Monday, December 20, 2010
How I Got TV In To Any Room I Want: DVBLink in Action
Posted by Andy Dixon in "Digital Home Talk" @ 07:00 AM
Two months ago I made the decision to ditch satellite TV in my house and revert to using the standard free terrestrial TV as well as the free satellite TV I could still get via my dish. With the savings made from no longer paying for a monthly subscription I built a new Windows Media Center pc with two satellite TV cards, one of which can accept a terrestrial signal as well. Overall, that project went well and I now have a fully functional set-up that gives me everything I had before, well, everything except the live pay per view football! However, I was constantly having problems with the in-built TV guide being wrong or not showing any details about what TV shows were scheduled. I tried a number of fixes found on websites such as The Green Button, but to no avail. Whilst in my search for a solution I discovered a software product called DVBlink which caused me to open my eyes a bit. Not only can it handle importing guide data from third parties direct in to the Media Center guide, but it could also allow me to stream live TV to other devices around the home via my local LAN.
What? No extra TV cable needing to be fed to the bedroom? No extra satellite LNB's? No extra TV cards? It all sounded too good to be true but I did some more reading and finally decided I would give it a try. I thought that the software would be expensive but it's actually very reasonable. There is a special offer on currently to buy the server and network pack together for $50.72, and to make the deal sweeter there is a 20 day trial period so I could try it out and prove it works before paying for it. Read more...