I feel like writing a blog entry of my last couple days of adventure into the world of TV tuners, PVR boxes, and NAS solutions. So here goes.
What I want to do is record TV so we can play it back whenever we need to. A problem with a simple solution, right? Just get a DVR/PVR box, plug the aerial in, and use the EPG (electronic program guide) to select which channels/TV shows you want to record. There are hundreds of PVR solutions out there and we picked up a Panasonic DMR-BWT735 a few years ago that works fairly well in that respect. Except a year after we got it, it ran out of space. So I went and bought a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus (it was a Black Friday deal or I would never have gone for Seagate) to add to the PVR and triple it's recording capacity. That went well for another year until we found out that the PVR has a limitation of 999 files, which meant we had to go back and delete files... not because we ran out of space, but because of software/firmware limitations of the PVR.
Fast forward to today and I've now got an extra TV in my bedroom but no aerial connection to watch TV on to it. It can stream multimedia like Netflix and Crunchyroll or stream videos from my desktop (which I might as well just plug directly into the TV using HDMI but I digress), but it cannot watch live TV. I've also got a Synology DS210j NAS with 2TB of drives inside which has been collecting dust for the last 7 years or so because back then I hated the iSCSI method of creating network shares that was as buggy as hell. Over a coffee, my dad and I talked about the current state of affairs of all the technology in the house that's not quite fit for purpose (the PVR, the TV, the NAS) and he asked me to suggest ways to improve things. Ten minutes of googling to update myself on current solutions (they really haven't changed much over the last 10 years) and I proposed the following options:
Cheap fix for the PVR situation - get another 1.5TB drive and stick it in another USB port.
Less ideal but still cheap alternative - get a USB DVB-T/T2 dongle to stick into his laptop so he can watch and record TV directly, rather than through the PVR or TV. Or find one that is compatible with my NAS (except, the listed compatible ones are discontinued).
Dark horse option (more expensive but seems to fix everything) - get a HDHomeRun Connect from Silicon Dust. It takes an aerial signal and streams it across the network to any PC, phone, tablet, or NAS, and also supports recording to the NAS (although it seems to require a $60 annual subscription to use their own software for it). This also means I'll be able to stream live TV to my bedroom TV.
Best solution but most expensive by far - build my own HTPC with a PCIe TV tuner card.
While dad thinks over the options I pulled my NAS out of retirement and went about updating it from DSM 2.3 to the latest supported version, 5.3.2 (not an easy process because it wanted me to go in steps first). That took me a couple hours in all but, once finished, I must say the new UI is much easier to work with. I created users and shares on it and tested it out with a random movie and TimeMachine for a full backup of my Macbook and everything worked flawlessly (even though the backup was very slow, probably because I encrypted it). I now have a very practical use for the NAS and it shall remain in permanent operation from now on (even if I don't bother enabling the Mail or Cloud servers).
I also went exploring the various options available with what I do have. The PVR is capable of streaming to other devices (via DIGA Player on phone/tablet or normal DLNA for computers) but my TV does not support the file format it chooses to stream in (my phone says it's mp4 but third party players cannot play it, only DIGA Player by Panasonic). PC can play it (I only tried with WMP) but it cannot use the EPG properly; it only shows the TV show names and not the channel names (also in random order) so whilst I can watch and record, it's not easy. Also I cannot find any way to get the NAS to connect to the PVR to access the tuners.
So that brings me back to the earlier options. I don't want to get another USB drive because that feels silly. And as much as I'd like to build my own HTPC, I can't justify the cost. I could go for the HDHomeRun Connect for £100 and hope to find ways around the $60 annual subscription for their app (I saw a review saying the iOS/tvOS app works well), or I could go for a USB DVB-T2 dongle for half the price and hope that my NAS works with it.
Or maybe there's a newer PVR solution that does all of this in one unit? <Quick google search later> Well, there are newer and better models, but when they go for around £300-400, I might as well build a HTPC for that price.
What I want to do is record TV so we can play it back whenever we need to. A problem with a simple solution, right? Just get a DVR/PVR box, plug the aerial in, and use the EPG (electronic program guide) to select which channels/TV shows you want to record. There are hundreds of PVR solutions out there and we picked up a Panasonic DMR-BWT735 a few years ago that works fairly well in that respect. Except a year after we got it, it ran out of space. So I went and bought a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus (it was a Black Friday deal or I would never have gone for Seagate) to add to the PVR and triple it's recording capacity. That went well for another year until we found out that the PVR has a limitation of 999 files, which meant we had to go back and delete files... not because we ran out of space, but because of software/firmware limitations of the PVR.
Fast forward to today and I've now got an extra TV in my bedroom but no aerial connection to watch TV on to it. It can stream multimedia like Netflix and Crunchyroll or stream videos from my desktop (which I might as well just plug directly into the TV using HDMI but I digress), but it cannot watch live TV. I've also got a Synology DS210j NAS with 2TB of drives inside which has been collecting dust for the last 7 years or so because back then I hated the iSCSI method of creating network shares that was as buggy as hell. Over a coffee, my dad and I talked about the current state of affairs of all the technology in the house that's not quite fit for purpose (the PVR, the TV, the NAS) and he asked me to suggest ways to improve things. Ten minutes of googling to update myself on current solutions (they really haven't changed much over the last 10 years) and I proposed the following options:
Cheap fix for the PVR situation - get another 1.5TB drive and stick it in another USB port.
Less ideal but still cheap alternative - get a USB DVB-T/T2 dongle to stick into his laptop so he can watch and record TV directly, rather than through the PVR or TV. Or find one that is compatible with my NAS (except, the listed compatible ones are discontinued).
Dark horse option (more expensive but seems to fix everything) - get a HDHomeRun Connect from Silicon Dust. It takes an aerial signal and streams it across the network to any PC, phone, tablet, or NAS, and also supports recording to the NAS (although it seems to require a $60 annual subscription to use their own software for it). This also means I'll be able to stream live TV to my bedroom TV.
Best solution but most expensive by far - build my own HTPC with a PCIe TV tuner card.
While dad thinks over the options I pulled my NAS out of retirement and went about updating it from DSM 2.3 to the latest supported version, 5.3.2 (not an easy process because it wanted me to go in steps first). That took me a couple hours in all but, once finished, I must say the new UI is much easier to work with. I created users and shares on it and tested it out with a random movie and TimeMachine for a full backup of my Macbook and everything worked flawlessly (even though the backup was very slow, probably because I encrypted it). I now have a very practical use for the NAS and it shall remain in permanent operation from now on (even if I don't bother enabling the Mail or Cloud servers).
I also went exploring the various options available with what I do have. The PVR is capable of streaming to other devices (via DIGA Player on phone/tablet or normal DLNA for computers) but my TV does not support the file format it chooses to stream in (my phone says it's mp4 but third party players cannot play it, only DIGA Player by Panasonic). PC can play it (I only tried with WMP) but it cannot use the EPG properly; it only shows the TV show names and not the channel names (also in random order) so whilst I can watch and record, it's not easy. Also I cannot find any way to get the NAS to connect to the PVR to access the tuners.
So that brings me back to the earlier options. I don't want to get another USB drive because that feels silly. And as much as I'd like to build my own HTPC, I can't justify the cost. I could go for the HDHomeRun Connect for £100 and hope to find ways around the $60 annual subscription for their app (I saw a review saying the iOS/tvOS app works well), or I could go for a USB DVB-T2 dongle for half the price and hope that my NAS works with it.
Or maybe there's a newer PVR solution that does all of this in one unit? <Quick google search later> Well, there are newer and better models, but when they go for around £300-400, I might as well build a HTPC for that price.
