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Thread ID: 89775 2008-05-11 22:38:00 How to turn a old PC into a Freeview decoder/recorder? NZMacka (11756) Press F1
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668366 2008-05-13 21:13:00 Hmmm, interesting reading here guys, thanks heaps for the input. If my old P4 is not really capable of doing the job then that will be a problem as I can't spend any money on new hardware except for the tuner card. To spend more $$$ will defeat the original purpose of the project to some degree.

To ease the load on the P4, could I get a Freeview set top box, to accept/decode the FV sat signal, and then distribute the output to my old P4 which could then record the programs to the HDD? Would it be possible to stream this decoded signal to other PC's on my network (all cabled Cat6)? Would this setup alleviate the need for the P4 to do the decoding work? Or is this a dumb idea and I should try something else? :punk

Thanks again guys, all advice is really appreciated! 		NZMacka (11756)
668367 2008-05-13 21:17:00 If you went that way, you'd be better to get a DVD HDD recorder and sell the PC. wratterus (105)
668368 2008-05-13 21:27:00 Gidday Wratterus, I am not so sure, the PC would get me nothing on TradeMe (lets be honest!), and a FV box can be had for around 150.00 bucks. I am not sure a DVD HDD can be had for the same price, and even if it could, I do not think the low end models have a built in ethernet LAN port to allow a network connection to be made to the home network. NZMacka (11756)
668369 2008-05-13 21:28:00 Fair point, sorry I hadn't been following the whole thread, didn't realize you wanted to stream. wratterus (105)
668370 2008-05-13 22:49:00 Hmmm, interesting reading here guys, thanks heaps for the input. If my old P4 is not really capable of doing the job then that will be a problem as I can't spend any money on new hardware except for the tuner card. To spend more $$$ will defeat the original purpose of the project to some degree.

To ease the load on the P4, could I get a Freeview set top box, to accept/decode the FV sat signal, and then distribute the output to my old P4 which could then record the programs to the HDD? Would it be possible to stream this decoded signal to other PC's on my network (all cabled Cat6)? Would this setup alleviate the need for the P4 to do the decoding work? Or is this a dumb idea and I should try something else? :punk

Thanks again guys, all advice is really appreciated!

If you went the set-top-box route you would need something like a Hauppauge PVR150 to accept the connections from it.
Then using Mediaportal you could use the client/server configuration to allow other PCs on the network to view TV.
BUT going with a STB will only allow you to watch/record one channel at a time.
If you got a DVB-S card Mediaportal allows you to view/record more than one channel as long as they are on the same transponder.

TV1, TV2, TVNZ6, TVNZ7, Maori & TVNS Sport are on the same transponder.
TV3, C4, Stratos, Cue, Te Reo & Parliament TV are on the other transponder.

I think your P4 would be fine for doing the recording/streaming of Freeview on your network. My AMD XP1900+ - 1.6GHz can be recording 3 channels at the same time and the CPU usage is still below 50%. 		CYaBro (73)
668371 2008-05-13 23:23:00 Yeah I can't see how that system wouldn't be able to handle the load - provided you've got a good video card for playback you should be fine.

You don't even need to encode the video files as they are digital already, so that saves even more CPU usage.

Not running HD is even better. I once used to play downloaded TV shows on a 550mhz P3 with 384MB ram and a 16MB TnT video card. And it runs them almost perfectly. (at 99% cpu usage but it does work)

So if it can do that, yours should be able to do it no worries.

If you're concerned about problems, just buy a card and make sure you have a good return policy, then if performance is really bad you can just take it back! 		Agent_24 (57)
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