A New Skin and Commercial Skipping

Last night, I applied a new skin to the SageTV interface. The interface is known as SageMC. A really good description of the interface, and instructions on its installation, can be found here at the Geektonic web site.

I have also tried installing the commercial skipping software, again with the help of this article at Geektonic. I have yet to test this feature

One of the major problems I have identified with SageTV is a lack of documentation. Sure, they do have a basic manual available, but I really wish that there was some more extensive step by step instructions for importing media and configuring features.

Sage appears to be a small company, yet they produce impressive software and hardware. It seems a shame that no one has stepped up to the plate to create comprehensive online documentation to support new users. Creating documentation is much cheaper and easier than writing software, or designing and manufacturing hardware.

First Extender Is Wired, an the Server Is Up!

I finally completed the wiring, at least to one of my televisions. I was also able to install the SageTV Media Center software in my server.

Here is the functionality that I currently have:

1. Digital recording of a single channel. I currently only have one tuner card in my server, and my next purchase will be for a two tuner card, for recording and or watching up to three channels at onece.

2. Timeshifting, or TIVO like functionality

3. Program Guides

4. DVD playback from my server. I uploaded a single DVD to test. Uploading more DVDs will wait till I have a little time.

5. Picture viewing. I can view pictures, although I haven't determined how to view a slideshow or thumbnails of my images.

6. Internet content viewing. I found a catalog filled with videos from YouTube, Google, and others. The quality was quite impressive, far better than typical online content and very close to standard definition television.

Here is a list of some of the features I hope to enable soon:

1. Music - Surprisingly, I haven't quite figured out how to upload music. To my credit, I haven't actually tried yet.

2. Content labelling - I would like to upload movie posters, album covers, and channel logos to appear. I actually tried to do this, but I must be missing something.

3. Wiring my projector and my other television. This involves running wires outside my house. A quick look at the recent Denver weather will tell you why I haven't done that yet. The real point was not just to have the features, any Tivo would have done that, but to have them from every room in the house. Fortunately, the outside work will actually be quicker than the inside work, as soon as the weather cooperates.

TV vs PC: Can't We All Just Get Along?

Yesterday was slow day for my Quest, as other responsibilities kept me from making much progress on the media network.

In the mean time, I read this interesting article in PC Magazine by the irascible John C. Dvorak.

In the article, Dvorak pits PCs against televisions. Like me, he also has a projector with a 100 inch screen, which is only now the cost of an actual television of half it's width. He is correct that it is pointless to watch most TV programs from a projector.

Our movie room is in our basement, and we only go there to watch movies or special TV broadcasts.

What my project, and this blog, is about is the merging of your PC and your TV or projector. I envision a time in the future, say a few weeks from now, where I can access any media content from any TV or projector in my house.

The result will be harmony between PCs and TVs, with each working together to do what it does best. Ultimately, I will no longer consider my LCD screen or my projector to be a television, it will just become a household Media Center.

Wiring My House

It turns out that I was missing a single adapter for my KVM switch for my Media Server PC, so I couldn't install the server last night. Instead, I decided to work on the wiring.

Specifically, I needed to pull Ethernet cable from my office to each of the three TVs in my house. (One is actually a projector, but you get the idea).

Now, in theory, I could have gone with some sort of wireless system. I have chosen to go the wired route for several reasons. First, I have heard that HDTV over wireless is slow and unreliable. Second, I also found that my chosen Media Extender, the SageTV HD200, uses Ethernet. Finally, my house is already wired for cable, so I merely had to wire Ethernet alongside the existing cables. This is not hard, but it is somewhat time consuming.

Once alternative would have been to use phoneline networking, or HomePNA. I once deployed phoneline networking in a 12 story residential complex for internet sharing. It was much cheaper to share a single internet connection rather than each one of sign up for one.

Phoneline networking uses existing telephone lines in your house as your network cables. I used to use this product.

You would also have the option of powerline networking. That is using your homes electrical wiring to send data. While both of these solutions would be far less labor intensive, they would be more expensive. Ethernet cable is really cheap on EBay, like $15 for 100 feet of cable.

As usual, time will be my biggest constraint.

Glossary Of Terms

Since a key struggle in planning this project has been learning new terminology, I decided to put together a glossary of terms. This will help my readers to follow along and understand what I am doing.

This glossary will be updated and expanded as needed.

Commercial Skipping - It turns out that TV broadcasts have special codes in them to let the local stations know when to insert a commercial. Smart technical people have discovered this and have programmed Media Servers to detect these settings and give users the option of skipping commercials.

Ethernet - This is the most common type of data networking cable. It looks similar to a standard telephone cable, just a little more rugged.

KVM Switch - This is a Keyboard, Video, and Mouse switch. It allows you to control multiple computers from one keyboard, monitor, and mouse. This saves both money and space while keeping your office from looking like a computer room.

Media Extender - This device goes between the Media Server and a Television. It accesses the Media Server over a network, allowing the viewer to browse and view media. Typically, a Media Extender is a simple set top box that has inputs for portable storage and networked data, and an output to your television. Finally, a remote control is necessary for users to browse and view media.

Media Server (Hardware) - This is the hardware that stores various media such as recorded television, DVDs, Music, and Photographs. Typically a Media Server is a personal computer (PC) that has been dedicated to this task. The PC communicates with your televisions via computer network cables, (See Ethernet), or by wireless data transfer, or Wi-Fi. Between your Media Server and your television, there is a Media Extender to act as a client to your Media Server, avoiding the need for a client PC at every television

Media Server (Software) - This is the program installed on a PC that converts, catalogues, and distributes your media to your Media Extender. It also manipulates both recorded media and media from cable, sattelite, internet, and over the air broadcasts with PVR functionality. Popular servers include the Microsoft Windows Media Center, MythTV, and the Sage Media Center.

Open Source - This is a category of software that is not locked, allowing other people or companies to modify it's code. Imagine if software were a car. If Microsoft made cars, the hood would be welded shut, and all parts would be locked. If any lock were to be broken, the user would be subject legal penalties. Furthermore, even if you could work on the car, all plans and specifications would be a closely guarded design secret. These are all terms one must agree to before purchasing or using non-Open Source software. In contrast, Open Source software is like bicycle. Customers are encouraged to modify and upgrade it, and many companies exist solely to creat new designs. By swapping older parts for ones with newer designs, users can customize the product to meet their needs.

Placeshifting - I am going to have to go with the Wikipedia Definintion, "Placeshifting can be defined as watching or listening to live, recorded, or stored media on a remote device via the internet or over a data network."

PVR - Personal Video Recorder - This functionality was made popular by Tivo, and it makes possible several usefull features for watching television such as a program guide, Timeshifting, Commercial Skipping

Timeshifting - This feature allows users to watch a program while it is being recorded. Perhaps the game starts at 1pm and goes until 5pm. With timeshifting, I can begin watching the game at three, while the final two hours are recording. This would be impossible with a VCR.

A Word About Time

The last thing I want anyone to believe, is that I am an incompetent boob, unable to install and configure a piece of software in less than a month.

I am an IT professional, with 12+ years of experience installing and supporting large corporate e-mail systems. (Although I have no experience working with networked media.)

My biggest constraint in this project is actually time. At this time, I only have about an hour a day at home to work on this, sometimes less.

I am going to try to use the time constraint to my advantage. I will be able to blog the installation and configuration in detail over time, rather than a single post about what I did last Sunday.

Installing the Server

OK, so I got home yesterday and was ready to set up the SageTV Media Center software. Fortunately, I have a surplus PC from my office that will make for a great media server, while keeping my costs under control.

I was planning to hook it up to my existing PC's keyboard, mouse, and monitor using a Trendnet Switch (TK-209k). These can be had for about $25 and are a much smaller and more cost effective solution than having a second keyboard, mouse, and monitor on one's desk.

Unfortunately, I was missing a small part to convert my monitor output from DVI to VGA. I have since obtained one, and I hope to install the server in the next day or two.

And The Winner Is......

Yesterday, I just received 3 brand new SageTV HD Theater media extenders. I will also be installing the SageTV Media Center server software.

Here is how I selected Sage:

First, it took me a while to find what I was looking for, simply because I didn't even know the generic name for it. How do you Google something when you don't know it's name. "Thingy that I connect to my TV that allows me to watch stuff from my computer over a network" didn't turn up many hits.

Eventually I learned that what I was looking for was called a "Media Extender". Once I knew the term, I had no problem finding plenty of companies that made them.

Unfortunately, almost all of them are designed to work exclusively with the Microsoft Vista Media Server. I had already excluded this product because of it's excessive use of DRM, severely restricting it's ability to meet my requirements.

That narrowed the field down substantially. I looked at solutions such a Buffalo LinkTheater HD Digital Media Player. This appears to be entirely standalone with no server component other than storage. There also didn't seem to be a direction this solution is going in. Ditto the Linksys Media Extender.

Popcorn Hour makes a product that they call a media streamer, but it didn't seem to operate in conjunction with a server other than a shared network drive. It is difficult to tell exactly what it does from their website, and I just didn't get the feeling that I would be happy with this product.

MythTV is a popular, open source, media server, but it seems like it lacks an extender. I believe the idea is that you put a computer at each TV. I ruled this out as for reasons of cost, noise, space, complexity, and power consumption. Frankly, these concerns ruled out a number of media server options that were dependent on a PC for every TV.

That left Sage, with it's HD-100 Media Extender and it's Media Center Software. I actually reached this conclusion a couple months ago, yet Sage had sold out of it's media extender. That left me plenty of time to browse it's forums, to determine it's strengths and weaknesses.

It met all my requirements, yet it had a few weeknesses:

1. The HD-100 model seemed to require a lot of server resources. It is doubtful that I could have ran the server on my exisiting PC. Even if I could, I think it would have needed so much of it's memory and processor, it would have been useless for other tasks.

2. The SageTV media extender's remote control has been panned by many.

3. The HD-100 model extender had been sold out since August.

Fortunately, Sage released their new extender the HD-200 on December 1st. It addressed the performance problem by moving most of the processing from the server to the extender. Essentially, it is just reading the server like network attached storage, I believe. As for the remote, I found a deal on Ebay for three Logitech Harmony 880 universal remotes. This fixes the remote issue, as well as addressing the fact that I would have been adding a fifth or sixth remote control to each of my rooms.

I have already received the HD-200s and hope to be setting them up tonight. They are extremely simple, small boxes, about the size of a hardcover book. Ethernet cable comes in, TV picture goes out, there is not much more to it than that.

Tune in tomorrow for some initial observations.

The Requirements

If I am going to start looking for a media solution, then I have to define my requirements.

Must Haves:

1. Media Streaming: The ability to play DVDs, CDs, recorded television, home movies, and display pictures stored on a media server.

2. Available and Inexpensive: Set top boxes in order to interface with the media server. I really do not want to use a computer and keyboard at each television in order to play back media.

3. Personal Video Recorder (PVR) Capability. Most people will think of this as timeshifting or Tivo-like functionality that will allow us to record pause and commercial skip through live TV.

4. Internet Video Streaming: These days, there is a fairly comprehensive library of videos available for streaming from Netfix, Hulu, YouTube, and others.

5. High Definition capability to avoid planned obsolescence.

6. Affordability: At the moment, this is defined as an initial implementation cost of less than $1,000 for three different TVs in my house (or should I call them media centers?)


"Nice To Have" Features:

1. Placeshifting: Wouldn't it be nice if I could access my media from a remote computer? At the very least, I would love to schedule recordings from the internet.

2. Audio Streaming of traditional radio broadcasts, HD radio broadcasts, or internet radio broadcasts.

Must NOT Haves:

Digital Rights Management: In laymen's terms, it is the idea that I would purchase hardware, software, and media that would conspire against me to prohibit playback from "unapproved" copies. This flies in the face of the concept of fair use, an established legal principal allowing me to timeshift, placeshift, and backup broadcasts and physical media.

In other words, it perfectly legal to use my computer's hard drive as I do my VCR. I have decided that I won't pay companies money for software or hardware that prohibits me from viewing media that I rent or own however, wherever, and whenever I chose.

Tomorrow, I will unveil my decision.

The Quest Begins!

I have a theory that virtually any invention that I can come up with that is technologically feasible has already been created. All I need to do is find out who makes it. Two years ago, when I completed my movie room, I knew that I would want a system to play all my movies off of a server on to my projector and all of my TVs.

The other critical factor is cost. At that time, hard drives were somewhat more expensive in dollar per gigabyte than I really wanted to spend. I knew that the storage costs alone wouldn't justify creating a server for myself.

Predictably, hard drive prices have fallen, with terabyte drives (1,000 gigabytes) now selling for about $100. Assuming a standard definition DVD is compressed to 5 gigabytes, as it always is on my backup copies, than I can store 200 movies on a single terabyte drive, at an acceptable cost of 50 cents per movie.

As time goes on, the price will fall even further, yet I will likely ad many more high definition, Blu Ray movies to my collection. Those will be about 25 gigs, or about $2.50 for the storage space at today's prices. I expect hard drives prices to fall rapidly in the future, making high definition storage costs less expensive current standard definition costs in the next four years.

There are several other factors that mitigate the storage costs ballooning out of control. First, I will only be using my media server to......serve media.

The archiving of the media will still take place on physical discs. Since physical media, such as a blank DVD, can be had for as little as 10 cents a disc, it is still cheaper than hard drive storage. Also, if I can keep the DVDs away from my toddler, I don't have to worry about the destruction of the media in the way I would a hard drive failure.

I also realized that it was not necessary to keep all of my media, especially my movies, on my media server at all times. If I watch a movie, and I have it backed up on physical media, there is no reason why it has to consume hard drive space on my server forever. If I feel the need to watch it another day, I can always reload it. If I had my favorite 100 movies, and the last 50-100 DVDs I watched on my media server, that would be more than sufficient. As hard drive prices inevitably plummet, it will be cheap and easy to expand the capacity of my server.

With these assumptions, I realized my vision for a media server was now technologically, and economically feasible, I just needed to find the correct solution.

Welcome To Media Quest

This is my effort to document my quest to view all of my pictures, movies, music, and television recordings residing on a server from any room in my house.

Two years ago, I moved from a small loft in Downtown Denver to a three story, four bedroom home near the city. As I set up a television in my bedroom, one in the living room, and a projector in our movie room in the basement, I realized we had some problems:

• We had to purchase DVD players and/or recorders for each room.
• Our movies were on DVD, and we had to run around the house to find what we wanted to watch. The same was true with our music residing on CDs.
• Almost all of our pictures were on our computer, and we would love to show them from the living room television rather than the computer monitor in my office.

What we needed was a media server, and a device to view and play movies, music, and pictures on each of our TVs. I knew media servers existed, but I did not know how one selected and played files on a TV without a computer.