In December we canceled cable and got a Tivo Premiere. We got the lifetime service because in the long run it's the cheapest option, but WOW was it expensive. Still, we are saving about $100/mo with no cable (also had phone service with cable) so it has broken even already. And there really aren't any other good options out there. Years ago I tried to use a PC as a DVR, and I quickly discovered that it's more trouble than it's worth, and it's not reliable enough to do the job. I'm sure there are better ways now, but this was just the easiest way to do it.
I'll talk about my antennas later, but other than that change, I basically put the Tivo in place of the old DVR, and had the same/better functionality. I did have to make two changes:
1) To get it working with the whole house DVR system I described before, I had to add an RF modulator for channel 3. This also required a distribution amplifier because the modulator's output isn't as strong as my old DVR's channel 3 output. Still, once I hooked that up, everything got a nice clean signal on channel 3.
2) The old DVR did a remarkable thing: It output widescreen on HDMI and component, and it output 4:3 on the channel 3 output. Simultaneously. The Tivo will not do this, and what makes it worse is the widescreen/4:3 setting is buried deep within the menus. I currently run the Tivo signal to 3 old 4:3 TV's, one which we actually use more often than our big widescreen projection TV. Rather than go into these menus every time I wanted to use a different TV, I was able to find the service menus on two of the three TVs (both JVC) and manually squeeze the picture to the middle of the screen, making it 16:9. This is actually better than black bars because you're getting the full resolution of the TV this way. I still think the old DVR's way of doing things was better, but try as I might, I couldn't find a piece of hardware that will input a 16:9 signal and convert it to 4:3. The third TV actually has a setting for 16:9, which is great. Except it's not permanent. So every time I turn on that TV I have to switch it over. It's in the basement in front of the treadmill so I just deal with it.
The Tivo is a good DVR. It is a *little* bit smarter about recording things than my old cable company DVR, in that it won't record the same episode twice, even if they're on different channels at different times. That said, do not buy it because of all of its extra internet features such as Netflix and Rhapsody. The Rhapsody app stopped working a while ago and never worked that well to start with, and the Netflix app, while I do use it, is probably the worst Netflix app I've ever seen. The Pandora app works great except the volume level out of the analog ports is so over driven it makes the TV speakers buzz (and you have to turn them way down). They have a 'new' HD user interface. We don't use it because it's painfully slow. There are just so many problems with this box it's easy to forget what it does well.
But the truth is, the reason it doesn't meet my expectations is because I had high ones (and I paid through the nose for it). In reality, it is a very good and reliable DVR, and it's very accessible by 3rd party software. That openness is something you can't find anywhere else that I've looked, and it's the main thing that makes me see the Tivo as an upgrade instead of simply a replacement. I'll discuss the software I use next.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Whole House DVR on the cheap(ish)
When we started talking about building our house, I started asking around some coworkers about what kinds of specializations they recommend--things they would do with their house if they had it to do over again. One suggestion was to have 2 coax cables run to every TV, because this particular coworker's satellite setup needed that and he had to run an extra. That made me think about other possible uses for that second piece of coax.
At the time we had cable and a DVR. The DVR had just about every output you could think of, including component, HDMI, and channel 3. I decided that I could take that channel 3 output and run it to all of the TVs in the house, then use the HDMI output for my HDTV in the TV room. This worked remarkably well.
When they built the house I had them run phone and cable wires to a box in the coat closet downstairs. I also ran all of the speaker wires and network cables there. It's kind of a rat's nest, but it gives me a lot of flexibility. The cable signal comes in on one wire, gets split to the cable modem and a cable amplifier, when then feeds all of the TVs in the house. The second coax cable that runs the to TV room is a return path from the DVR, which then is split out to every TV in the house on the other extra cables. Believe it or not, I didn't have to amplify the channel 3 signal from the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD box that we had. On top of that, it automatically handled the widescreen/4:3 difference between the channel 3 output and the HDMI output. It added bars to everything widescreen that went out on channel 3, and played in native widescreen on our HDTV. I added an old fashioned A/B switch to each TV, and when we wanted to watch the DVR we flipped the switch. Remote switches exist, but we found that we generally watched the DVR on nearly every TV in the house, so the ability to switch remotely wasn't an issue.
The setup only had one hiccup: HDMI has handshaking. That means there is communication back and forth between your TV and your HDMI device. That also means that when you turn your TV off, the HDMI device knows it. In my case, this meant the DVR stopped putting out a video signal if the HDTV was off. For most people this wouldn't be a problem, but obviously I couldn't leave the HDTV on all of the time just to continue to get a channel 3 signal from the DVR. The simplest solution was to use the component output instead. That box would only do 1080i on any output, so I wasn't giving up quality to do so.
Next up is controlling the DVR from another room. I ran 3 cat5e cables to every cable location in the house, so I used one of them to connect up a wired infrared repeater. If you're counting, that means, yes, every single-gang cable box in the house has two coax and three cat5e cables in it. They're all kind of crowded. Anyway, back to the IR repeater. I have tried the wireless type with little/no success, so I wanted a wired setup. I ended up getting a setup from Buffalo Electronics, which has worked remarkably well:
This is smaller than it looks--maybe 2" x 3". I used two pairs out of the cat5e cable (doubled up on ground) to connect everything. Connections are very simple--you just connect everything together in parallel. You can also chain many of these modules together on the same wires and they will work together and even extend your range. I needed two of these modules, because the IR flashers (the things that stick on to your devices) connect to it, and I wanted to be able to control both my whole house audio in the coat closet and the DVR in the TV room. They offer two different DC adapters--I recommend the beefier one. Then again I ran this signal to 5-6 different places, so you might be fine with the lower power adapter. Anyway, they offer a couple of receiver options, but I went with these:
You'll note that this one has no housing. It's made so you can drill a hole in your entertainment center and install it there. I don't have an entertainment center, and I don't like drilling holes in nice wood. So I went to the hardware store and got a 2" x 2" piece of poplar, and cut it a little longer than this device. I drilled a large (1") hole through most of it, then for the last 1/2" or so a hole the size of the device. I mounted the device in the smaller hole, with only the lens showing on the outside of the wood.I then connected some short wires between the back of the device and an ethernet jack, like this:
I basically crammed this into the hole. I then added little rubber feet to the block, and I ended up with a sturdy, portable block that could be connected cleanly to a cable anywhere in the house. This was important to me because the receivers above are the most expensive part of the system, so I only bought 3 of them. I wired up an ethernet jack in each room, and all I have to do is plug a receiver into the wall and it works immediately. And it works with a regular old network cable, so I can move things around and change lengths as needed. One note: I read the hint somewhere to attach the ground wire to the body of the receiver. I can testify that this was the difference in working and not for me. In fact, that's one reason I ran two ground wires--made it easier to loop them around the body of the receiver. I was afraid to solder them on because I didn't know how sensitive the electronics inside that tube are.
I set all of this up over 4 years ago and we use it constantly. In fact we watch the DVR in the living room (on an old tube TV) more often than we go to the TV room. It truly is seamless--it doesn't even occur to us that the DVR is in another room.
We have since canceled cable, and I had to make some slight changes to the system, but this particular setup served us very well for years. I recommend it!
At the time we had cable and a DVR. The DVR had just about every output you could think of, including component, HDMI, and channel 3. I decided that I could take that channel 3 output and run it to all of the TVs in the house, then use the HDMI output for my HDTV in the TV room. This worked remarkably well.
When they built the house I had them run phone and cable wires to a box in the coat closet downstairs. I also ran all of the speaker wires and network cables there. It's kind of a rat's nest, but it gives me a lot of flexibility. The cable signal comes in on one wire, gets split to the cable modem and a cable amplifier, when then feeds all of the TVs in the house. The second coax cable that runs the to TV room is a return path from the DVR, which then is split out to every TV in the house on the other extra cables. Believe it or not, I didn't have to amplify the channel 3 signal from the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD box that we had. On top of that, it automatically handled the widescreen/4:3 difference between the channel 3 output and the HDMI output. It added bars to everything widescreen that went out on channel 3, and played in native widescreen on our HDTV. I added an old fashioned A/B switch to each TV, and when we wanted to watch the DVR we flipped the switch. Remote switches exist, but we found that we generally watched the DVR on nearly every TV in the house, so the ability to switch remotely wasn't an issue.
The setup only had one hiccup: HDMI has handshaking. That means there is communication back and forth between your TV and your HDMI device. That also means that when you turn your TV off, the HDMI device knows it. In my case, this meant the DVR stopped putting out a video signal if the HDTV was off. For most people this wouldn't be a problem, but obviously I couldn't leave the HDTV on all of the time just to continue to get a channel 3 signal from the DVR. The simplest solution was to use the component output instead. That box would only do 1080i on any output, so I wasn't giving up quality to do so.
Next up is controlling the DVR from another room. I ran 3 cat5e cables to every cable location in the house, so I used one of them to connect up a wired infrared repeater. If you're counting, that means, yes, every single-gang cable box in the house has two coax and three cat5e cables in it. They're all kind of crowded. Anyway, back to the IR repeater. I have tried the wireless type with little/no success, so I wanted a wired setup. I ended up getting a setup from Buffalo Electronics, which has worked remarkably well:
This is smaller than it looks--maybe 2" x 3". I used two pairs out of the cat5e cable (doubled up on ground) to connect everything. Connections are very simple--you just connect everything together in parallel. You can also chain many of these modules together on the same wires and they will work together and even extend your range. I needed two of these modules, because the IR flashers (the things that stick on to your devices) connect to it, and I wanted to be able to control both my whole house audio in the coat closet and the DVR in the TV room. They offer two different DC adapters--I recommend the beefier one. Then again I ran this signal to 5-6 different places, so you might be fine with the lower power adapter. Anyway, they offer a couple of receiver options, but I went with these:
You'll note that this one has no housing. It's made so you can drill a hole in your entertainment center and install it there. I don't have an entertainment center, and I don't like drilling holes in nice wood. So I went to the hardware store and got a 2" x 2" piece of poplar, and cut it a little longer than this device. I drilled a large (1") hole through most of it, then for the last 1/2" or so a hole the size of the device. I mounted the device in the smaller hole, with only the lens showing on the outside of the wood.I then connected some short wires between the back of the device and an ethernet jack, like this:
I basically crammed this into the hole. I then added little rubber feet to the block, and I ended up with a sturdy, portable block that could be connected cleanly to a cable anywhere in the house. This was important to me because the receivers above are the most expensive part of the system, so I only bought 3 of them. I wired up an ethernet jack in each room, and all I have to do is plug a receiver into the wall and it works immediately. And it works with a regular old network cable, so I can move things around and change lengths as needed. One note: I read the hint somewhere to attach the ground wire to the body of the receiver. I can testify that this was the difference in working and not for me. In fact, that's one reason I ran two ground wires--made it easier to loop them around the body of the receiver. I was afraid to solder them on because I didn't know how sensitive the electronics inside that tube are.
I set all of this up over 4 years ago and we use it constantly. In fact we watch the DVR in the living room (on an old tube TV) more often than we go to the TV room. It truly is seamless--it doesn't even occur to us that the DVR is in another room.
We have since canceled cable, and I had to make some slight changes to the system, but this particular setup served us very well for years. I recommend it!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Whole house audio
We moved to a new custom-built house in 2007 and I was lucky enough that my county doesn't do wiring inspections for low-voltage wiring. Which meant after the electrical inspection was finished, the builder didn't mind looking the other way while I went into the house and ran wires all over the place. I have always dreamed of having a true whole-house audio system, and I decided this was my chance.
At our old house, I pulled some wires where I could and mounted some speakers on the walls, but for this to be what I really wanted it needed to be an in-wall speaker in each room as well as a volume switch. I researched existing whole-house systems, and generally they were pro level, which I could not afford. However, I did find some impedance matching volume switches that allowed me to use an old stereo tuner instead of purchasing something new.
Impedance? Let me explain if you're unfamiliar. Impedance is basically resistance, except over a range of frequencies. At its simplest, you can think of it as resistance. Then this equation applies:
At our old house, I pulled some wires where I could and mounted some speakers on the walls, but for this to be what I really wanted it needed to be an in-wall speaker in each room as well as a volume switch. I researched existing whole-house systems, and generally they were pro level, which I could not afford. However, I did find some impedance matching volume switches that allowed me to use an old stereo tuner instead of purchasing something new.
Impedance? Let me explain if you're unfamiliar. Impedance is basically resistance, except over a range of frequencies. At its simplest, you can think of it as resistance. Then this equation applies:
V = I*R
So let's take an amplifier designed to drive an 8ohm speaker, and you connect a 4ohm speaker to it. The voltage generally remains constant, so you end up with:
8 * (current designed for) = 4 * (actual current)
(actual current) = 2 * (current designed for)
What this means is you will make the amplifier push twice as much current through that speaker as it was designed to do. At low volumes this may be okay, but at higher volumes you will burn up the amplifier.
Two 8ohm speakers connected in series add their impedance together and look like a 16ohm speaker to the amplifier, which probably won't hurt the amp but may be half the volume, and you can't control the speakers independently, while two 8ohm speakers connected in parallel (i.e. all of the red wires tied together, all of the black wires tied together) look like a 4ohm speaker to the amp, which doubles the current load.
So what is the solution? Well, pro amplifiers have multiple speaker outputs to deal with this, or some of them use so-called 70V systems which are a different deal altogether. But in my house if I want to be able to put in 12 speakers (and counting) with a separate volume knob for each, I need to connect them in parallel. If I do the math, 12 8ohm speakers in parallel end up giving me a 2/3ohm load, which is way too low for my stereo, which says it can do 6-16ohms on the back.
The solution is an impedance matching volume knob, like this one:
These knobs have transformers that adjust the impedance up to where it needs to be. You generally set a switch telling it how many speakers are connected overall, and it adjusts accordingly.
Okay, so back to my story. In a weekend I ran wire (approved for in-wall use, not just regular speaker wire) to every conceivable place I could ever want a speaker. Front porch, back deck, bathrooms, bedrooms, hallways, you name it. I put in boxes for volume switches, ran the wires from my coat closet (where the stereo sits) to the box, then to the general area where I wanted the speaker. I think I ended up going to 20 different places, some of which we will probably never use. After the drywall went up, I covered all of the boxes with blank faceplates, and over the years I've added volume switches and speakers here and there. I have made a couple of mistakes:
1) I installed 14 gauge, 4 conductor wire. I wanted to go overkill so that I would be future proof. The truth is I will *never* pump the kind of wattage through these wires to *ever* need 14 gauge. 16 gauge would have been cheaper and easier to deal with. And while 4-conductor is nice, I'm not sure it was worth the extra money (although it would allow me to put the stereo in a different room if I wanted to, which is nice).
2) I let my wannabe audiophile-ness for home theater speakers take over my common sense for whole house speakers, and I bought Polk and Yamaha. Later on I added a few that I got from parts express. The truth is I can't tell any difference. The inside of a wall is not an acoustical chamber, and we typically listen at such low volume that any bonus clarity that may come out of the expensive speakers is lost. I wish I had saved my money and gone with the parts express house speakers. They sound good, and cost about 1/4 as much
3) I bought stereo volume switches because I wanted to be future proof in case one speaker in each room didn't cut it and I ended up wanting two (again, since I put in 4-conductor wire I could do that). I didn't end up needing this. One speaker is plenty, and two may even give phasing problems in different parts of the room. I run my whole system in mono anyway, so there's no advantage to a stereo switch.
I bought a wiring connector at Home Depot that allowed me to connect all of the wires into nice wiring jacks. I put all of the downstairs speakers on the left channel of speaker set "A", and the upstairs speakers on the right channel of speaker set "B". As with most consumer stereos, the A and B speaker outputs are in parallel, meaning you can't really use them with 8ohm speakers (since it says it only goes down to 6ohms, not 4). But luckily for me my stereo is made in such a way that the amplifier and the tuner are separated, and so I combine left and right before connecting them to both sides. This isn't the perfect way to handle stereo signals, but I have most of my inputs configured to send a mono signal to the tuner anyway. This allows me to use the left and right amplifiers inside of the tuner to power half of my speakers each, rather than using only one side to power them all.
We don't use the system as much as I would like to, but I must say I love walking around the house when the same music is playing everywhere. It's especially useful when there's a game on that I want to listen to while I'm doing things around the house. And since I can turn the upstairs or downstairs speakers on and off, it's easy to use the system on only one floor without having to go turn the volume down in every room.
Timers for exhaust fans
This was a simple upgrade, but we use these everyday. At our old house, we had a tendency to leave exhaust fans running for hours, which wasted power on the fans, but more importantly wasted air-conditioned (or heated) air. In our new house, I installed timers similar to these:
I'm comfortable with electrical work, so these were a breeze. And now there's never a need to turn the fan off. Before a shower, I set it to an hour, and it runs long enough to clear the humidity after I leave without leaving it running all day by accident.
I'm comfortable with electrical work, so these were a breeze. And now there's never a need to turn the fan off. Before a shower, I set it to an hour, and it runs long enough to clear the humidity after I leave without leaving it running all day by accident.
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