Hardware to record television programs

I need to replace a dead DVD/VCR recorder (JVC DR-MV150). I can’t find a
decent standalone version; the commercial ones all seem to be tied to Tivo
or a cable company. Obviously, the VCR function is no longer needed so what
I’m looking for are suggestions as to currently available pieces to do the
job.

The environment requires a Digital TV tuner (US standards) for over-the-air
channels - no commercial cable service needed - or wanted. My current
computer setup has only PCIe slots available and a useful card would provide
for multiple simultaneous channel tuning as an option to avoid fights with
the wife over what is recorded when. If USB tuners are out there that are
(finally) usable I’d be interested in how they perform. The tuner would,
preferably, provide for both both playback from disk and direct passthru of
the antenna signal.

Anyone have experience with this as either a computer kludge or a reasonable
stand-alone unit?


Will Honea

On Wed 09 Oct 2013 09:16:41 PM CDT, Will Honea wrote:

I need to replace a dead DVD/VCR recorder (JVC DR-MV150). I can’t find
a decent standalone version; the commercial ones all seem to be tied to
Tivo or a cable company. Obviously, the VCR function is no longer
needed so what I’m looking for are suggestions as to currently
available pieces to do the job.

The environment requires a Digital TV tuner (US standards) for
over-the-air channels - no commercial cable service needed - or
wanted. My current computer setup has only PCIe slots available and a
useful card would provide for multiple simultaneous channel tuning as
an option to avoid fights with the wife over what is recorded when. If
USB tuners are out there that are (finally) usable I’d be interested in
how they perform. The tuner would, preferably, provide for both both
playback from disk and direct passthru of the antenna signal.

Anyone have experience with this as either a computer kludge or a
reasonable stand-alone unit?

Hi
I have a USB TV dongle, works fine but had to patch the kernel, not
sure where it stands with later kernels… need to probably re-do and
check with 13.1. I run it with VLC from videolan.org as I don’t use
packman for my multimedia needs so YMMV…

Here is what I wrote a few years back (2009 wow!);
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/405117-sabrent-digital-hdtv-atsc-analog-usb.html


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) GNOME 3.8.4 Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
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On 10/09/2013 04:34 PM, malcolmlewis wrote:
>

> On Wed 09 Oct 2013 09:16:41 PM CDT, Will Honea wrote:
>
> I need to replace a dead DVD/VCR recorder (JVC DR-MV150). I can’t find
> a decent standalone version; the commercial ones all seem to be tied to
> Tivo or a cable company. Obviously, the VCR function is no longer
> needed so what I’m looking for are suggestions as to currently
> available pieces to do the job.
>
> The environment requires a Digital TV tuner (US standards) for
> over-the-air channels - no commercial cable service needed - or
> wanted. My current computer setup has only PCIe slots available and a
> useful card would provide for multiple simultaneous channel tuning as
> an option to avoid fights with the wife over what is recorded when. If
> USB tuners are out there that are (finally) usable I’d be interested in
> how they perform. The tuner would, preferably, provide for both both
> playback from disk and direct passthru of the antenna signal.
>
> Anyone have experience with this as either a computer kludge or a
> reasonable stand-alone unit?
>
>
>

> Hi
> I have a USB TV dongle, works fine but had to patch the kernel, not
> sure where it stands with later kernels… need to probably re-do and
> check with 13.1. I run it with VLC from videolan.org as I don’t use
> packman for my multimedia needs so YMMV…
>
> Here is what I wrote a few years back (2009 wow!);
> https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/405117-sabrent-digital-hdtv-atsc-analog-usb.html

Check out MythTV. They will have lots of suggestions for devices and the state
of Linux drivers. I have been running MythTV for several years, but my hardware
is analog to mate with standard definition TV from Time Warner cable. Someday,
TW will likely force me to go to digital TV, and I will have to invest in some
new hardware.

On 2013-10-10 00:11, Larry Finger wrote:

> Check out MythTV. They will have lots of suggestions for devices and the
> state of Linux drivers. I have been running MythTV for several years,
> but my hardware is analog to mate with standard definition TV from Time
> Warner cable. Someday, TW will likely force me to go to digital TV, and
> I will have to invest in some new hardware.

+1 to that. They make a wonderful software. You can have a central
server in the house, recording and storing the movies, and you can watch
the replay on any house computer. One of the features is that you can
change the speed of the replay, say, to be 5% faster or slower, with the
sound correctly played.

IIRC, they make a live CD (or was it an installable version?), or you
can grab the rpm with YaST and install it in openSUSE.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

malcolmlewis wrote:

>

> On Wed 09 Oct 2013 09:16:41 PM CDT, Will Honea wrote:
>
> I need to replace a dead DVD/VCR recorder (JVC DR-MV150). I can’t find
> a decent standalone version; the commercial ones all seem to be tied to
> Tivo or a cable company. Obviously, the VCR function is no longer
> needed so what I’m looking for are suggestions as to currently
> available pieces to do the job.
>
> The environment requires a Digital TV tuner (US standards) for
> over-the-air channels - no commercial cable service needed - or
> wanted. My current computer setup has only PCIe slots available and a
> useful card would provide for multiple simultaneous channel tuning as
> an option to avoid fights with the wife over what is recorded when. If
> USB tuners are out there that are (finally) usable I’d be interested in
> how they perform. The tuner would, preferably, provide for both both
> playback from disk and direct passthru of the antenna signal.
>
> Anyone have experience with this as either a computer kludge or a
> reasonable stand-alone unit?
>
>
>

> Hi
> I have a USB TV dongle, works fine but had to patch the kernel, not
> sure where it stands with later kernels… need to probably re-do and
> check with 13.1. I run it with VLC from videolan.org as I don’t use
> packman for my multimedia needs so YMMV…
>
> Here is what I wrote a few years back (2009 wow!);
> https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/405117-sabrent-digital-hdtv-atsc-analog-usb.html
>

That message rang a bell - I think I used a lot of your info when I did the
analog version I had running at the time. Currently, all the OTA channels
here have migrated to digital (US channels were forced to go digital about
3-4 years back) and using an external digital tuner converter is a royal
PITA - one too many remotes to keep track of :wink:


Will Honea

Larry Finger wrote:

> Check out MythTV. They will have lots of suggestions for devices and the
> state of Linux drivers. I have been running MythTV for several years, but
> my hardware is analog to mate with standard definition TV from Time Warner
> cable. Someday, TW will likely force me to go to digital TV, and I will
> have to invest in some new hardware.
>

I have an old Dell box here that I set up with an analog tuner several years
back. I replaced it with the DVD/VCR recorder just because it was a simpler
solution than Myth although I miss a lot of the features. The drawback to
the JVC - besides some really crappy components - was the lack of time
shifting a streaming signal. It had no hard drive so you had to time your
snack runs to coincide with the commercials.


Will Honea

On 2013-10-10 07:38, Will Honea wrote:
> I have an old Dell box here that I set up with an analog tuner several years
> back. I replaced it with the DVD/VCR recorder just because it was a simpler
> solution than Myth although I miss a lot of the features. The drawback to
> the JVC - besides some really crappy components - was the lack of time
> shifting a streaming signal. It had no hard drive so you had to time your
> snack runs to coincide with the commercials.

Oh, time shift improves quality of life! And “jumpt time back”. When I
go the cinema (seldom), and I miss a point, my hand twitches to push on
the nonexistent fast backwards button to repeat the scene :wink:


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

On 10/10/2013 02:18 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2013-10-10 07:38, Will Honea wrote:
>> I have an old Dell box here that I set up with an analog tuner several years
>> back. I replaced it with the DVD/VCR recorder just because it was a simpler
>> solution than Myth although I miss a lot of the features. The drawback to
>> the JVC - besides some really crappy components - was the lack of time
>> shifting a streaming signal. It had no hard drive so you had to time your
>> snack runs to coincide with the commercials.
>
> Oh, time shift improves quality of life! And “jumpt time back”. When I
> go the cinema (seldom), and I miss a point, my hand twitches to push on
> the nonexistent fast backwards button to repeat the scene :wink:

+1

The only thing I watch live without the ability to back over any part is the
news. That is so depressing that I would never want to see it again.

Note that with MythTV, even live TV is recorded to a disk file and the playback
reads that file. As a result, you can pause or replay some part even on “Live”
programs.

On 2013-10-10 17:39, Larry Finger wrote:
> Note that with MythTV, even live TV is recorded to a disk file and the
> playback reads that file. As a result, you can pause or replay some part
> even on “Live” programs.

I know. I bought a gadget that does it.

I did not make my own gadget because at the time I failed to make my TV
card to work… :frowning:

Maybe I should search for a small fan-less computer on which to create
my own TV center. No idea what to use (hardware) :-?


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> I did not make my own gadget because at the time I failed to make my TV
> card to work… :frowning:
>
> Maybe I should search for a small fan-less computer on which to create
> my own TV center. No idea what to use (hardware) :-?
>

That’s my approach - the only units I found that were reasonably priced were
cable-only and/or required a monthly extortion fee. As for the last
attempt, it got old as I did - and about as useful :wink:

The more I look at that JVC unit, the better it looks but from online
reviews I gather that a lot of people found the same as I did - the quality
is crappy. On top of that, they went to a custom DVD unit that won’t match
any connectors I have so I can’t even replace that!


Will Honea

On 2013-10-10 21:35, Will Honea wrote:
> Carlos E. R. wrote:

> That’s my approach - the only units I found that were reasonably priced were
> cable-only and/or required a monthly extortion fee. As for the last
> attempt, it got old as I did - and about as useful :wink:

Mine is a siemens gigabit unit that I got with a nice rebate. Two
tuners, no internal hardisk (you plug one on usb, or share a directory
over samba on a computer). No dvd, just land digital tv broadcast.

Now I’m considering getting a generic computer, but tiny. A non fast cpu
will do if the tv card is right.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> Mine is a siemens gigabit unit that I got with a nice rebate. Two
> tuners, no internal hardisk (you plug one on usb, or share a directory
> over samba on a computer). No dvd, just land digital tv broadcast.
>
> Now I’m considering getting a generic computer, but tiny. A non fast cpu
> will do if the tv card is right.
>

Got a model number for that Siemens unit? Given the reach of the internet I
might actually be able to find that. I am assuming that it uses digital
tuners, etc. and it sound like pretty much what I want. I actually prefer
the hard drive over any other medium - much more versatile.


Will Honea

On 2013-10-11 07:05, Will Honea wrote:
> Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> Mine is a siemens gigabit unit that I got with a nice rebate. Two
>> tuners, no internal hardisk (you plug one on usb, or share a directory
>> over samba on a computer). No dvd, just land digital tv broadcast.
>
>> Now I’m considering getting a generic computer, but tiny. A non fast cpu
>> will do if the tv card is right.
>>
>
> Got a model number for that Siemens unit?

I’m not at home for some days, I can’t look it up :frowning:

Ok, found a reference in a file: Gigaset 740AV (perhaps M740AV)

But notice that these things works only on some countries, it depends on
the standards used for the digital broadcast. On the other hand,
original firmware lacks many features, but there are free alternatives
that add lots of things (like a web server that allows controlling it).
Before buying any of these gadgets, it is worth it to find out if there
is a hacker community around it, and how successful they are.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> Ok, found a reference in a file: Gigaset 740AV (perhaps M740AV)
>
> But notice that these things works only on some countries, it depends on
> the standards used for the digital broadcast. On the other hand,
> original firmware lacks many features, but there are free alternatives
> that add lots of things (like a web server that allows controlling it).
> Before buying any of these gadgets, it is worth it to find out if there
> is a hacker community around it, and how successful they are.
>

You touched on the elephant in the room: standards. I’m old enough that I
usually think in terms of NTSC vs. the European “standard” so I’ll need to
do some serious reading.

I also need to some research on some of the stream formatting systems so
that I can dust off the old coding skills as nothing I’ve seen to date
details of the stream cntent denoting “commercial”, “localspace”, etc. That
HAS to be there in some form or the almost totally unattended stations would
not working. It’s likely all out there somewhere but I need to do some
serious searching.

Thanks for the model info. That gives me a starting point I was missing.

On 2013-10-11 18:45, Will Honea wrote:

> You touched on the elephant in the room: standards. I’m old enough that I
> usually think in terms of NTSC vs. the European “standard” so I’ll need to
> do some serious reading.

Heh :slight_smile:

I did a course on NTSC. PAL I had some reading on my own. Which is not
typical as I am European :wink:

Actually, probably I know more about NTSC than digital terrestrial TV!

> I also need to some research on some of the stream formatting systems so
> that I can dust off the old coding skills as nothing I’ve seen to date
> details of the stream cntent denoting “commercial”, “localspace”, etc. That
> HAS to be there in some form or the almost totally unattended stations would
> not working. It’s likely all out there somewhere but I need to do some
> serious searching.

Digital TV comes already compressed as some type of mpeg, so these
gadgets such as mine, simply copy the stream to a hard disk without
recoding. This means that the CPU has to do very little. They have a
special receiver chip, or tuner, but also another that receives the data
stream from the tuner or the hard disk and puts it on the display (which
is always of the same resolution, I think). Again, the CPU does little
more than transfer data from one place to another - and if the gadget is
properly designed, this could happen via DMA with no CPU load.

> Thanks for the model info. That gives me a starting point I was missing.

Mine is old already, even Gigaset (Siemens) has much better devices
currently. Here you can buy several brands on consumer supermarkets
(they sell from stoves to computers). Some are rubbish, some are good.
If the US has started recently with digital TV broadcasts, appropriate
devices will be appearing now or soon.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

Will Honea wrote:
> I also need to some research on some of the stream formatting systems so
> that I can dust off the old coding skills as nothing I’ve seen to date
> details of the stream cntent denoting “commercial”, “localspace”, etc. That
> HAS to be there in some form or the almost totally unattended stations would
> not working. It’s likely all out there somewhere but I need to do some
> serious searching.

It sounds like you’re looking for the MPEG Transport Stream specs,
though I’m not sure why. You could start at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_transport_stream

BTW, if you just want a box to record TV then I’d recommend looking at
products from Humax or VuPlus.

Dave Howorth wrote:

> BTW, if you just want a box to record TV then I’d recommend looking at
> products from Humax or VuPlus.
>

Both new sources to me - thanks.


Will Honea

Dave Howorth wrote:

> It sounds like you’re looking for the MPEG Transport Stream specs,
> though I’m not sure why. You could start at
>

Fingers running faster than brain…

What I’m looking for are the embedded signals for commercial breaks, etc. in
order to program a usable auto-skip. It would also be useful to be able to
extract the program info for use in some form of a listing to see what I
have stored, what I called it, when it was recorded, etc.

Another potential goal would be to incorporate one of the freely available
scheduling services for convenience. I hate the thought of giving Tivo et.
al. money for what is freely available :wink:

Add to that the fact that I could really use a project to fill some of this
“free” time I have now.


Will Honea

On 2013-10-14 20:16, Will Honea wrote:

> Add to that the fact that I could really use a project to fill some of this
> “free” time I have now.

Possibly mythtv does some of that already.

For instance, I heard of a user maintained database of commercial
timings for each program. Ie, somebody at home marks the intervals and
uploads them, so that other people benefit and can skip them directly.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

On 2013-10-14 20:08, Will Honea wrote:
> Dave Howorth wrote:
>
>> BTW, if you just want a box to record TV then I’d recommend looking at
>> products from Humax or VuPlus.
>>
>
> Both new sources to me - thanks.

same here.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))