SpiceWare's Blog

Thanks for writing this up. I'll be watching this with great interest!

 

I cut the cable a couple years back, switching to over-the-air and Internet based video. My family doesn't miss cable at all, but having recording/pause on ota would make a big difference to our viewing experience.

 

Even better, it looks like the HDHomeRun is supported under XBMC, which I'm planning to switch back to in the future. A single interface for over-the-air and Internet video only helps the wife acceptance factor!

My OTA set up is a MythTV (Mythbuntu) backend running on a Celeron Dell with two ATI HDTV Wonder cards which I schedule via MythWeb and play back using my PS3 via UPnP/DLNA. I also occasionally run the MythTV frontend on my wife's Macbook. Using the PS3 means I can't do live TV, but I've got cable PVRs for that (and for my wife's NASCAR).

 

Note: In my experience you really need at least 100Mbit wired for ATSC - 10Mb won't cut it and WiFi depends on protocol, distance, and interference.

Thanks for the heads up. My house is wired, so that will hopefully not be a problem. I currently have UPnP set up between my MacBook Pro and PS3 via MediaLink.

I just checked TVfool.com for your area and you have a _bunch_ of stations, and only two main directions. What you might do is set up two antennas - one for each HomeRun. One pointed NNW (RCA ANT-751 for VHF Hi+UHF) and the other NE (Antennas Direct DB-8 for UHF only) to better catch KZHO, KQHO, and KEHO.

 

Then you don't need a rotor although you may find 2 tuners isn't enough for 28 stations.

 

Scratch that idea. As per http://houstondtv.wordpress.com all three of the NE stations are religious. So just go with one good outdoor VHF Hi+UHF antenna and split it to the two HomeRuns. Depending upon your cable run you might not need a preamp.

Yeah, we have a lot of over the air channels and most of the towers are visible from my backyard as they're only 4 miles away(my zip is 77545, which TVfool.com shows as being 1 mile closer to the towers than I actually am).

 

Per that site I could probably get by with a set-top antenna, though I'll most likely stash one in the attic. I may eventually put the antenna on the mast the satellite dish is on, but that won't happen until after I cancel DirecTV.

I checked my AMEX account and the new billing cycle started today. So I now have a Mac mini on order.

 

I opted to bump the i7 to 2.6 GHz. I debated the Fusion Drive, but decided not to as I'm most likely going to set up a Drobo 5D. A friend has one of the earlier models and is quite happy with it.

Assuming your TV has an ATSC tuner, you can try out antenna placement. (Although, with the antennas that close, you can probably get a signal with just a paper clip.)

I wish it did, it only has an NTSC tuner. I don't know if they ever came out with it, but there's an internal slot for an HD tuner. What little I recall about the HD tuner was it was going to have a list price around $1000.