A Mac Mini HTPC that emulates Dish Network's Dual Tuner system?

Hi 🙂

Please forgive me if this has been covered and answered in another thread.

I would like to do a HTPC set-up but want to emulate the capabilities of Dish Network's dual tuner DVR capabilities, and not have to pay their monthly rates. I would like, therefore, to:

-- record 2 shows at once, ideally while also being able to watch OTA TV channels separately, but that latter part is not a must-have
-- have the ability to connect the HTPC over 2 separate TVs, so that I can watch live TV or a recorded show on one and my wife has the ability to watch what she wants (live or recorded as well)on the other; in other words, a whole home DVR.

Not sure if HD Homerun -- which sounds great -- would work in my case, as my router, or, rather my Uverse residential gateway -- is affixed to one of the walls of my garage. Thus, as far as I understand it, since it is away from the living room where my main TV is, it therefore it would be impossible to connect router, antenna and HD Homerun together (right?).

The basic set-up, I know, would be: Digital antenna to TV Tuner (e.g. Elgato) to Mac Mini (connected to an external HD) to TV. Is there anyway to adjust the set up so I can send the output to 2 TVs that can access and view saved material independently from each other, or am I going to have to suck it up, as I fear, and buy 2 of everything and have each set up connect to a central HD (a time capsule perhaps?)?

Hope this made sense; any solutions would be greatly appreciated -- I have been racking my brains for months on this! 🙂

Thanks 🙂

MacMini, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Jan 11, 2010 6:31 PM

Reply
5 replies

Jan 15, 2010 9:16 AM in response to CMarty

You are I fear going to need to get two of everything.

If you get two HDHomerun tuners and two Mac mini's with each Mac using Elgato EyeTV you will be able to record and simultaneously watch a live TV channel (or record two channels). Unfortunately while you can configure EyeTV to save to a common server (or NAS) EyeTV also uses the same location to store the live TV buffer which a) slows it down and b) if you have two computers using the same location could in theory result in conflicts.

What you can do is save the recordings locally on each Mac and use the built-in EyeTV sharing facility so each can see the other's recordings.

As far as I am aware there are no suitable tuners available (even for PCs) to directly receive Dish Network satellite broadcasts due to their proprietary setup. It is possible to receive satellite broadcasts in Europe and much of the rest of the world as we use the standard DVB-S and DVB-S2 systems.

Jan 18, 2010 5:43 AM in response to Johnathan Burger

Johnathan Burger wrote:
Add to that-Elgato no longer sells the hdhomerun.


Presumably SiliconDust still do, and the Elgato software still supports it. This is a better situation than the EyeTV 310 which is discontinued because the original manufacturer (Digital Everywhere) has stopped making them.

Hmm, just noticed SiliconDust have launched a CableCard version at CES (totally irrelevant to us Europeans but of interest to you Yankies). Unfortunately as DRM is intended to stop _legal paying customers_ from using products, this will not work on Macs as Apple refuse (so far) to cripple their computers.

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A Mac Mini HTPC that emulates Dish Network's Dual Tuner system?

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