Hi,
I am posting this is in case the setup I use might be of interest to others, especially if (like me) you're not deeply technical!
I am in the UK. I wanted to record stuff from live 'freeview' digital TV stations and be able to stream the recorded content to watch on an ipad or other devices over our home wifi.
I spent some time trying to get a linux based HTPC system working but it eluded me - beyond my technical skills. However I found this Windows solution generally stable, quite easy to setup and it does exactly what I wanted. It's also small and affordable:
- Sumvision Cyclone mini media stick PC. It arrived with Windows 10 pre-installed. We have a wall mounted TV in our kitchen and this amazing tiny PC sits behind it. When I need to access it, the PC is connected to an HDMI socket on the back of the TV. I use an Rii mini wireless keyboard and touchpad.
- PCTV Systems DVB T2 HD TV tuner stick (292e). This comes with their TVCenter software package for live TV viewing, electronic programme guide, recording and playback controls. It includes a module (DistanTV) for remotely controlling and streaming live TV and recorded videos to another networked PC or tablet. The tuner stick shares the aerial connection with our kitchen TV by means of a simple co-axial splitter.
- One drawback of the DistanTV software is that you can’t fast forward recorded programmes, e.g. to skip adverts. However I found an excellent streaming PC server and ipad client combo, Air Video HD, that is compatible with the native format used by TVCenter for video recording and which does allow skipping about.
There are a few quirks but generally it works well and I'd recommend it.
cheers
Peter
I am posting this is in case the setup I use might be of interest to others, especially if (like me) you're not deeply technical!
I am in the UK. I wanted to record stuff from live 'freeview' digital TV stations and be able to stream the recorded content to watch on an ipad or other devices over our home wifi.
I spent some time trying to get a linux based HTPC system working but it eluded me - beyond my technical skills. However I found this Windows solution generally stable, quite easy to setup and it does exactly what I wanted. It's also small and affordable:
- Sumvision Cyclone mini media stick PC. It arrived with Windows 10 pre-installed. We have a wall mounted TV in our kitchen and this amazing tiny PC sits behind it. When I need to access it, the PC is connected to an HDMI socket on the back of the TV. I use an Rii mini wireless keyboard and touchpad.
- PCTV Systems DVB T2 HD TV tuner stick (292e). This comes with their TVCenter software package for live TV viewing, electronic programme guide, recording and playback controls. It includes a module (DistanTV) for remotely controlling and streaming live TV and recorded videos to another networked PC or tablet. The tuner stick shares the aerial connection with our kitchen TV by means of a simple co-axial splitter.
- One drawback of the DistanTV software is that you can’t fast forward recorded programmes, e.g. to skip adverts. However I found an excellent streaming PC server and ipad client combo, Air Video HD, that is compatible with the native format used by TVCenter for video recording and which does allow skipping about.
There are a few quirks but generally it works well and I'd recommend it.
cheers
Peter