"Steve" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it be far simpler to just connect a freeview device to the
PC?

It need not be complex though. We are talking an *ideal* HDD DTT PVR, it
would therefore have a plug and play interface with a simple means of
extracting the files (i.e. an SMB share or HTTP/FTP server). Just grab the
file and process.


say a Hauppauge Dec200t, or one of the Nubula cards?

You could then record to Hard Disc, edit at will, then cut to DVD....

But then you loose the ability to record and watch in your living room,
unless you move the PC there and keep it on all the time. This may not be
convenient and you have to get a second PC.


Or you could take a view which says that investing in task specific devices
for the living room, which are too complex for anyone above the age of 10,
and are out of date the minute you buy them, is poor economics..

Far better that you have the complete flexibility of a PC in the living room
giving communal /family access to the net / email / TV / DVD / MP3 / games
etc etc, and network it (via wireless) to others (elsewhere) for private
use.

May be a slight issue with configuration control... but what's new.

John

"John Beeston" wrote in
:


"Steve" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it be far simpler to just connect a freeview device to the
PC?

It need not be complex though. We are talking an *ideal* HDD DTT PVR,
it would therefore have a plug and play interface with a simple means
of extracting the files (i.e. an SMB share or HTTP/FTP server). Just
grab the file and process.


say a Hauppauge Dec200t, or one of the Nubula cards?

You could then record to Hard Disc, edit at will, then cut to
DVD....

But then you loose the ability to record and watch in your living
room, unless you move the PC there and keep it on all the time. This
may not be convenient and you have to get a second PC.


Or you could take a view which says that investing in task specific
devices for the living room, which are too complex for anyone above
the age of 10, and are out of date the minute you buy them, is poor
economics..

Depends, you would have to show the figures, given say that most people
already have a home PC, TV and DVD player.


Its like the old adage about "how to I get to xxx", "well I wouldn't
start from here".

I think you are well off the mark on obscelecence too.


Far better that you have the complete flexibility of a PC in the
living room giving communal /family access to the net / email / TV /
DVD / MP3 / games etc etc, and network it (via wireless) to others
(elsewhere) for private use.

May be a slight issue with configuration control... but what's new.

The ideal device will may well be PC based, but can you say it will have
its storage on the device, it may well end up that you have a single
server under the stairs and your settop box simply writes to this over
the network (increasingly likely to be WiFi - why use wires?) there are
new mobos that can do a lot more in bios without an OS, i.e. play DVDs
etc, surely DTT cards could support this, with bootp and the like, it may
well end up as something very unrecognisable as a PC. For family email,
surfing being done on barebones display tablets being driven by the box
under the stairs, mp3s, radios etc being just like radios but being wifi.
Then you are back to cheap commodity devices, the only complexity being
setting up the machine under the stairs - which need not be complex.

Who knows,

"John Beeston" wrote in
:


"Steve" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it be far simpler to just connect a freeview device to the
PC?

It need not be complex though. We are talking an *ideal* HDD DTT PVR,
it would therefore have a plug and play interface with a simple means
of extracting the files (i.e. an SMB share or HTTP/FTP server). Just
grab the file and process.


say a Hauppauge Dec200t, or one of the Nubula cards?

You could then record to Hard Disc, edit at will, then cut to
DVD....

But then you loose the ability to record and watch in your living
room, unless you move the PC there and keep it on all the time. This
may not be convenient and you have to get a second PC.


Or you could take a view which says that investing in task specific
devices for the living room, which are too complex for anyone above
the age of 10, and are out of date the minute you buy them, is poor
economics..

Depends, you would have to show the figures, given say that most people
already have a home PC, TV and DVD player.


Its like the old adage about "how to I get to xxx", "well I wouldn't
start from here".

I think you are well off the mark on obscelecence too.


Far better that you have the complete flexibility of a PC in the
living room giving communal /family access to the net / email / TV /
DVD / MP3 / games etc etc, and network it (via wireless) to others
(elsewhere) for private use.

May be a slight issue with configuration control... but what's new.

The ideal device will may well be PC based, but can you say it will have
its storage on the device, it may well end up that you have a single
server under the stairs and your settop box simply writes to this over
the network (increasingly likely to be WiFi - why use wires?) there are
new mobos that can do a lot more in bios without an OS, i.e. play DVDs
etc, surely DTT cards could support this, with bootp and the like, it may
well end up as something very unrecognisable as a PC. For family email,
surfing being done on barebones display tablets being driven by the box
under the stairs, mp3s, radios etc being just like radios but being wifi.
Then you are back to cheap commodity devices, the only complexity being
setting up the machine under the stairs - which need not be complex.

Who knows,

"Steve" wrote in message
. ..
Or you could take a view which says that investing in task specific
devices for the living room, which are too complex for anyone above
the age of 10, and are out of date the minute you buy them, is poor
economics..

Depends, you would have to show the figures, given say that most people
already have a home PC, TV and DVD player.


True, but perhaps the argument should come every time you look to replace
one of these items... should it be a more general device, and take over more
of the existing functionality.. I like the server under the stairs idea...



I think you are well off the mark on obscelecence too.


You could be right... I note that on-digital boxes may be coming back into
use...

All I know is that amongst my friends and neighbours considerable sums have
been spent over say the last 3 years to upgrade TV, recorders, DVD devices
and none of them do the job properly..

there are issues over

picture size ... short fat people on screen / long thin ones (less
frequently) involving manual screen reconfiguring ..
Scart interfaces on VCRs / DVDs holding onto TV control after VCR / DVD
has finished ..only solved by switching VCR / DVD off.
Incompatibilities in DVD regions / MP3s / Jpegs / writable CDs / writable
DVDs ( +r -R +RW -RW) / VCD / SVCD / home movies / MPEGs / DiVx

Perhaps you are right, perhaps it is not obscelecence, but rather the speed
at which the goalposts are moving ... Here am I looking to get digital TV
in MPEG2 and already people are looking at HDTV... I wonder how many years
it will be before that comes to this remote corner of Berkshire ...

Actually I know the answer to that... it will be 2 months .... after I
upgrade my kit

I would be far better going down the pub, and having a beer and a game of
dominoes ...

"Steve" wrote in message
. ..
Or you could take a view which says that investing in task specific
devices for the living room, which are too complex for anyone above
the age of 10, and are out of date the minute you buy them, is poor
economics..

Depends, you would have to show the figures, given say that most people
already have a home PC, TV and DVD player.


True, but perhaps the argument should come every time you look to replace
one of these items... should it be a more general device, and take over more
of the existing functionality.. I like the server under the stairs idea...



I think you are well off the mark on obscelecence too.


You could be right... I note that on-digital boxes may be coming back into
use...

All I know is that amongst my friends and neighbours considerable sums have
been spent over say the last 3 years to upgrade TV, recorders, DVD devices
and none of them do the job properly..

there are issues over

picture size ... short fat people on screen / long thin ones (less
frequently) involving manual screen reconfiguring ..
Scart interfaces on VCRs / DVDs holding onto TV control after VCR / DVD
has finished ..only solved by switching VCR / DVD off.
Incompatibilities in DVD regions / MP3s / Jpegs / writable CDs / writable
DVDs ( +r -R +RW -RW) / VCD / SVCD / home movies / MPEGs / DiVx

Perhaps you are right, perhaps it is not obscelecence, but rather the speed
at which the goalposts are moving ... Here am I looking to get digital TV
in MPEG2 and already people are looking at HDTV... I wonder how many years
it will be before that comes to this remote corner of Berkshire ...

Actually I know the answer to that... it will be 2 months .... after I
upgrade my kit

I would be far better going down the pub, and having a beer and a game of
dominoes ...

Ian Clowes wrote in message ...
Initially it'll probably be a command line app, although I'd expect to
do a VB app or something that could call out to this and hence provide a
GUI interface of sorts. I might factor the code into DLLs so I can make
it a little more integrated.

This is excellent news. I think I'll hold off upgrading my disk if a
perfect archive is in the pipeline. Money saved for a DVD cutter -
thanks Ian!

I don't want to get ahead of things but... What's the best hardware
solution to go with this app? I guessing that an external usb2-ide
laptop drive holder could be butchered and fitted in the twin. What
baffles me is how to switch the drive between twin and usb. My only
idea is a 40-way switch - do they exist?

I for one would be
happy to pay for such an app.

I for two!

"spadulata" wrote in message
m...

I don't want to get ahead of things but... What's the best hardware
solution to go with this app? I guessing that an external usb2-ide
laptop drive holder could be butchered and fitted in the twin. What
baffles me is how to switch the drive between twin and usb. My only
idea is a 40-way switch - do they exist?


You could always fit removable drive bays to PACE and PC...

see

http://www.area450.com/thesampozone/...ctdrivebay.htm


John

spadulata wrote:
I don't want to get ahead of things but... What's the best hardware
solution to go with this app?

Hi

I pop the top of the Twin and move the HD over to my PC using a drive
caddy so I don't have to open up the PC. A caddy plus 3.5" to 2.5" disk
adapter would cost around £20.


I guessing that an external usb2-ide
laptop drive holder could be butchered and fitted in the twin. What
baffles me is how to switch the drive between twin and usb. My only
idea is a 40-way switch - do they exist?

Neat idea. I've never used such an adapter, do they expsoe the drive
in a 'raw' format or expect it to be NTFS/VFAT, etc?

Not sure such switches exist, but you could probably fit a daughter
board inside the Twin so that you could unplug a cable from the Twin and
plug in the USB without having to physically remove the HD or deal with
cables connected directly to it.

Since this implies putting the Twin and PC next to each other a suitably
long IDE cable might be all that's needed. Not sure what the specs or
'best' results say about length of such a cable though.

I have considered moving the guts of teh Twin to a ATX case so a caddy
could be fitted Twin side too. I don't think there's space in the
standard case.

IanC



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Ian Clowes wrote in message ...
caddy so I don't have to open up the PC. A caddy plus 3.5" to 2.5" disk
adapter would cost around £20.

I think there are two approaches to this problem.
1) If you use a desktop PC which is possibly some distance from the
twin then I think the removable caddy drives is the best solution. It
just remains to see if someone is brave enough to fit one to a twin.
It has the added advantage that you can run your twin on the original
20gb drive while you're ripping your 80gb one in your PC.

2) If (like me) you use a laptop then it's much easier to take the
laptop to wherever the twin is. In this case the best solution
(barring wlan!) would be a usb port on the twin. This is where my idea
for switching the twin disk in situ to a usb2-ide adapter comes from.

If most people are in category one then I'll try to pursue 2. I think
my steps a

1) look in my laptop drive area to see if I can fit (dangle!) a slave
drive
2) check I can get the prog to work
3) get a usb2-2.5"ide external drive holder and see if the prog still
works
4) fit usb adapter into twin with some form of switch (still looking!)
5) check prog works - wire up interlock to stop twin powering up when
drive switched out
6) tidy up by fitting usb socket / switch into twin case
7) check prog works and wait for DVD+RW blanks to come down in
price!!!


Please chip in if you think I've missed anything or can find parts

Many laptops such as Compaqs and Thinkpads have so-called 'Ultrabay's which
can take a caddy for a laptop hard disk.

"spadulata" wrote in message
...
Ian Clowes wrote in message
...

2) If (like me) you use a laptop then it's much easier to take the
laptop to wherever the twin is. In this case the best solution
(barring wlan!) would be a usb port on the twin. This is where my idea
for switching the twin disk in situ to a usb2-ide adapter comes from.

If most people are in category one then I'll try to pursue 2. I think
my steps a

1) look in my laptop drive area to see if I can fit (dangle!) a slave
drive