[u-u] Anyone have a suggested use for a PVR?

[Doug Lee]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016, Hugh Gamble wrote:

> Start by throwing out ALL the Rogers things, and all of Bell too.
> Spend $5-$10 for an amplified antenna,
> $20-$50 for an external antenna,
> or, if you're Hugh #2, a onetime investment in a tower.
>
> If you're in an apartment, put it on your roof, and share with your
> neighbours,
> in good Canadian socialist fashion.
>
> That will get you HD OTA ATSC for free.
> Better quality and fewer commercials (US law bouncing across the lake)
> and you get local stations with local news too.
> 2 PBS stations and TVO if you swing that way.
> CITY, CTV, Global, and big network affiliates.
> The local ethnic channels for your Bollywood fix ...
> Oh and CBC + Radio Canada if you're masochistic enough,
> and insist on trying to recover your tax dollars.
>
> If you don't have a DVR already,
> pick a quiet IBM PC clone (preferably not Apple branded).
> Get 2 or 4 Hauppauge tuners for ATSC (probably clear QAM too).
>
> There are also tuners for "US Cable TV" anybody know what those need and
> work with?

These are QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) capable tuners which also 
receive ATSC. QAM is the digital standard used in cable TV in U.S. and 
Canada. A QAM tuner allows you to receive any unencrypted cable channels. 
Until recently the U.S. had a law that cable companies had to carry all 
local broadcast channels in unencrypted QAM, so QAM tuners were useful 
there, unlike Canada where no such rule existed. I think the cable 
companies in the U.S. have since quashed this rule. Many but not all 
Hauppauge and other brands of tuners advertise ATSC and QAM capability. If 
you do a scan with one of these tuners on Rogers cable, you will see a 
whole bunch of channels and they generally don't work because of 
encryption. I tried this on a friends Rogers connection and found one 
unencrypted promo channel which was viewable in Kaffeine, a KDE player and 
digital TV viewer.


>
> The best media centre software is the free Open Source (tm) MediaPortal.
> If you insist on Linux, there as some XBMC variants that should work too
> (if you're a hacker).
I am using mythtv. Analogue is broken in recent releases but works in 
older versions. I am not sure of version numbers off the top of my head.

>
> This will get you a fully, and properly, simply, programmable DVR with
> infinite storage.
> It requires configuring a good TV guide, which can be tricky with the Linux
> hacks.
> (but you all know a Unix person :-)
>
> If a dozen or score of channels including  all the major networks is not
> enough
> for you to fill your disks with and never have time to watch,
> you can supplement this setup by watching immersive 3D VR on your face phone
> (I like Samsung)
> or the old fashioned way by Internet.
>
> It's time to scavenge your laser disk players for components,
> and build maker projects out of them.
>
> P.S. My building does have Rogers cable,
> on a grandfathered bulk contract, for the old people.
> There are still analogue channels on that,
> which you can see on any monitor with a built in tuner,
> but the quality is redonkulously bad compared to high tech rabbit ears.
> (the quality coming out a Rogers cable box can't beat rabbit ears either)
>
>> -----
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2016.0.7357 / Virus Database: 4522/11469 - Release Date: 01/23/16
>
> _______________________________________________
> u-u mailing list
> u-u at unixunanimous.org
> https://unixunanimous.org/mailman/listinfo/u-u
>
>