Getting rid of Sky+ TV – Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

So, as I was saying, the plan is to get rid of the need to have a Sky+ subscription, and here’s what I’ve done about it so far.

I was reading a blog post by a chap called Tim Heuer, as he’s done exactly what I wanted to do, using a device called the HD HomeRun by a company called SiliconDust.

The HD HomeRun is a twin-tuner, network-attached FreeView device, in that it doesn’t have a hard-disk drive inside, nor even be aware of what it’s doing with the signal that it’s converting from the aerial, but instead making this feed available to the other PCs or Media Extenders on the network.

Basically, he’s used a computer to talk to the HD HomeRun box and store the resulting file on the network, where his other devices, such as an Xbox, can find it and playback at a click on a button.

That was exactly what I wanted to do.

The idea was to get one of these boxes, connect it to the network and have the software installed on the Windows 2008 Server running in the house.  This would record the channels that we tell it to each week and save the programme as a file on it’s hard drive.

Then, on the same computer is an application called TVersity, which is used for streaming files/photos/music across a network, that the PlayStation 3 is already configured to talk to.

So, I did a bit of research online and found this You video handy, amongst others, and felt this was the way to go.

The HD HomeRun itself, I bought online at a website called OneVideo.co.uk, and, including postage, it came to about £145. (I’m telling you this not to brag about how much it costs, but for pricing up later!) 

It soon turned up, delayed because of the snow in the UK apparently, but it wasn’t long before I discovered the slight downfall with it, namely the software.

The website and the box all harped on about some open-source software called ‘Total Media DVR’, but I couldn’t find it on the install DVD, and it looked so-so on the website, so I didn’t bother with it at all.

I’ve seen videos of people using Windows 7/Vista Media Center to talk directly to the HD HomeRun, and be able to control it all from there.

This is where I got stuck for a little while, as I had to download Windows 7 drivers from SiliconDust’s website that were still in Beta development, but this took a few days of searching through forums to find out.  (If you’re needing them too, the Windows 7 drivers I had are here.)

Once I had the correct drivers, I soon had Windows 7 Media Center able to change channels and record the TV programmes to hard drive for later playback using one of the two tuners, meaning I couldn’t utilise the other tuner unless another computer on my network had Media Center configured in the same way.

But this isn’t the model I wanted – I wanted my *server* to handle the TV side of things, and bang-out the video over the PlayStation.

Media Center did the trick, but it’s not staying like that, as Media Center isn’t installed on Windows 2008 Server! And even if it was, I’d have to remotely connect to the server from a PC, open Media Center, add a program to record and log off again, hoping it would all work.  But still this is only using one of the two tuners.

To be continued…

Getting rid of Sky+ TV

That’s the plan, anyway! Here’s what I’m thinking so far…

We have had Sky+ since my wife went onto maternity leave from work, as she was getting bored being at home for so long and not being much stuff on day-time Freeview TV. And it meant that I could then get to watch ‘Lost’ on ABC… But it was for her sake, honest.

Anyway, about a year and half has gone by now, and we use Sky+ quite a lot, but not for any Sky-specific channels. We more use it as a modern-day VCR, as it simply records all the channels on the five channels that have been available in the UK for the past 15 years or so, namely, BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. It’s not that we don’t like anything on any of the other channels, it just worked out like that.

Very, very occasionally there’ll be something that will catch my eye on Sky1, but I couldn't honestly tell you the last thing I watched on there, let alone recorded it for later.

Once all the programmes that we like are ‘Series-Linked’ by Sky+ there’s no immediate rush to watch them, and so we end up having a night here or there catching-up on them.

Currently, our monthly bill for Sky+ is about £20 a month. Not a massive amount, but still £20 less to spend on sweets and chocolate each month.  If I cancel the subscription to Sky, then (I’m told) that the Sky+ feature (i.e. the recording part) will stop working also.

So, the aim is to replace the Sky+ box with something else that doesn’t have a monthly or annual subscription, but will give me the channels that we watch AND have the ability to record programmes for later playback.

However - The menu and remote controller combination for Sky+ is going to take some beating. The interface for the Sky TV guide is very simple to use and easy to record programmes, or even entire series of programmes using the Series Link feature.

I have a Playstation3 console, and there is a TV-tuner adapter available for it, called PlayTV and is £59.99 online. But assuming that it all works fine, that means that I’m restricting the places that I can watch any of the recorded content to the one TV-set in the lounge. 

But, ideally, I’d like something that can record a particular Freeview programme and save it as a file on my computer network. Then, the plan would be to use TVersity on the server, streaming the content to my PlayStation3.

I’ve found a possible solution, but more on that in the next post.

Backups

Yes, yes. I know. It’s that same old waffle about how you should backup your PC, etc, etc. 

Everyone knows that they should do it, but everyone leaves it until ‘later’.  Only, like I did, ‘later’ comes and smacks you around the head after something bad has happened and things are lost.

Why not think about it a little, enough to do something good, and then forget about it?

Windows 7 has a Backup and Restore application built in and allows you to select the files and folders that you want to save, point them to an external or network drive and simply schedule the task to happen whenever you want it to.

“But I haven’t got an external drive?”

Maybe you don’t.  Quick search at Aria.co.uk to find that they’re selling a 1TB (1024GB) USB External hard drive for under £66.

£66… 

That might sound a lot if you only have a tenner in your back-pocket, but seriously, I even thought about buying another one, as £66 to save all your work/photos/etc on? Magic.

Chances are you could probably find a bigger/faster/cheaper one elsewhere online, but I doubt there’ll be a lot in it.  Either way, you have to think about how you’d feel if your computer as you know it disappeared, as people forget that things do still get stolen these days;  people who I used to see when doing home PC call-outs seem to think that they’re safe from viruses, malware and any other nasties out there in the wild, but didn’t give a second thought to what would happen if they had their house broken into, and the laptop with all their life’s holiday photos, or photos of the kids, late parents/grandparents/etc.  All those memories are just as ‘gone’ as if a virus trashed the hard drive, or even if the drive itself failed.

That’s my story, the one of the failing disk drive.  It’s easy to forget about the earlier holidays that I have lost in addition to the ‘bigger’ holidays that we’ve had, such as when we went to Niagara Falls in Canada.  All these photos were arrogantly ‘safe’ on my new shiny 300GB hard drive, but even new drives can fail and I can vouch for that. 

So, I’ve been stung. Not as bad as it could have been, as we didn’t have children at that point, and I would have been absolutely gutted if I had lost the photos of my little one during his first weeks in the hospital, or doing funny things at home; you know, the sort of photos you will want to look back on in years to come.

Windows 7 makes the process easy, I promise. 

If you’re a ‘bit of a billy’ on the PC and normally fumble your way around it to make it work to a fashion, then follow the standard settings in the wizard that walks you through it all, and you’re away. 

If you’re a touch above that and feel you know what you’re doing and want to hand-select the files and folders to backup, then fine, do it that way.

Fake a disaster and restore something

Might sound a little overkill, but then, what’s the point in backing something up if you don’t know how to get it back?

If you’ve got access to another computer in the house, why not plug your newly purchased and backed-up external drive into that and find out how easy it is to get to your files?

“But I haven’t got Windows 7…” (yet)

Well, quite possibly not. And that goes for a lot of people out there who haven’t literally just bought a new PC. Quite a lot of people out there are still using Windows XP and for one reason or another didn’t upgrade to Vista.

I’ll find out about the standard backup/restore applications in Windows XP and Vista and will put a blog post up on here soon.

Failing that, I’ll see if I can find a relatively cheap third-party application that your mum can buy and install without needing help from someone in a call-centre in New Deli.

New toy: Webcam!

One of the toys I put on my Christmas wish-list this year, was a webcam, as I’ve never actually owned one… Sad story, I know, but finally, I now have one!

Anyway, I’ve got the webcam that I asked for, and that my in-laws kindly bought for me, which is a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema, and it’s great!

Amongst all the tech-specs about how good it is, its says it’s a HD Widescreen webcam, filming in 720p HD, up to 30 frames per second. But the much better item on the list, is that it’s got a built-in microphone. So, no need to sit there with the geeky telephone-operator-style headset for me, I can just sit there and jabber away!

Although at £50 it’s not the cheapest webcam on the market, it certainly does feel like it’s worth the money, as it gives the impression that it was made properly and will work forever.

One very nice touch, is that it’s got a really good autofocus feature, like normal digital cameras, meaning that you  don’t need to keep adjusting the lens when you change where you sit, nor do you get a general focus-on-everything approach to it.

I did contemplate the Logitech equivalent, which is the Quickcam Fusion Webcam, but I’m really pleased with what I’ve got.

In terms of use so far, I’ve been talking to my mum and sister on it using Skype’s video-chat and it works really well.  I’ve also been using Skype to make normal telephone calls through it too, as the microphone is that good and it means that you don’t have to hold a phone to your ear all the time. (And because I wanted to really, as it would have been cheaper to use the free minutes that come with my mobile phone contract.)

Summary: Definitely good fun and a classy toy nonetheless.

Marks out of 5:

An introduction to Windows Azure

Azure? Isn’t that a colour?

‘Windows Azure’ is Microsoft’s new toy and when it goes live properly, it’s going to be big.

Basically, Azure is Microsoft’s answer to the Cloud computing, where companies like Amazon currently have the market share with their products.

Cloud computing is similar to regular web-hosting packages, but offers scalability in remarkable ways. Here’s what I mean.

If you have a website for your business selling ‘Widgets’ (whatever they may be) and you’re about to put an advert in a national or international newspaper, telling everybody about your new fangled Widget Mk II, then the thought may (or should) cross your mind about whether your current web-server that you’re using can handle vast amounts of traffic from lots of people around the world trying to buy a Widget or two from you.

I’m not talking about hundreds of people all connecting in at the same second of the same hour, on the same day; more like thousands or hundreds of thousands in that same timeframe. 

Typically, web-servers slow down, as they’re trying to cater for each and every user-request in turn. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are very much this approach – hit the website as many times as possible in an attempt to make the website’s server crash and fail, causing a potential loss of revenue.

There was a big thing a while ago whereby bookmakers were being extorted for large sums of money, or risked a massive DDoS attack during big race days.

One solution to this, is to contact the people that host your website and take out an additional contract for another server, and get the two servers linked and share the workload. Good idea. Expensive and time-consuming, but certainly valid. But then, just one more server? What if you had needed another but wanted to keep costs down and lived to regret it later? Or maybe you actually needed an additional 10 servers?  But then, what if your advert flops and no-one wants to visit your site to buy a widget? You’re then stuck with those however-many servers for the duration of the contract, 12 months maybe?

In steps the wonder of Cloud computing!

What if, just before those adverts get printed, you check the settings on your website and change an innocent-looking ‘1’ to ‘25’ and press save, and magically, there’s 25 servers cooking away at serving your website? And, even better, what if you only paid for what you use?

And then, once your advert has faded away in yesterday’s news, you then want to scale-back your 25 webservers to just 1 again. Simply change that setting back and press save. Job done and no contracts to worry about.

This is exactly the scenario that Windows Azure is going to help with; scalability.

In addition to this, Microsoft are currently spending lots of money building their own Content Delivery Network (CDN), which are data centres around the world to host the same data - if you’re in the States and you visit the Widget site, then you’ll get content delivered to you from the data centre there; if you’re in Europe, the website will be delivered you as a visitor from the European data centre, meaning that you don’t have to wait for the data to cross the Atlantic Ocean, so it should be a quicker response for visitors coming to your site.

Once a website is deployed to Azure, the person visiting the site won’t know the difference, as it just looks like a website at the end of the day.  But as long as that website appears during the busiest time of year for the Widget site and the customer is able to spend their money, then the job is done.

As a developer myself, this stuff should be fantastic. I’ve been playing around with small applications myself with a test-account on Azure and it’s really easy to use, once you get to grips on what’s going on.  Also, as all of Microsoft developer toys, such as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), ASP .Net and ASP .Net MVC and so on, are all being baked into the big cake, everything should just ‘work’ and work efficiently too.

Hopefully, that should explain a little as to what Azure is, and why it’s important.  I’ll post more articles on here later.