Ceton InfiniTV 4 Tuner Sharing via Network Bridging

[Mike Garcen]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
And a guide on tuner sharing and my virtual setup is coming.  Hopefully everyone will understand the delay next week.
[/quote]

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH  *-*

😮

[phoneguyinpgh]

That would be fantastic!!    That’s exactly what I’d like to do.  I got some parts for a new WHS Vail build, so being able to run a virtual W7MC inside the server would be fantastic.  Would your guide cover setting that up??  How powerful of a CPU would that require?? (I have a 3.1GHz dual core Phenom-II I was planing to use).

[mikinho]

No Hyper-V within Vail unfortunately.  You are limited to W2K8 R2 or Aurora.

I’ll try to cover build scenarios, it is a little different to setup.  I’ll also cover RemoteFx (which I’m really digging btw…but it has a high hardware cost)

[ruwackd]

Really looking forward to this and how you’re using Remotefx!

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
No Hyper-V within Vail unfortunately.  You are limited to W2K8 R2 or Aurora.

I’ll try to cover build scenarios, it is a little different to setup.  I’ll also cover RemoteFx (which I’m really digging btw…but it has a high hardware cost)
[/quote]

Bummer… ???  So then, another question…  Since you can’t run a virtual W7MC machine inside Vail, would it be better to build a small, always on W7MC machine to just do the recoding & streaming of TV and have it save the recorded programe directly to the Vail box right after recording??

[mikinho]

[quote=”phoneguyinpgh”]
Bummer… ???  So then, another question…  Since you can’t run a virtual W7MC machine inside Vail, would it be better to build a small, always on W7MC machine to just do the recoding & streaming of TV and have it save the recorded programe directly to the Vail box right after recording??
[/quote]

How many client PCs do you plan to have connected to it?  What are your concerns with installing it on your primary HTPC and letting that “share” the InfiniTV out?

[RehabMan]

I’ve been watching this thread since I too would like to move the Ceton tuner from the HTPC, mainly because I’d be able to keep the Ceton (I’m seeing temps in the high 60s) cooler if it was hosted in my WHS server, since the server(s) live in my garage where noise is not an issue.  Crank the fans up!  Also, I was hopeful that this would allow my HTPC to sleep and still allow instant access to the tuners since they would not have the minute-long authorization period as they would have never been powered down…  (waking the HTPC from sleep, then waiting a minute for the Ceton to become available is not acceptable, so now I just keep the HTPC on all the time).

My question is why would it be necessary to run a W7 VM on the host PC to make the Ceton share over the network.  Doesn’t it just need a “warm body” — a networked PC capable of loading the drivers or some subset that allows the network bridging to happen?  That is… I hope it does not require a Media Center capable machine as host… as that would open up the possibility of hosting it inside of WHS Vail.

[mikinho]

[quote=”RehabMan”]
Also, I was hopeful that this would allow my HTPC to sleep and still allow instant access to the tuners since they would not have the minute-long authorization period as they would have never been powered down…  (waking the HTPC from sleep, then waiting a minute for the Ceton to become available is not acceptable, so now I just keep the HTPC on all the time).
[/quote]

I”ll need to test but I believe the 1-minute delay will still be there.  Media Center will still need to authorize the tuner for use, the delay in the usage isn’t due a boot up process on the Ceton card.

[quote=”RehabMan”]
My question is why would it be necessary to run a W7 VM on the host PC to make the Ceton share over the network.  Doesn’t it just need a “warm body” — a networked PC capable of loading the drivers or some subset that allows the network bridging to happen?  That is… I hope it does not require a Media Center capable machine as host… as that would open up the possibility of hosting it inside of WHS Vail.
[/quote]

With network bridging you can do that in Vail, the VM is if you want an always-on machine to do all the recordings.

[RehabMan]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
I”ll need to test but I believe the 1-minute delay will still be there.  Media Center will still need to authorize the tuner for use, the delay in the usage isn’t due a boot up process on the Ceton card.[/quote]

Bummer.  So the authorization might be on the client side.  I thought it was something that might be happening upon power-up of the Ceton card, since it doesn’t have to happen if you simply exit Media Center, then re-run Media Center.  Maybe this is something that is happening in the Ceton service process.

[quote]
With network bridging you can do that in Vail, the VM is if you want an always-on machine to do all the recordings.
[/quote]

I could live without the recordings happening on the Vail machine, although I understand why people want to do that (one less machine on all the time).  If you use the VM solution, you are stuck with using extenders to get to the content (protected content) and to make changes to the scheduled recordings… and for me we just haven’t seen any decent extenders yet (xbox 360 slim is close, but still too loud).  Then there is the issues with codecs on extenders, limitations on file size, lack of HD audio bitstreaming, etc.  Extenders (for me) are nice to use in a pinch, but not as an everyday thing.  I want a full HTPC at every TV and if they have access to live TV through the network bridging that’s just icing on the cake.  Someday, maybe we’ll get homegroup sharing of (protected) recordings and then everything will be great and extenders completely not needed.

Cool that we can host the card where ever we want though….  I see another Ceton in my future… I think.

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
[quote=”phoneguyinpgh”]
Bummer… ???  So then, another question…  Since you can’t run a virtual W7MC machine inside Vail, would it be better to build a small, always on W7MC machine to just do the recoding & streaming of TV and have it save the recorded program directly to the Vail box right after recording??
[/quote]

How many client PCs do you plan to have connected to it?  What are your concerns with installing it on your primary HTPC and letting that “share” the InfiniTV out?
[/quote]

I would like an always on machine that can do the recordings and share the tuners w/ my 2 HTPCs for live TV.  I don’t want to have one of the HTPCs on all the time, I like them to work like a piece of CE hardware which is how they work now.  However,  If Vail will share the tuners, currently my HTPCs record OTA programing then transfer it to my WHS for viewing on any machine.  So if Vail can host the tuners, I can assign a static IP to the network bridge port in the Vail machine and let the HTPCs do the recording and transfer it to the Vail machine’s storage for sharing.  I am about to build a new box to test Vail so this is a plus.

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