transmitting cable tv over a network

[BHeemsoth]

Is there anyway i could plug a device into my network that would allow me to stream cable television to the computers on the network. I would like to be able to change channels if possible. Does anyone know if anything like this exists? And if something does exist and you have personal experience with it, please let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Brian

 

[Baronz]

http://www.snapstream.com/

That program allows you to stream a video signal over your LAN. Sorta like a HTPC type of interface. It's pretty good, last time i tried it, it was pretty slow performance wise.

They have a demo on their site so you can check it out.

 

[BHeemsoth]

Yea, i had looked at that earlier. I was more looking for something that i could plug into my router that would convert the coax singal into Cat 5

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: rpbri2886
Yea, i had looked at that earlier. I was more looking for something that i could plug into my router that would convert the coax singal into Cat 5

It's not going to happen


Confused

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: Baronz
http://www.snapstream.com/

That program allows you to stream a video signal over your LAN. Sorta like a HTPC type of interface. It's pretty good, last time i tried it, it was pretty slow performance wise.

They have a demo on their site so you can check it out.

I tried it, but it only seemed to let me record a show, then stream that recorded show over the network. Does it actually let you do this stuff live?

 

[JoeKing]

poor router with that much info it'd fry. One way I can think of is capture on a computer encode realtime to mpeg then access the mpeg from the other computer.

 

[geckojohn]

I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

 

[dquan97]

I believe Microsoft has a free streaming software (forgot the name) that I have used to stream cable tv into my wireless pocket pc

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

Bandwidth is a HUGE issue. Cable bandwidth is enormous - just keep in mind that a single coax carries not only basic access cable, and the normal scrambled channels, but also a high bandwidth digital stream for Digital Cable customers, and also a chunk of Cable Internet access. I honestly don't even thing a gigabit switch is going to handle an analog data stream of that magnitude.

Now, streaming one or two channels at a time yes - but keep in mind that you're still going to need a computer with a tuner in it to capture and convert the stream to a file/data stream that's LAN-able.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

it wouldn't take much, just use a pair that no one else is using on the cat 5 cable, then have an adapter at the client end that lets you plug network part into lan and video part into a video card with vid in.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

it wouldn't take much, just use a pair that no one else is using on the cat 5 cable, then have an adapter at the client end that lets you plug network part into lan and video part into a video card with vid in.

Again - how are you going to TUNE individual channels? Video in is a single feed while the coax has about 181 discreet analog channels tuned at various frequencies. You'll still need a tuner card of some sort.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

it wouldn't take much, just use a pair that no one else is using on the cat 5 cable, then have an adapter at the client end that lets you plug network part into lan and video part into a video card with vid in.

Again - how are you going to TUNE individual channels? Video in is a single feed while the coax has about 181 discreet analog channels tuned at various frequencies. You'll still need a tuner card of some sort.

yes, i'm assuming that you have a tv tuner at the other end, hence the vid in feed.

mb i'm looking at this too simplistically, but since tv tuner cards are only like $50.00 each, why put all that burden on the router, just put a tv tuner in each pc and use the vid in.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

it wouldn't take much, just use a pair that no one else is using on the cat 5 cable, then have an adapter at the client end that lets you plug network part into lan and video part into a video card with vid in.

Again - how are you going to TUNE individual channels? Video in is a single feed while the coax has about 181 discreet analog channels tuned at various frequencies. You'll still need a tuner card of some sort.

yes, i'm assuming that you have a tv tuner at the other end, hence the vid in feed.

mb i'm looking at this too simplistically, but since tv tuner cards are only like $50.00 each, why put all that burden on the router, just put a tv tuner in each pc and use the vid in.

I assume the OP's goal is to be able to "stream" the signal without having to recable the house, and/or use wireless. That would be the only reason it would make sense.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

it wouldn't take much, just use a pair that no one else is using on the cat 5 cable, then have an adapter at the client end that lets you plug network part into lan and video part into a video card with vid in.

Again - how are you going to TUNE individual channels? Video in is a single feed while the coax has about 181 discreet analog channels tuned at various frequencies. You'll still need a tuner card of some sort.

yes, i'm assuming that you have a tv tuner at the other end, hence the vid in feed.

mb i'm looking at this too simplistically, but since tv tuner cards are only like $50.00 each, why put all that burden on the router, just put a tv tuner in each pc and use the vid in.

I assume the OP's goal is to be able to "stream" the signal without having to recable the house, and/or use wireless. That would be the only reason it would make sense.

agreed, but you wouldn't need to recable the house, just use your lan (cat5) cables using a pair on the cat5 NOT being used by the NIC's (i can't remember the wiring scheme right now, but i don't believe that they use all 4 pairs), then have an adapter at the client end that converts that branches the signal out, appropriate pairs to the NIC and appropriate pair to the TV Tuner.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

Bandwidth is a HUGE issue. Cable bandwidth is enormous - just keep in mind that a single coax carries not only basic access cable, and the normal scrambled channels, but also a high bandwidth digital stream for Digital Cable customers, and also a chunk of Cable Internet access. I honestly don't even thing a gigabit switch is going to handle an analog data stream of that magnitude.

Now, streaming one or two channels at a time yes - but keep in mind that you're still going to need a computer with a tuner in it to capture and convert the stream to a file/data stream that's LAN-able.

Cable bandwidth is 10mbps. Cat6 cable OTOH is 1000mbps. Cable bandwidth is small.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: geckojohn
I'm really surprised that it's such a big deal to do this in this day of age. You would think that they would add something so that you could input your coax cable into your router and then distribute cable across the network. It would be so cool and sell really wel.ll

Bandwidth is a HUGE issue. Cable bandwidth is enormous - just keep in mind that a single coax carries not only basic access cable, and the normal scrambled channels, but also a high bandwidth digital stream for Digital Cable customers, and also a chunk of Cable Internet access. I honestly don't even thing a gigabit switch is going to handle an analog data stream of that magnitude.

Now, streaming one or two channels at a time yes - but keep in mind that you're still going to need a computer with a tuner in it to capture and convert the stream to a file/data stream that's LAN-able.

Cable bandwidth is 10mbps. Cat6 cable OTOH is 1000mbps. Cable bandwidth is small.

what do you think of my idea tho? just sending the cable signal thru and unused pair on cat 5. possible?

 

[Gaunt]

It might be possible to use an unused pair of the cat5 cable to transmit information that wasn't meant to pass down that cable, but you'd have to split the pair at both ends, and the sending end would need a tuner card. The receiving end could have the pair go spliced into an RCA jack and go into the Video In on the video card. This assumes a couple of things though. 1) An RCA cable only uses a pair of wires to transmit it's data. 2) The sending computer has a Video Out jack that can send 1 discreet channel of video. 3) The receiving computer has a Video In jack. 4) You only want video and not audio. 5) There isn't any interference on the "unused" pair you've borrowed from the cat5 cable.

Considering the amount of effort companies like Monster put into building RCA cables and the like, chances are you would have WAY too much interference to get a usable pictures if you had a resonable length of cat5 between the two machines. Also, considering there is data on the other pairs of the cat5, you're going to have to deal with crosstalk as well.

Also, the OP probably wanted audio with his TV, so just passing the video isn't terribly useful.

As for cable being 10Mbps... yes, cable internet usually uses a cable modem that has a 10Mbps interface on it, but that doesn't say anything about the bandwidth of the cable being used. As has already been pointed out, there is a huge spectrum in use on that cable, holding many channels of analog and digital data.

In order to stream television on your LAN, what you will most likely need to do is get a computer with a TV tuner in it, and then get some software that will allow you to stream the content obtained from the tuner card. I haven't attempted this in the past so I can't offer any concrete suggestions, unfortunately. With this solution, you're only going to be able to stream 1 channel from the cable at a time. This will be the channel that the tuner card is tuned to. You can change the channel (remotely through software should be possible) but anyone watching the stream will be switched to the new channel. If you wanted to stream multiple channels, you'd need multiple tuner cards, and possibly multiple machines to do the decoding/encoding and streaming. I have no idea how much bandwidth would be needed to move this much data (TV resolution video and stereo audio) across a network. It would most likely depend on what method you used to stream the data. If you compress it first, you would save bandwidth but require more processing power/time.

Anyhow, just a couple of thoughts. Hope it helps a little.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Gaunt
It might be possible to use an unused pair of the cat5 cable to transmit information that wasn't meant to pass down that cable, but you'd have to split the pair at both ends, and the sending end would need a tuner card. The receiving end could have the pair go spliced into an RCA jack and go into the Video In on the video card. This assumes a couple of things though. 1) An RCA cable only uses a pair of wires to transmit it's data. 2) The sending computer has a Video Out jack that can send 1 discreet channel of video. 3) The receiving computer has a Video In jack. 4) You only want video and not audio. 5) There isn't any interference on the "unused" pair you've borrowed from the cat5 cable.

Considering the amount of effort companies like Monster put into building RCA cables and the like, chances are you would have WAY too much interference to get a usable pictures if you had a resonable length of cat5 between the two machines. Also, considering there is data on the other pairs of the cat5, you're going to have to deal with crosstalk as well.

Also, the OP probably wanted audio with his TV, so just passing the video isn't terribly useful.

As for cable being 10Mbps... yes, cable internet usually uses a cable modem that has a 10Mbps interface on it, but that doesn't say anything about the bandwidth of the cable being used. As has already been pointed out, there is a huge spectrum in use on that cable, holding many channels of analog and digital data.

In order to stream television on your LAN, what you will most likely need to do is get a computer with a TV tuner in it, and then get some software that will allow you to stream the content obtained from the tuner card. I haven't attempted this in the past so I can't offer any concrete suggestions, unfortunately. With this solution, you're only going to be able to stream 1 channel from the cable at a time. This will be the channel that the tuner card is tuned to. You can change the channel (remotely through software should be possible) but anyone watching the stream will be switched to the new channel. If you wanted to stream multiple channels, you'd need multiple tuner cards, and possibly multiple machines to do the decoding/encoding and streaming. I have no idea how much bandwidth would be needed to move this much data (TV resolution video and stereo audio) across a network. It would most likely depend on what method you used to stream the data. If you compress it first, you would save bandwidth but require more processing power/time.

Anyhow, just a couple of thoughts. Hope it helps a little.

again, it seems you are misreading my posts.

i'm saying just send the RAW signal over the CAT5 and have a TV Tuner card at the end of each, then all you need to do is have an adapter that splits the cat5 signal to a regular NIC end and a Coax end and plug them directly into the PC.

 

[Gaunt]

I did read your posts, I was just thinking along the way and the minor detail was lost.... sorry. (Edit) Also, considering I only replied once, I wasn't misreading your posts "again".

You could in theory use a pair to transmit the complete signal from the coax and then have a tuner at each end, but I don't think it would be usable due to huge interference issues. Consider that coax is heavily shielded and twisted pair is usually not shielded at all. Shielded twisted pair is available, but from what I've heard it can be difficult to work with and cause problems of its own if not installed correctly.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Gaunt
I did read your posts, I was just thinking along the way and the minor detail was lost.... sorry. (Edit) Also, considering I only replied once, I wasn't misreading your posts "again".

You could in theory use a pair to transmit the complete signal from the coax and then have a tuner at each end, but I don't think it would be usable due to huge interference issues. Consider that coax is heavily shielded and twisted pair is usually not shielded at all. Shielded twisted pair is available, but from what I've heard it can be difficult to work with and cause problems of its own if not installed correctly.

ahh, i c.

 

[eelw]

Originally posted by: dquan97
I believe Microsoft has a free streaming software (forgot the name) that I have used to stream cable tv into my wireless pocket pc

Windows Media Encoder 9

 

[drag]

There is definately a way to do it. But it maybe Linux-only, I know they have a version for windows, but I don't know it's capabilities.

It's called Video Lan Server


A absolute marvel of modern software enginneering. Created by students for a solution to video conferencing it has been expanded to stream about almost anything. Music, V4l (video for linux), DVD's, mpeg1/2/4's, satalite broadcasts. etc etc

Lans are Generally only fast enough to handle descent video multimedia streams, however if you MULTICAST you can get fairly decent streams over a Cable or DSL connection.

Ever heard of the MBONE network? It's a networking technic were instead of having 8 streams sent to 8 different clients you have one continous stream that people then can subscribe to (or login to or whatever). That way you have 1 signal and the routers duplicate the signal as needed to branch them out to the waiting clients.

But with anything like this the internet is still very slow. Best results are over a LAN network.

Plus it's completely free and Free.

(of course in order to get the video feeds from your cable connection you need a TV capture card with tuner to decode the analog signals for your server to read in th first place. If you have digital cable it you need to use the cable box plugged into your capture card then use a infrared transmitter to change channels. Unless you live in Europe were the digital signals are stadardized and you can buy perfectly good DVB cards, but US cable is a fvcked up. You can pick up a cheap tv capture card for like 40 bucks, ideally get one with a linux-supported mpeg encoder Or a computer with a fast proccessor.)

Looks like v4l is supported only in the beta CVS-based versions, and that's linux only. V4l is the standard for Linux to use to read TV-like signals thru capture cards

It does support 2 types of mpeg-2 encoding cards under linux and those are the WinTV-PVR-250/350 and Visiontech Kfir


EDIT:

Added this link to a howto to give you a idea of what to do if your interested. Nobody said it would be easy! Although it shouldn't be a big deal if your already familar with linux.