GregA1503560021 Posted April 9, 2011 Posted April 9, 2011 (edited) I have an odd question for an apartment owner.... A motel block in regional queensland is sharing 12 Austar channels to 50 apartments. These are all in analog/mono. Regional queensland is going digital for FTA - so they need to receive the 12 Austar analog as well as the 15-ish FTA digital channels. The bedroom TV is old and definitely needs a STB. The main plasma receives analog now, trying to find out about digital capability. Obviously I can write some instructions for using the TV channels 1-12 or turning the TV to AV to get FTA digital via a STB, I'm just wondering about more elegant solutions. I've done a search on hybrid PVRs, and generally see * some HTPC options, * Beyonwiz's with analog component inputs (but not analog TV tuners), * DVD recorders from a few years back... * and the FiiVo (http://www.gamedude.com.au/prod_show.php?art_no=tvPBpbr_500_1) which looks geek-friendly but not so much user friendly. My question is probably not as common today. What PVRs would you recommend for receiving digital and analog simultaneously? I'd really like something simple to use. In my ideal world I'd get a TiVo with hybrid tuner (which doesn't exist) and add IceTV for an Austar channel guide (which they don't do). It doesn't need series links since no-one stays longer than a week. Perhaps I should avoid a PVR altogether? or just set it up for pause-live-TV. My parents have an old Panasonic DVD recorder (which receives analog or SD-digital and re-compresses to the HDD), maybe I should get this handed across. Any thoughts on this are appreciated. I'll probably have to set it up and then it needs to be idiot and fool-proof so I don't need to fix it all the time. (edit: I think I asked something similar a few years back, I can't find it. And they didn't think it was worth it... but now it's crunch time) Edited April 9, 2011 by GregA
Paul55 Posted April 9, 2011 Posted April 9, 2011 Are you sure the Austar is analog? I had Austar (satellite) a couple of years ago and I'm sure it was digital. Does your setup have some sort of central dish with a receiver in each room? The only elegant solution I've seen for recording Pay TV is IQ and assume Mystar is similar. However, this would be an expensive exercise - unless there are special deals for your type of business. I'm not sure about Austar, but Foxtel rebroadcasts most of the FTA channels anyway. The complexity of recording on an external piece of kit makes it cumbersome, even when the user is familiar with the equipment. The problem with any PVR I've used is the learning curve and this would be an issue with transient users. You would probably need to employ an expert to man a 24hr Help Desk - Oh, that would be you With the introduction of digital, there should be little difference between your setup and a city equivalent. What are they doing?
miata Posted April 9, 2011 Posted April 9, 2011 Are you sure the Austar is analog? I had Austar (satellite) a couple of years ago and I'm sure it was digital. Does your setup have some sort of central dish with a receiver in each room? The only elegant solution I've seen for recording Pay TV is IQ and assume Mystar is similar. However, this would be an expensive exercise - unless there are special deals for your type of business. I'm not sure about Austar, but Foxtel rebroadcasts most of the FTA channels anyway. The complexity of recording on an external piece of kit makes it cumbersome, even when the user is familiar with the equipment. The problem with any PVR I've used is the learning curve and this would be an issue with transient users. You would probably need to employ an expert to man a 24hr Help Desk - Oh, that would be you With the introduction of digital, there should be little difference between your setup and a city equivalent. What are they doing? The Mystar box is an awful thing to use compared with the iQ, it's as slow as a wet week to respond to input and doesn't do anything half as well as the iQ. A friend has Austar and it's really frustrating trying to figure out how to work the damn thing.
GregA1503560021 Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 Are you sure the Austar is analog? I had Austar (satellite) a couple of years ago and I'm sure it was digital. Does your setup have some sort of central dish with a receiver in each room? There is a central dish connected to 12 old digital Austar receivers in what's basically a storeroom, each set to one of the 12 channels the accommodation block has subscribed to as a group. Those 12 stbs output an analog TV signal on different available frequencies, which then get mixed in with the regular TV antenna (basically), including some amplifying of the signal. Then any old TV in the 50-odd apartments just does a scan and gets all the analog FTA and analog Austar channels. The Austar quality is crap (4:3, mono, it's got some fuzz in the transmission) and if any box outputs a message/error then the caretaker has to go into the store room and exit the message. Also occasionally 2 channels will swap. But that's the way it is, and the individual apartment owners (who rent out their apartments themselves or centrally) can vote in their strata meetings if they want change, but no-one really understands the technology. So now the TV will have to handle digital and analog signals. If we can add some good PVR technology that would be brilliant but I don't really think there is any worthwhile option there. And even with the current setup, when I check out the apartment occasionally people have deleted a FTA channel, or retuned it... no idea why they do it. Once someone pulled the plasma off the wall to try to plug in a game station and did huge damage. So my technological hopefulness is conflicting with my "why bother even trying". It'd be great to have a good PVR recording Movie One and GEM or whatever, with a nice TV guide for both.... At the least I have to see if the Plasma handles digital (I assume it does) and see how it does it - if it can integrate analog and digital signals together then it won't make much difference at all to current setup, but most have an analog/digital toggle and I'll have to write up some new instructions. Either way the bedroom TV is an old CRT which has to be dealt with.
GregA1503560021 Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 (edited) Maybe if I could find a box which takes 4 component inputs and converts it to a single DTV transmission with 4 channels .... just 3 of those could take away our analog pains. edit: Seems VERY expensive and problematic at present: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/ind.../t-1302051.html Edited April 10, 2011 by GregA
I am not a duck Posted April 10, 2011 Posted April 10, 2011 Then any old TV in the 50-odd apartments just does a scan and gets all the analog FTA and analog Austar channels. Unless the system is updated to correctly distribute the forthcoming digital signals, I expect problems to occur. You mention this is a regional area, so I imagine the current analogue and future proposed digital channels are most likely on UHF. This could lead to problems with channel clashes when digital begins. Whichever way, it will cost.
GregA1503560021 Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 Unless the system is updated to correctly distribute the forthcoming digital signals, I expect problems to occur. Yep me too. I'm not making the decisions though. Just changing one apartment.
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