newbie advice wanted

[navtis]

Hi,

I'm lost in the technicalities and don't know where to start... I have some idea of the computing side of things, but none of the TV/dish side.

I have a fixed dish pointing at hotbird feeding a Dreambox 7000 - my wife is Portuguese and needs it to stay pointing there for RTPi. I have a separate box for the english free-to-air terrestrial channels, with a scart connection going to a wireless transmitter sending the combined output to a TV in one of two other rooms.

This works - but now my computer wifi is interfering with the TV wireless signal, and the IR receivers dangling in front of the boxes keep getting knocked off... I need a better solution to get the signals to the other rooms. I don't have a good idea of what is practical and also what won't cost a fortune..

I'm thinking maybe I could get homeplug connectors to stream the (digital) AV signals over the mains instead of wireless. To do that I guess I need a PC - maybe a little fanless one - by the TV (or I can save by buying a monitor instead of a new TV, the old one needs replacing anyway) . And I can stream the output from the dreambox. But then how do I get the terrestrial TV signal sent? Is it practical to think of putting a second receiver on the dish, so I can get that to the dreambox too?

Or am I being too complicated and is there some simpler way to do this that I'm missing?

Grateful for any advice at all!

Graham

 

[trygveth]

Hi,

I'm lost in the technicalities and don't know where to start... I have some idea of the computing side of things, but none of the TV/dish side.

I have a fixed dish pointing at hotbird feeding a Dreambox 7000 - my wife is Portuguese and needs it to stay pointing there for RTPi. I have a separate box for the english free-to-air terrestrial channels, with a scart connection going to a wireless transmitter sending the combined output to a TV in one of two other rooms.

This works - but now my computer wifi is interfering with the TV wireless signal, and the IR receivers dangling in front of the boxes keep getting knocked off... I need a better solution to get the signals to the other rooms. I don't have a good idea of what is practical and also what won't cost a fortune..

I'm thinking maybe I could get homeplug connectors to stream the (digital) AV signals over the mains instead of wireless. To do that I guess I need a PC - maybe a little fanless one - by the TV (or I can save by buying a monitor instead of a new TV, the old one needs replacing anyway) . And I can stream the output from the dreambox. But then how do I get the terrestrial TV signal sent? Is it practical to think of putting a second receiver on the dish, so I can get that to the dreambox too?

Or am I being too complicated and is there some simpler way to do this that I'm missing?

Grateful for any advice at all!

Graham

Try thinking in one line at the time. if thats alright. I recommend hardwiring connection to another floor if all other is of less that good quality. The IR can be repited only, but good wire of cable tv quality can be a solution. You can have cable along with separate tuners and multiswitch. RGB can't be distributed but sat IF can !!!


tt

 

[navtis]

Trygveth said:

Try thinking in one line at the time. if thats alright. I recommend hardwiring connection to another floor if all other is of less that good quality. The IR can be repited only, but good wire of cable tv quality can be a solution. You can have cable along with separate tuners and multiswitch. RGB can't be distributed but sat IF can !!!

tt

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately I can't rewire the house because

a. It's an old house
b. my wife would kill me

But I think you're right to say I should think about one bit at a time. So here are 2 more specific questions:

1. I want to get the signals from both hotbird and any satellite carrying the UK terrestrial digital channels (BBC, ITC, C4 etc) to my dreambox. I have a fixed 80cm dish with one LBN pointing to hotbird on a south-facing wall. Can I add another LBN to get the UK channels as well as hotbird, or will I need a bigger or a motorised dish?

2. I have seen adverts saying that a standard homeplug setup (~85mbps) is enough to stream digital video. Is that true, or do I need to spend more on homeplug AV with 200mbps? (something like the devolo 200 http://www.devolo.co.uk/uk_EN/index.html)


Thanks!
Graham

 

[Irishdriver]

One answer could be to change channel on your Wifi system.

1. yes you could get a second LNB on an arm to see astra 2 as well as hotbird. Dish will need realignment, you'll need a switch as well.

2. yes streaming does work but it might be easier to put a wireless ethernet adaptor on the back of the dreambox so you can stream the Dreambox output to any WLAN PC on your network.

 

[navtis]

One answer could be to change channel on your Wifi system.

Yep. But I've still got a noisy usb transmitter on the back of a printer on a fixed frequency, and various neigbours with bad suppression on their power tools... anyway, I fancy a challenge ;-)

1. yes you could get a second LNB on an arm to see astra 2 as well as hotbird. Dish will need realignment, you'll need a switch as well.

Ok, what kind of switch do I need? Can you point me to any url with more info?

2. yes streaming does work but it might be easier to put a wireless ethernet adaptor on the back of the dreambox so you can stream the Dreambox output to any WLAN PC on your network.

Aaah... hadn't thought of that, got carried away with the coolness of homeplug. Your way has got to be far cheaper. Would I need to use one channel for video and another for the existing traffic, or is contention not a problem?

Thanks!
Graham

 

[Irishdriver]

Do a search for Wifi networks from your PC and then look at the properties of each network found to see what channel they are using. If there is a clash you can change. Your devices should still work even if you change the channel of your Wireless router.

Have a look at http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/multisat.htm to see what a couple of LNBs on a dish looks like. Then you need a Diseq switch 2/1 if you have two satellites or 3/1 if you go for three. These you find on ebay.
The switch is mounted beside the dish and one wire goes to the dreambox. The dreambox can handle diseq switching.

With a wireless ethernet adaptor you're putting traffic in your WLAN. If you're in a bad reception part of the house and have a low bitrate connection to the WLAN then you can get problems.

However all of this means you'd have to watch the same channel everywhere..........

 

[PaulR]

Have you tried changing the channel that your wifi uses? This may possibly help your problem.