Choosing system for Mom

[Greedynessnish]

I have been browsing the forums to find options for a system for my Mom. I used to install home theatre and cable tv as well and have also installed Directv as well. The problem is I cant really find the info I'm looking for. My Mom likes religious programming and that's no problem with FTA as I understand it but, I have some questions.

1.Is there a WHDVR option w/ FTA(if not is there limit on the number of DVR's that can be installed)
2.Can an external HDD be moved from on DVR to another w/out losing anything?
2.I only want 1 dish installed 3ft or smaller but how would I determine if a motor is needed?( I have a slimline 3 if that will work).
3.Are there any brands to stay away from?
4. Does anyone recommend purchasing a complete system?


I wired the house myself a few years ago and she is currently running OTA. I just have no idea where to start even after reading a few getting started articles. I think I need a more tailored solution based on what I' trying to do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[FaT Air]

1) What is "WHDVR "??? If most interest is religious, G19 @ 97W (Ku band) May be the sat to be aimed at. If that's LESEA'S World Harvest TV, (99W "C" band) [a big dish is required for "C" band], 6 ft or more is required.
2) most likely not. Can also usually be unplugged from your FTA/DVR receiver and plugged into your computer and played with VLC if needed.
2b) One Ku dish on a motor will do the 'whole arc' if necessary. Unless only one satellite fulfills the 'interest' in channel selection. (30 to 48 inch for Ku and/ or a 6ft or greater for C band- a 'bit different as then it's a 'polar mount' and actuator)
3) Yeah, and there are brands that will be recommended, and continued in 4).
4) Yes. The SatelliteAV MicroHD and 90cm dish and LNBF for Ku band reception. (also available thru 'bay)
Or can 'do the dish & LNBF' and an Amiko Mini HD (options)
Either receiver is the 'latest' but each have their 'faults' and 'advantages'. Sure there will be more comments.
The more 'detailed' the questions, the more 'tailored' the answers.
Welcome to Satelliteguys.!!

 

[danristheman]

Whole home dvr.

 

[KE4EST]

If you have the same receiver in each room, you can move an external HDD back and forth all you want.

 

[danleeper80]

Though I have yet to record on the Amiko A3 it supports dlna and mounting network drives with a sufficiently fast network ie gigabit and remote storage offering NFS, samba and dlna you could easily implement something with xbmc, roku or anything else that can stream mpeg4 and mpeg2. You'd come up with a pretty slick setup in the end.

I have done streaming real time from an azbox mini me and my A3 to a raspberry pi with an mpeg2 license using xbmc it works but my 100mbit network can choke freezing the audio and video or stalling out all together if I'm doing too much at once.

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[Lone Gunman]

A word of caution!! K.I.S.S. applies here! If your Mom is like most then all the dish moving etc may be a bit much. I'd look at the programming available and try to make it work with only ONE satellite for simplicity sake.

Look at "The List" here:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/thelist/

 

[beavs2112]

1) What is "WHDVR "???

I believe it stands for Whole Home DVR. 1 Master DVR & slave units in a home network configuration. most cable/sat providers have a similar product now.

 

[FaT Air]

WHDVR, Whole Home DVR, Not dead yet. can't be, still learning something new (every day) Thanks.

 

[Hockeynut]

Is this really for your mom?...Is a bit much when it comes to FTA!...Not trying to steer anyone away but seems far fetched!!.

 

[danristheman]

We always say that but we take it over.

 

[Greedynessnish]

Yeah,its really for my Mom. When me and my ex split up I actually lived with her for a good while. I had Directv installed when I was supervisor in the call center for them. She likes to watch christian programming and home improvement shows. She also would record a lot of stuff and she watches TV in different rooms(bedroom,kitchen,home office and den) plus my nieces and nephews visit for days/weeks at a time and they basicly have their own rooms. I just want to get her something she will enjoy without a monthly bill. Thanks for the info,are there anymore suggestions? I really need some help getting started.

 

[Greedynessnish]

Oh yeah,WHDVR=whole home DVR. Good call beavs2112, sorry for using industry abbreviations.

 

[FaT Air]

If faced with the same situation I'd put up 2 dishes w/ dual output LNBF's. One aimed at 97W. The other at 125W, Dishes wired to a 4x8 multiswitch for up to 8 receivers. (maybe a dealer will give a discount for an order like that???[wishful thinking?])
For operational simplicity, remove all unwanted channels that scan in. Then it's all good to use the channel up/dn buttons. And minimal time to 'tune' the next channel.
I think all newer receivers will record, outfitted with a USB HDD*, via timers or 'on demand'.
*most require that the USB HDD has it's own power supply

 

[. Raine]

This probably wouldn't be a workable thing for you, but I'll throw it out there anyway, in case you have a bunch of X Box 360s and a spare PC around and want to play around with it. I have a Media Center computer hooked up to an OTA antenna and one non motorized FTA dish and it can be accessed by X Box 360's throughout our house and my parents house next door and recordings can be done on it from any of the 360s. The 360s can be easily made to start right at the TV screen. I set this up mainly so my parents could have TV after they cancelled their cable subscription years ago.

There is major downfalls to it all though, sat motors don't work with it, so it only works with fixed dishes. You need a tuner/STB/input for each X Box 360 that is viewing TV, so if say three people want to watch TV/record at the same time, you would need 3 separate tuners/STBs/inputs available. Setting up sat receivers with Media Center can be a major challenge. For FTA there's no channel guide info. The PC has to be on 24/7. My sat receiver input is on a SVHS input on one of the tuner cards, so the picture quality of that isn't HD quality. The OTA ATSC is. My parents house is a ways away and they connect via wi-fi, it was a bit of work to get the connection good and reliable.

Myself, I have two Hauppauge HVR1600 ATSC tuner cards in the PC and a HD Homerun dual network tuner and a sat receiver hooked to it, [only my parents use the sat on it but it's a dual LNB on the dish so we have a line off it from that] and it works pretty good, but it's not the easiest thing to setup. Once setup,it's been very reliable though. I've had it setup for about ten years now except the FTA dish part, that was added about a year ago, of course, I've gone through all the different versions of Media center starting with XP, right now I have 7 on it. I own 8 but I haven't tried it yet. Checking over the beta of 8 I hated it and haven't set it up since.

Before this I'd first used windows media encoder and streamed it to my parents house and made a program for on their PC for changing channels and this worked real good, but I wanted to get away from the turning on a PC to change channels, I used Myth TV and XBMC for a year or so each but both of them changed things too often, which drove me nuts, cause then I had to change things in my setup and I absolutely hated Myths MySQL database at the time.

The media center setup is the most reliable thing that I have found to allow my parents to watch TV easily without my doing a lot of work all the time, but it does have it's drawbacks and can rack up to quite some expense if you have to buy everything. If you happen to have a spare PC and a few X Box 360s, it might be something worth trying because it will function as a whole house DVR. I wouldn't recommend going out and buying all the stuff to do it though, I'd only consider it an option if you happen to already have everything you'd need.

 

[Greedynessnish]

Ouch!!! So whole home is out. I think 2 DVR's will work fine, not that I'm that lazy but K.I.S.S does seem to be very good advice at this point. Lone Gunman and Fat Air's suggestions will seem to work best for the programming she watches . Now whats needed to install 2 AMIKO mini HD's and a 36 inch dish as far as switches,splitters,diplexers etc.

 

[FaT Air]

if only a single dish, and only 2 receivers, just the dish with a dual output LNBF.
If 2 dishes, both with a dual output LNBF's, between the LNBF's and the receivers you could use a couple of 22khz switches..
You can 'send' the video/audio from one receiver to multiple televisions easily if HD is not a requirement. I've been using a agile modulator for years to 'feed the whole house'.

 

[boba]

How old is "mom" how technically capable is your mom? What does she receive OTA? Where is she located?

Here in the Dallas area we are fortunate with the area of 70 channels of OTA programming no moving satellite dishes simply channel up/down or select channel #. As someone previously said KISS.

With a low monthly bill DISH has the welcome pack at $19.99/mo. that might suffice.

 

[Greedynessnish]

Mom Is 59 and I would have to say she is just a bit below average with tech skills but, she learns quickly. She receives 28 channels OTA and she is located in S.C. I just wanted to restore the christian programming that she watching before I left DirecTV and closed the account( I went to work for another pay TV company). 19.99+DVR+HD+2 or 3 TV's=60.00/month.I would just like get something going for her that I could service for her without me having a monthly bill FTA seems to fit. I just needed know where to start and what the limits are.