview to a Sat channel required multiple button presses and was slow.)

All client devices (including screen-less laptop) run LibreElec (Kodi JEOS), as does the backend server with the tuner cards.
The other devices have Kodi installed.


As you are a self-confessed techie ......... if you have the hardware I would suggest trying a Libreelec set up with Tvheadend as backend manager. It does take a bit of learning to first set it up. It is most satisfying though.
It works well.
I set the present system up to test my idea of what I wanted using the old Dell PC (Dimension 5150), and have not felt the need to replace it at all.
Yes it uses a bit more juice than a dedicated device ... but the PC cost me nothing