TV1 and TV2 need to share EHD.

[nodsirrah]

We have a ViP622 DVR, the Den (me) is HD via HDMI, the Living Room (wife) is SD via RG6. We just bought my wife a new 40" Samsung 1080p tv for the Living Room.
The PQ in the Living Room sucks, my wife asked "Why did we spend so much money for a worse picture than we had on the 27" JVC analog?" Unfortunately I have to agree with her.
1. If I use a 50' composite (RWY) from the TV2 receiver output will the PQ be any different than the existing RG6?

Theoretically adding another HD receiver for the living room sounds like a simple solution, however, 95% of what we each watch is recorded and moved to the EHD. Sharing the programming would mean somebody would be moving the EHD from one receiver to the other, from first to second floor and back, to download the recordings to the other internal hard drive. Going up and down stairs is great exercise, but not when one is handicapped.
2. Is there such a thing as a USB remote switch that could be used to switch the EHD from one receiver to the other? I realize I would have to run 50' of USB cable between the 2 receivers.
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[8bitbytes]

If you are both going to watch at the same time you really need two 612 dvrs, not the one 622. You can only run an HD signal off the HDMI and component outputs but both of those are the TV1 outputs.

Composite is barely better than the coax RF signal.

 

[TheKrell]

The OP is proposing adding a 612 to his 622, and is wondering how he can easily share an EHD between the two of them. Obviously he can physically move them between receivers, but he is looking for an easier way.

I was thinking of not one but two EHDs that were not only USB drives but also NAS devices, like the Ximeta Netdisk. I am suspicious that might actually work. But to mirror programs from one disk to the other would likely take a Linux computer, as well as a network, and some modest skills at figuring out what files to copy.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

The OP is proposing adding a 612 to his 622, and is wondering how he can easily share an EHD between the two of them. Obviously he can physically move them between receivers, but he is looking for an easier way.

I was thinking of not one but two EHDs that were not only USB drives but also NAS devices, like the Ximeta Netdisk. I am suspicious that might actually work. But to mirror programs from one disk to the other would likely take a Linux computer, as well as a network, and some modest skills at figuring out what files to copy.

Not very familiar with linux, but if you set up both NAS drives as software RAID 1 would the operating system not always attempt to keep them as perfect mirror images of each other on a physical layer instead of worrying about files, and file systems?

 

[TheKrell]

Not very familiar with linux, but if you set up both NAS drives as software RAID 1 would the operating system not always attempt to keep them as perfect mirror images of each other on a physical layer instead of worrying about files, and file systems?

Darn good question. I've only created a software raid1 (mirror) exactly once, and I think the answer is "Yes, but..." I believe Linux was operating on files and not sectors. My understanding of the Dish EHD is that it uses an ext3 file system. If so, then some flavor of Red Hat Linux would be perfect, since ext3 is it's native file system.

Doing this all automatically is what makes me say, "But..." Having both a Linux machine and the Dish receiver simultaneously writing to the same file system is a recipe for disaster. If you did it manually via cp or rsync, you could pick a time when you knew that neither receiver was accessing the EHD. I'm not sure if that means each receiver has to be in standby mode, or rather they both have to be unplugged, in order to guarantee only one entity has write access to the same disk.

 

[KAB]

Back to the OP. As mentioned, a 612 would allow each of you to record your own shows, perhaps eliminating the frequency of moving shows to the EHD.

 

[cparker]

You'll be asking for weird issues with long USB cables. In practice, the USB specification limits the length of a cable between full speed devices to 5 meters (a little under 16 feet 5 inches). For a low speed device the limit is 3 meters (9 feet 10 inches).

Why can't you use longer cables?
USB's electrical design doesn't allow it. When USB was designed, a decision was made to handle the propagation of electromagnetic fields on USB data lines in a way that limited the maximum length of a USB cable to something in the range of 4m. This method has a number of advantages and, since USB is intended for a desktop environment, the range limitations were deemed acceptable.

You can extend that (according to the USB spec) by adding hubs. (up to 5 hubs)

Ok now with all that being said, there are USB-to-Ethernet bridges. I'm wondering if there's a way to plug a bridge into the satellite receiver's USB port and have the other end of that connected to a NAS drive.

Also keep in mind that we are talking about ways to circumvent (or modify) a connection scheme designed to stay within the confines of what DRM finds acceptable and legitimate. So while discussing this let's make sure that whatever ideas we present would not be attempts to connect things in such a way that we defeat DRM. Such discussion could enter a gray area that would not be acceptable to this message board, I'm sure.

 

[nodsirrah]

Wow, I asked for it didn't I?
First of all I am convinced that the new HD TV deserves its own receiver.
Secondly, since the only NAS in my feeble old memory is the Naval Air Stations where I lived from 1950 to 1954 I am not qualified to understand what you are discussing about what to me sounds like the near impossibility of sharing one EHD between 2 receivers. However, don't quit discussing the situation, somebody will wake up some morning with a simple cost effective solution .
I thank you for your ideas, don't stop!

 

[KKlare]

NAS = Network Attached Storage, IIRC.
It is intended for a network storage from several computers over Ethernet.
Dish does not support NAS, only local Universal Serial Bus (USB).

BTW 4-pin S-video is better than the yellow Composite but is not HD and is only on TV1. Why?

-Ken