[ale] cord cutting for TV, SiliconDust, MythTV, recording to PC, etc.,

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

I'll try to answer inline as best I can.

On Sun, April 9, 2017 10:42 am, Narahari 'n' Savitha wrote:
> Friends:
>
> I am trying to discontinue DISH NETWORK service.
>
> It requires I setup antenna.
>
> I read JD's blog on this and it looks quite a bit of work and I am not a
> very handy person.
>
> I have an internal antenna (paid 5 bucks on a sale) and it picks up a few
> channels.  I feel external antenna is a good idea (need input on this)
>
> How to pick a good/great external antenna ?

What antenna you need depends on where you live and what channel(s) you
really want to get.  Antennaweb (I don't recall if it's .net, .org, or
.com -- google it) is a great resource to determine what you can receive
and "how strong" it will come in.  That determines what size antenna you
need.  I have a 3-ish foot antenna in my attic and I get pretty much
everything except ION (channel 14 out of Rome).  And I don't get it
because it's in the other direction.  I opted for a directional antenna
which I point approximately 185-degrees to reach the main transmission
sites downtown and on stone mountain.

>
> What is the role of a tool like  Silicon Dust in this setup ? (My
> understanding is SiliconDust converts video packets to  network packets)

Yes.  The HDHomeRun will tune the ATSC and give you an MPEG (or other)
data stream, converting the ATSC to Ethernet for you.

> Where can Silicon Dust record to ?  Does it require a PC ?  Can we connect
> a HD recorder from network ? (if there is such a device) ?

The HDHomeRun requires a recorder if you want to record.  You can record
to anything you wish.  I use MythTV myself, which I run on a Linux box. 
The nice thing about the HDHR is that you don't need a lot of processing
power for recording (although you do need a lot of I/O in order to
transfer to/from disk and for the MySQL DB it uses).

> If I record to PC from SiiconDust can it be done with Linux or it requires
> Windows ?

See above.  You don't need Windows.

> How to stream from SiliconDust directly(or indirectly) to Apple
> TV/Roku/Chrome ?

I don't know, I've never tried.  I have a MythTV Front End system attached
to each TV and use that.  I do think you can also connect to MythTV via
uPNP, but I've never tried so cannot comment on how easy/hard it is to set
up.  You can google to see if anyone has?

Hope this helps, and welcome to the disconnected world.

> Thank  You
> -N

-derek

PS: I get about 50+ channels OTA, but my TVs are mostly on 8-1 or 8-4,
since my 4-year-old controls the remote.  Luckily my HDHR/MythTV can
record my shows off 2-1, 5-1, 11-1, 46-1, and 69-1.  :)

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant