Comments on: DIY Slingbox

By: David Glover

David Glover — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:01:31 +0000

Yes, this is actually real multicast.

-David, author of linked blog.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:59:24 +0000

More details on the canadian satellite multicasting, please. Are you using firewire to grab the video, or digitizing the composite/s-video output?

By: Solenoidclock

Solenoidclock — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:18:02 +0000

I hope he goes with small usb IR receivers or something instead of the reader suggestion to twitter out codes with his capslock key.

Photo effect. :)

By: ian

ian — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:02:54 +0000

MythTV works great for sending/receiving over the LAN, but I haven’t seen anyone get it to use other than raw video streams over the network. Will the MythTV server transcode the data stream to something less data intensive before it sends it over the network?

By: Chip

Chip — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:28:27 +0000

Nice concept but it seems to me like mythtv would do this better. Install one or more video capture devices (tv, sat, etc) and have a full remote control tv ‘casting’ setup. log in to it from any computer on the network and watch live or recorded video and with a little ingenuity you can use LIRC to change channels from any remote workstation. Imagine the remote control wars you could have if someone else in the household wants desparately to watch something different ! but still, mythtv is freely available and it’s in pretty good shape so far. If you need to, it would be trivial to use this mythtv linux server to echo the remote controls to your external sat receiver as well as a sat card in the box. A bit of scripting and a minor amount of programming (it don’t look like something too complex) and it would be way versatile. all the hardware to do this is available and Linux has more than enough “free” software to make this work quite well.

By: ian

ian — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:52:31 +0000

Ok, this is great, but I’d like to see someone do the opposite — make a set top box that connects to a video source over the network or internet and plays it on the TV _without a PC_.

Ideally, I’d like to be able to send remote commands over the net to the transmitting box (channel change, play/stop, etc.).

Has anyone heard of this?

By: Schnulli

Schnulli — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:33:20 +0000

His page kicks me out, saying i must upgrade my IE. WHAT? I decide what browser I use!

By: bill

bill — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:46:16 +0000

@tom:
I agree with you wholeheartedly, and the latter part of your post was where my original comment came from-

"On the other hand, if your solution it more complicated and less functional than cheaply available commercial alternatives, you are either unintentionally wasting your time and resources or are simply elitist to the point of delusion."

- I am all for true hacks, particularly when they provide an elegant, noncommercial, and efficient solution. I admire and endeavor to retain that spirit. However, one could describe a Rube Goldberg illustration as a technical hack, but no sane person would really involve things like bowling balls and elephants while automating the process of pouring a bowl of cereal.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:28:04 +0000

The point of hacking, or hackaday.com, is not to just throw things together to prevent having to buy commercial products; it is about doing it well. If you can put together your own solution that works better (or at least as well) as a commercial solution and do it cheaper, than that is a hack.

On the other hand, if your solution it more complicated and less functional than cheaply available commercial alternatives, you are either unintentionally wasting your time and resources or are simply elitist to the point of delusion. There is nothing wrong with using a commercial product, especially when it works quite well.

By: atrain

atrain — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:34:36 +0000

Lets buy commercial stuff rather than hacking together what we already have!

I think I may be lost. How do I get to hackaday.com from here?

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:51:58 +0000

@ atrain: It’s a bulky, ineffcient solution using essentially off-the-shelf parts to accomplish something that is better acheived by something that can be bought for less than two hours’ pay.

It may work, but I’d say he’d be better off selling that equipment lying around for a few bucks on eBay and then just buying the slingbox… maybe even get a used one on eBay so it feels more dangerous or whatever.

By: Stu Smith

Stu Smith — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:28:27 +0000

The whole point of the slingbox in my opinion is so you dont have to have a hot power sucking PC or Mac switched on all the time ready to capture and retransmit video!
The slingbox claims a whole lot less energy than a full on PC and it sits totally silently under my TV! Remember to be worthwhile, it needs to be running 24/7/365, you dont want to have to remember to plug the thing in, boot it up, and start the capture software, and you really dont want to leave it running forever wearing an expensive computer down doing nowt and making a loud noise over time as the fans pick up house dust.
Before I bought a slingbox I used to do the video capture / encoding thing on computer, but it was very immature at the time (about 3 or 4 years back) especially when trying it with a cheap arsed Hauppauge analogue capture card – there was no facility for retransmitting video, but I sorted something out and got remote viewing going, but then there was no facility to change TV channels remotely, or control other devices such as your DVR / DVD player.
Slingbox is just perfick for that sort of thing – I have mine routed thru my DVR, so I can watch a DVD, watch hard disk recorded content, watch on my Windows Mobile phone via HSDPA, and timeshift live TV with it!
The mobile version is very cool, its not ideal, the handset gets quite warm as its constantly receiving data and processing it, I find it most useful for just starting up my DVR, setting a channel for recording something I forgot to set up at home, making sure my sky box hasn’t crashed, then watching it later on on TV.
Very powerful kit all in all, but it does have its limitations – at a certain firmware revision they chose to encrypt the video, and you can only watch it with their proprietary software.

By: atrain

atrain — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:19:14 +0000

Did any of you whiners actually read the article? Hes not buying $160,000 of bmw parts to make a metro, he has them lying around and is doing something useful with them.

It was a dusty old camera he no longer uses. The mac mini is under his TV already, I assume as a media system or whatnot. He stuck them together, used free software that is available, and got himself streaming video.

All he needs now is to implement a remote control. That shouldn't be too difficult a usb to serial dongle (if they work on OSX), or a PIC w/usb support. I would recommend that over the original idea of the tvLINK thing he linked to, because then he will still be able to operate it over the internet.

By: Steve0

Steve0 — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:51:28 +0000

just use WME encoder and a tvtuner card…

or VNC for use on any OS

By: fartface

fartface — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:36:46 +0000

Neat! a way to make a $599.00 slingbox!

I'll buy a real one for $98.00 instead.

What's next a hack to make a Geo metro from $190,000 of BMW and Mercedes parts?