Episode 19: Block Standard Def! Best Streaming HD, Ethernet for High Def, AMD Maui: HTPC with Built In 5.1 Amp! [Discussion]

[serafina]

HDTV Factory Calibration, HDTVs vs. HDMI Swtiches, Top 5 Films in VUDU HDX, Blu-Ray releases for November 17th, 2009, AMD Maui Review: How Does A Home Theater With a Built In 5.1 Amp Sound? Separating channels in SD and HD on your DVR!

Watch or download this episode here

[nav13eh]

An everything all in one media device is a good idea!

[ghelyar]

HDMI repeating is not a HDMI switch. A repeater is basically a signal booster. It accepts a signal and re-broadcasts it. Network repeaters are common. This is how they get cables running under the ocean etc when the cables obviously have a maximum length. Even fibre optic cable needs repeating but the distance is something like every 10km.

It it unlikely that these exist for HDMI because HDCP uses public key encryption.

[megazone]

Robert, I caught your comments about the HD TiVo and felt I could offer some advice to improve your experience.

1. Edit your channel list. TiVo Central -> Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Channels -> Channel List

If you have duplicate channels - say SyFy and SyFyHD - simply uncheck the SD channel. Uncheck any channels you never use, or that are SD duplicates you have in HD, etc. Only the channels you keep checked will show up in you guide, will be used for WishList searches, will show up in searches, etc. Uncheck and SD channel and it is like it doesn't exist. So your problem of Season Pass searches matching SD channels - gone.

2. Look at View Upcoming Episodes. If, for some reason, you can't/won't uncheck an SD dupe, so SD results still show up in a search, look in View Upcoming Episodes when looking at the show's description screen. The list shows *all* upcoming episodes, not just those that match the search, so you can see if any are airing on an HD channel. If so, go to *that episode* and create your Season Pass there - and it will be bound to the HD channel. Remember, TiVo Season Passes are tied to the one channel they are created on, while WishLists will match any channel.

3. Use the HD criteria when searching. TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Search By Title -> HD -> whatever from there. Selecting HD as a top level filter on searches narrows results to only content the TiVo has flagged as HD. (When you create a WishList you can do the same thing by adding Category -> HD to the criteria.)

4. When using the on screen guide you can also filter what is displayed. Hit 'Enter' when the guide is on the screen. Then 'Choose filter' and select HD, then set 'Filtering' to On.


I suspect you known about the navigation shortcuts, etc, already.

Hope this helps improve your TiVo experience.

[megazone]

Originally Posted by ghelyar

It it unlikely that these exist for HDMI because HDCP uses public key encryption.

What does that matter? Just as you can proxy SSL, SSH, and other encrypted connections using public key encryption you should be able to relay/reboost HDMI. The repeater would be transparent - bits come in, same bits go out just with a stronger signal. The end devices actually doing the HDCP negotiation wouldn't know the repeater was there. Like a switch on an Ethernet network, it would be transparent, no different from a piece of wire, to the end devices.

[martenkl]

Do you honestly believe all new TVs are calibrated for showrooms when only a fraction of TVs end up as such? Popular disinformation for consumers...

Cat 6 only supports 1Gb/s speeds at 100 meters (330 feet), Cat 6 augmented (6a) supports 10 Gb/s at 100 meters. Cat 6/6a is very difficult to install and terminate and should only be bought in ready made cables by laymen.

So regarding calibration and optical output from TVs Robert has to correct Patrick, maybe it was intentional but it wasn't clear and now more people will spread that all TVs are badly calibrated on purpose. The reason for having HDMI out from the TV is very valid and optical does not suffice in many scenarios, one being copy protection. It makes more sense to have the TV do the switching since you might want different settings for different sources, which is far more important for picture than sound.

Bluray which is Roberts favorite pet can use 45 Mb/s, well over what anyone can reliably get out of 802.11g.

Problems with EFI should be mentioned when recommending all in one boxes as well as PSU requirements.

40 years, not 30 years ago was 2001 made.

This is just what I remembered and think shows a lack of professionalism I expect and require. Please be better prepared in the future. Sorry, it became a bit opinionated but I just want the show to be a show I like even more.

[jken97]

Regarding your recommendations on wired network to the livingroom: I highly recommend Powerline Adapters for homes with decent wiring. I've got Netgear Powerline HD Plus adapters hooking my router to an ethernet switch in the living room to hook up AppleTv, xbox360, Blu-Ray and anything else I might add in the future, to my wired network. This specific Powerline adapter says it works up to 200 mbps, and a connection test gives me the exact same result through the adapter+switch as it does directly to my router.

Works great, relatively cheap and MUCH easier than going through the attic or crawl space beneath the house. One plugs into an outlet near the router, ethernet from router to adapter. Other adapter goes in the living room w/ ethernet cable to the switch, from the switch to my devices.

(note: this works great in a house, I've read elsewhere that you may have less luck or none at all in some apartment like setups)

[ghelyar]

Originally Posted by megazone

What does that matter? Just as you can proxy SSL, SSH, and other encrypted connections using public key encryption you should be able to relay/reboost HDMI. The repeater would be transparent - bits come in, same bits go out just with a stronger signal. The end devices actually doing the HDCP negotiation wouldn't know the repeater was there. Like a switch on an Ethernet network, it would be transparent, no different from a piece of wire, to the end devices.

Network repeaters work on an underlying layer in the protocol stack. For SSL you can go all the way up to TCP, including checksum verification and retransmission of bad packets without needing to decrypt the payload. HDMI has no such underlying layers. You need to decrypt it to know if anything has gone wrong and the whole point of HDCP is to try to prevent people from decrypting the signal on its way to the display device.

While simple signal boosters may exist (e.g. a transistor on each pin) these are not repeaters. These have the same problems as analogue signal boosters, such as the amplification of noise and not just signal. Noise is also more of a problem in the situation where you need repeaters to start with - the whole reason you need them is because the signal is starting to degrade at that length of cable. These may also lead to additional problems such as synchronisation between the pins.

Originally Posted by martenkl

Do you honestly believe all new TVs are calibrated for showrooms when only a fraction of TVs end up as such? Popular disinformation for consumers...

My LG 37" came calibrated near perfectly. The only thing I needed to change was the brightness, which was actually far too dark. This is pretty much the opposite of what Robert and Patrick say. I did buy it off the web though (so no "shop pop") and it did ask me if I was using it at home or in a shop when I first turned it on.

Originally Posted by martenkl

Cat 6 only supports 1Gb/s speeds at 100 meters (330 feet), Cat 6 augmented (6a) supports 10 Gb/s at 100 meters. Cat 6/6a is very difficult to install and terminate and should only be bought in ready made cables by laymen.

I wired my whole house up with CAT6. It is indeed 1gbps cable. However, I assume that it has some kind of advantage over CAT5e which is also 1gbps. Possibly just less EMI because the wires are twisted much more tightly.

I did not find it at all hard to wire it up. Time consuming and fiddly perhaps but all in all it is almost the same as CAT5/5e. A crimping tool is also needed. I have a small rack of servers in my house and I still wire them all up myself even for very short cables so it can't be that hard.

What isn't mentioned is that CAT6 cable is or at least used to be much more expensive when you buy longer cables.

Also, 100mbps hubs/switches/"routers" are very common. 1gbps aren't so common. Using a CAT6 cable is a bit pointless if you're not also going to get a good switch and it is 1gbps all the way up to the other endpoint, including its network card.

Originally Posted by martenkl

Bluray which is Roberts favorite pet can use 45 Mb/s, well over what anyone can reliably get out of 802.11g.

Running Blu-ray rips from my NAS (either .iso or .m2ts), it can easily take around 100mbps for me, the absolute peak of CAT5 cable and far beyond what 802.11g even claims to be capable of (so much signal loss you never get anywhere near 54mbps anyway). 802.11n should be able to handle it though.

Originally Posted by jken97

Regarding your recommendations on wired network to the livingroom: I highly recommend Powerline Adapters for homes with decent wiring. I've got Netgear Powerline HD Plus adapters hooking my router to an ethernet switch in the living room to hook up AppleTv, xbox360, Blu-Ray and anything else I might add in the future, to my wired network. This specific Powerline adapter says it works up to 200 mbps, and a connection test gives me the exact same result through the adapter+switch as it does directly to my router.

Using the mains electric wiring does not work very well in general. People have problems with surge protectors, fuses, switches (e.g. top floor of your house is separate to the bottom floor - my terminology might be a bit off for that) etc. The signal is also generally quite poor, they are no good for busy networks (e.g. transfer a file from A to B while C tries to do something else) and interference is rife. Turn on a kettle or microwave and lose your signal or whatever.

In general, anywhere that you are using this other than inside a Faraday cage, you are better off switching to 802.11n. It's not even "draft" any more.

[jken97]

Originally Posted by ghelyar

Using the mains electric wiring does not work very well in general. People have problems with surge protectors, fuses, switches (e.g. top floor of your house is separate to the bottom floor - my terminology might be a bit off for that) etc. The signal is also generally quite poor, they are no good for busy networks (e.g. transfer a file from A to B while C tries to do something else) and interference is rife. Turn on a kettle or microwave and lose your signal or whatever.

I guess success with powerline adapters depends on your home. Works great for me (single story house), no problem w/ it even when running the microwave. I'll transfer large HD video files from my office computer to my AppleTV or PC (when that's hooked up for hulu) w/o any lag, works just as quickly.

Of course, if you've got the time and $$, a proper network setup is best with ports installed in each room.

[bigron18]

I wired my entire house with CAT6a... running multiple cables to each room. I wanted to make sure I would be "future-proof" and not have to redo my work. I don't use it to its potential NOW, but as I said, I don't want to redo my work. I currently have a 100 MBps switch, but wishing to upgrade soon to gigabit. I won't upgrade to 10 GBps any time soon. I have wireless, but I do not rely on it... it is only for convenience and temporary situations (my little netbook and both of our iPhones in the house). I've found that with multiple devices using wireless, it is like using a hub as compared to a switch... with any major file movements, the network grinds to a halt using wireless or hubs. When streaming video, you do not want to suffer because some other wireless device is dragging down the service.

Before I wised up and wired the house, I'd tried relying on wireless and power line methods. I was having frequent problems when trying to stream video on my old ReplayTVs. That is when I did a little research and found that nothing beats having a wired/physical connection for reliability. I have learned to do a good job working punching down CAT cabling and terminating with RJ45 connectors. I have invested in several tools, including testing equipment to "verify" I did a good job. I've been very happy with the results.