3 ms·

Not exactly easy or cheap, but a data point for you: My OTA DVR for the last 8 years setup has been a PC with Windows Media Center. Apart from the setup, there

by car 11y ago

Not exactly easy or cheap, but a data point for you: My OTA DVR for the last 8 years setup has been a PC with Windows Media Center. Apart from the setup, there is no monthly cost for the guide data, as with Tivo etc. Right now this runs on a NUC, with a SiliconDust HD Homerun (HDTC-2US) living in my attic, which transcodes the OTA MPEG-2 to H.264, saving tons of disk space. A nice side effect is that I can archive shows (e.g. NOVA episodes). P.S. One interesting tidbit I remember from a Tivo ad (but can't dredge up right now), based on their users TV consumption stats, apparently ~ 87% of what people watch is available OTA. Edit: Windows Media Center was dropped from Windows 10. The replacement will be Xbox One DVR functionality, coming 2016.

dtparr 11y ago
Interesting, I have a similar setup, but with the old standard PCI-based tuner that just pulls the data and dumps it. I hadn't seen a tuner option that would transcode it on the fly. Is there any noticeable lag when watching live? Does the WMC still record it in the standard wtv format, just with a different video codec? What's a rough size estimate for a 1-hr show? Can you adjust the amount of compression or otherwise tweak the h.264 encoding parameters?
- car 11y ago
  Transcoding happens on the fly, in hardware I assume. The compression is configurable, from a very high quality 1080p profile, down to more lossy streams for mobile devices, 3 profiles total IIRC (non tweak able). The highest quality mode is _almost_ indistinguishable from the OTA signal. No lag or stutter, whatsoever. An added bonus of the transcode is the reduced bandwidth in the LAN. Previously I needed CAT5 for a stable ATSC stream, now Wifi suffices (e.g. to iPad/iPhone). There is an app for the iPad, to watch those streams. On iPad Air 2 it renders 1080p without lag. Also, putting the HD Homerun in the network let's one get away with a small head unit (in my case an Intel NUC). You are correct, the resulting files are still wtv container, but with h.264 stream inside. VLC can play them fine. Not sure about conversion to MPEG4. A 1-hour show comes out around 1.5GB (from memory), maybe less. Much better then before.
  - dtparr 11y ago
    Great info, thanks. That's a 4-6x size improvement from what I'm seeing now, so that'd be very helpful. Probably actually cheaper to buy this than just get a larger HDD. I'd looked at options that would auto-transcode recordings on disk, but they generally changed enough things that it wouldn't maintain the metadata and/or otherwise treated them as individual videos and not episodic content. One last question, do you happen to have any extenders? I'm using an xbox 360 as an extender and I wonder if it can play the h.264 encoded video.
    - car 11y ago
      I did indeed have a Linksys extender, which stopped working completely after upgrading to MC on Windows 7. Don't know about the 360.
pjc50 11y ago
How do you get WMC to transcode?
- car 11y ago
  The transcode happens upstream, in the HDTC-2US. It then streams the transcoded broadcast to your WMC PC.

by car 11y ago

dtparr 11y ago

Interesting, I have a similar setup, but with the old standard PCI-based tuner that just pulls the data and dumps it. I hadn't seen a tuner option that would transcode it on the fly. Is there any noticeable lag when watching live? Does the WMC still record it in the standard wtv format, just with a different video codec? What's a rough size estimate for a 1-hr show? Can you adjust the amount of compression or otherwise tweak the h.264 encoding parameters?

car 11y ago
Transcoding happens on the fly, in hardware I assume. The compression is configurable, from a very high quality 1080p profile, down to more lossy streams for mobile devices, 3 profiles total IIRC (non tweak able). The highest quality mode is _almost_ indistinguishable from the OTA signal. No lag or stutter, whatsoever. An added bonus of the transcode is the reduced bandwidth in the LAN. Previously I needed CAT5 for a stable ATSC stream, now Wifi suffices (e.g. to iPad/iPhone). There is an app for the iPad, to watch those streams. On iPad Air 2 it renders 1080p without lag. Also, putting the HD Homerun in the network let's one get away with a small head unit (in my case an Intel NUC). You are correct, the resulting files are still wtv container, but with h.264 stream inside. VLC can play them fine. Not sure about conversion to MPEG4. A 1-hour show comes out around 1.5GB (from memory), maybe less. Much better then before.
- dtparr 11y ago
  Great info, thanks. That's a 4-6x size improvement from what I'm seeing now, so that'd be very helpful. Probably actually cheaper to buy this than just get a larger HDD. I'd looked at options that would auto-transcode recordings on disk, but they generally changed enough things that it wouldn't maintain the metadata and/or otherwise treated them as individual videos and not episodic content. One last question, do you happen to have any extenders? I'm using an xbox 360 as an extender and I wonder if it can play the h.264 encoded video.
  - car 11y ago
    I did indeed have a Linksys extender, which stopped working completely after upgrading to MC on Windows 7. Don't know about the 360.

pjc50 11y ago

How do you get WMC to transcode?

car 11y ago
The transcode happens upstream, in the HDTC-2US. It then streams the transcoded broadcast to your WMC PC.