The world needs a comprehensive internet connected set-top box. There is no existing solution that allows you to:
- Watch Hulu, YouTube, and other streaming internet videos on your TV
- Record broadcast TV in a portable format (an HD DVR).
- Download (via Bit torrent or Usenet) and view downloaded videos in portable formats (DivX, Xvid, other MPEG-4 variants)
After a couple days research, it looks like the best way to accomplish this is by using a Mac or PC with a TV tuner as a home video server. In my case, I already have a MediaCenter PC, but it isn’t in the TV room, so I’ve researched the best option for sharing videos over my home network. The result is the system diagrammed below. I haven’t actually set up the UPnP part of the network yet, but I will likely use iPodifier and PlayOn to transmit shows to a PS3 (which, though expensive, is also a blue-ray player). I am willing to hack a little bit, but am hesitant to embark on a major hacking expedition (doing stuff over SSH to an AppleTV, or installing MythTV to see if it supports my video card both sound like too much work).
I prefer to pay for high speed internet rather than cable/satellite TV. For some reason, I can’t stomach a monthly subscription for TV. $50-100/month = $600-1200/yr (although I do have ultra-basic cable because our TV reception is poor). A basic HD TiVo, the leading choice for a stand-alone DVR, is $299 without programming, $700 with lifetime service. This is too expensive, and still only solves 1 of the 3 criteria above.
On demand download services are more palatable, the leaders are:
But with all of these, you pay for a limited selection of old TV shows and movies. Rather than dropping $600 on a year of cable television, that money will go a long way towards a Mac Mini with EyeTV or a MediaCenter PC. Once you have either of those as a hub, it is easier to free up your content for viewing on other devices around the house.
Here is what I’ve found to be the leading software you can install on your Mac/PC DVR to share video around the house:
- PlayOn (UPnP server for PC) - launched a beta version recently and their site went down
- iPodifier (file converter for PC) to automatically convert your Windows MediaCenter format files to iPod or AppleTV friendly format (MPG-4)
- MediaTomb (UPnP server for Mac/Linux)
These are very promising because they don’t require a lot of hacking (although MediaTomb doesn’t seem have any installation instructions)
UPnP Clients
- PlayStation3 - should work with PlayOn and has a blue-ray drive.
- XBox 360 - should work with PlayOn or PC MediaCenter (though I had bad experiences with first gen Xbox)
- not AppleTV (requires hacking) - but should detect MPG-4 videos encoded by iPodifier
Other Links
- Demo of Hulu on Xbox (using PlayOn)
- Hacking AppleTV for uPNP http://users.telenet.be/bruno.keymolen/hmedia.html (UPNP for AppleTV)
- An Archos DVR with support for UPnP (No Hulu, Pandora or last.fm due to poor support for flash)
- More AppleTV hacking stuff
- Boxee (TV like interface for internet video on Mac based on XBMC)
- Myka, a bit torrent-enabled set top box (that isn’t shipping yet)
- Orb - stream software from your PC over the internet to anywhere
- A USB VCR (as in tape). Want to get one of these to make DVDs of old family videos.
- MythTV - linux DVR/media server software.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
adam 10.02.08 at 8:05 pm
Let me know what your solution is for streaming home video.
David Nakamura 10.09.08 at 4:20 pm
Hi Adam- Interesting and great thoughts here. Some of my friends and I have been pursuing this goal as well - we’d all love to rid our cable bills. Here’s my current setup:
* Comcast cable “Limited” - something like $15/mo for essentially just the local channels.
* HDHomerun by SiliconDust - a dual qam (unencrypted signal) tuner. Device connects to home network.
* Vista Ultimate configured with the following:
* Networked to HDHomerun.
* Media Center uses HDHomerun to tune into unencrypted HD QAM channels.
* MCEBuddy to compress and remove commercials.
* TVersity - I *think* this is UPnP software as related to some of the tools you mention above. It streams media to my Xbox360 and transcodes as necessary. Handles my music, photos, and videos including movie collection. Also video RSS feeds, podcasts, etc.
* XBox360 - networked via cat5 to home network and acts as a Media Extender and a UPnP client to play media from TVersity.
This setup has been working very well. The Xbox handles and plays videos/movies with great fluidity - minimal buffering (wmv files start up immediately and ff and rew, pause, etc very fast.). What sorts of intial issues were you seeing?
I’ll need to read up on the UPnP sw you mention here and compare with TVersity.
I’m thinking of purchasing another XBox as another media extender for the family room as right now it is sucking $$ thanks to Comcast. Also Wii doesn’t show our movies very well wireless from the TVersity server. Any reason you can provide to consider PS3 instead of Xbox? I’m not entirely convinced that I need BlueRay and the XBox can be setup as a Media Extender with Media Center.
David 12.05.08 at 7:24 pm
Thanks for posting your research, I think I’ve been looking for something similar (I don’t have any cable TV service).
I have a PC with a huge amount of HD/SD video on it.
I have broadband internet where I watch a lot of HULU and Netfilx.
I want a piece of hardware that lets me play all that content on my TV (in full screen/full resolution).
Is there one?
Shawn Oster 12.25.08 at 8:52 am
My setup that is highly disjointed yet so far working…
1. PC with dual tv-tuners to record analog shows like Oprah for my wife.
2. Shows are streamed to my XBox 360 via wired connection, rocks, fluid, never any buffering issues, just works.
3. Watch some movies + TV shows via Netflix Instant On on the XBox 360. Works well most of the time, some movies in HD, streams quick.
4. Purchase movies/shows via the XBox Live Marketplace, quick downloads, good selection.
5. Purchase via Amazon On Demand, stream via my PC to my XBox 360, again, works great.
The part I don’t like is having to explain to my wife where a certain episode of something is, recorded, Marketplace, Netflix or Amazon. The quality and streaming rocks, the logistics are another story. I want a one-stop shop.