Media server PC in living room; ~750GB storage; WindowsXP w Snapstream BeyondTV/BeyondMedia; 1 ATSC tuner (ATI HDTV Wonder) + 1 analog (Diamond Xtreme) tuner. ATSC tuner connected to off-air antenna (Winegard); analog tuner's S-Video input from Time Warner cable box; IR blaster controls cable box; Orb transcoding/web server software for web streaming of recorded content (placeshifting); Silverstone HTPC case with VFD display; LCDSmartie w/ BeyondTV plugin to show scrolling RSS news feeds & "Live/Recording Now/Next" indicators on display.
This is a look behind the TV. Note the TW cable box with the Actisys IR blaster control from the media server; a WiFi access point and router; another receiver for a wireless keyboard to control the media server. There's also an old Voom sat box w/ built-in ATSC receiver. The Voom box is just used to send a DC feed up to the amplified HDTV antenna outside.It's nice from Voom they never asked the box back when they went bankrupt, and it actually still works for ATSC...
Client PC in master bedroom. Nvidia GeForce VGA output to CRT monitor & DVI output to Plasma TV. L/R audio to separate speakers (so the TV doesn't need to be on when listening to tunes...)
Client PC in office. Nvidia GeForce VGA output to LCD monitor + L/R audio to Bose PC speakers.
D-Link DSM320 "MediaLounge" media client in media room. Analog component YPbPr output to Sharp Z9000 DLP 720p projector; Optical SPDIF audio output to Harman Kardon surround receiver w/ Monitor Audio speakers. Client accesses media server files via UPnP.
200 Mbps HomePlug powerline data network (Netgear) between office and living room; Cat5 Ethernet between living room and master BR; 802.11g to mediaroom.
This is a picture of the powerline adaptor behind the living room TV.
The powerline network connects the living room media server downstairs to the Roadrunner cable modem in the office upstairs, see below, where there is another WiFi point with directional antenna, and telephone VoIP modem to cordless telephone base point. The antenna poiints to the media room (the media client there needs a strong signal for streaming video wireless).
Can your Tivo do all this?
Here are some screenshots and feature list....
Record SDTV cable / HDTV off-air onto the media server, and play it back, possibly simultaneously on multiple clients, with independent play/pause control & access to the 5.1 Dolby Digital mix in each room.
Burn recorded content to DVD-video or DVD-data disks
See the TV program guide, and start TV recordings on the server from any room. The max # of concurrent recordings is only limited by the number of analog/digital TV tuners in the server. While I have only 1 analog + 1 8VSB tuner installed, some have built PVR's with up to 10 tuners (using 5 PCI slots with dual-tuner cards and corresponding 10 hardware MPEG encoders in one PC chassis!)
Automatic analysis of the recorded MPEG TS to identify commercial breaks in the PVR timeline for one-button skip from any home TV/PC (not a 30s skip but the actual length of the commercial break). Note the identification of the commercial blocks in the images above showing the timeline.
Automatically re-compress recorded video to DivX or WMV during off-peak hours on the server with different compression presets for playback on PDA's, smartphones etc.
Watch streaming web videos on all TV/PC's, such as CNN news clips and free on-demand content from CBS InnerTube (CBS news, CSI, Survivor etc)
Order Netflix DVD's and manage your Netflix queue right from any TV/PC
Keep your offline DVD library collection browsable by actor, director, genre etc. with movie descriptions (all downloaded from the web). Import ripped DVD's for online access.
Play your music collection, stored on the media server, in multiple rooms, with DFX enhanced sound (compressor, harmonic enhancer). Option to have independent multi-zone audio playback from any client PC if equipped with multiple sound cards
Download song lyrics for any song in your collection and have lyrics show up when you play that song
Sync your iPod from any PC on your home network (get rid of the iTunes restriction of not being able to sync an iPod from more than one PC)
Listen to streaming radio stations, such as BBC, Voice of America etc.
Get the showtimes of movies in theatres around your zip code, watch movie trailers (daily downloaded from the web) and send movies to your Netflix queue!
Watch your photo slideshows on all TV's/PC's
Get pop-up notifications of new emails and read them on your TV
See a localized weather forecast page from the Weather Channel for your zip code
