Network Wiring

We use a cable modem from Time Warner. We have slowly been adding more and more to our network. Since we have a Wii, Tivo HD, and Slingbox that need fast connections, I have a 10/100 switch that also connects the HTPC in our bedroom (supposedly). I tried to use the installed Cat 5 cable to splice the run from the switch to the bedroom, but my wiring appears to not be so good. I may have to pull a new cable into our bedroom, but the existing hole is quite tight. Luckily, we had not trouble adding a network cable into the hole with 25 wires already there, we left our pull ropes in place. My wife and I had a great system last year with pull ropes and a loop. Glad to know it still works...

Update 1/2/08: Of course it did not work. I got the cable tester and wire 1 was dead. After reseating it on both ends of the cable, it still did not work. So I cut the cable under the house and pulled it up the little bitty hole with the help of my wife, wired it up, and it works! Now we have a 10/100 wired network in our house with three major locations: upstairs office+ teleco closet, den, master bedroom. Now if the HTPC would line out and work...

Switched Digital; Time Warner Stinks

So the cable guys came to my house for the third time this week. I had also called in to tech support about five times. They could not get the cable card to work with the Tivo HD to get all the channels. We started with two S-cards that do single stream decoding, then I got a M-card that handles multiple streams. Some channels worked (ESPN, Discovery) but some did not (ESPN 2, MTV HD). We could not figure out what was the issue. I knew some people had trouble with Tivo and cable cards and I knew they were only one way (no on-demand) but I assumed everything would work for us.

Finally someone at tech support was smart enough to realize that Time Warner is using switched digital. This is a 2-way scheme that sends a request for a specific channel that is then routed. This way they save bandwidth, since these channels are rarely used, so some channels can be used for multiple signals.

This means we get the following:

• ABC
• NBC
• CBS
• Fox
• Public TV
• TNT HD
• Discovery HD
• ESPN HD

For $7 a month we get the enhanced HD tier:

• HD Net
• HD Net Movites
• Mojo
• Universal

But Universal is on switched digital. This is also where Battlestar Gallactica in HD airs...

I told the cable guy I was goint to sue Time Warner. Maybe I should.

The tech support lady was somewhat helpful, she gave me three months free on the HD tier, so that is $21. Since I only get 3/4 channels, that seems like a decent break (almost).

The real problem is the plethora of HD channels I am missing due to use of switched digital. Home and cooking channels for my wife. Music and videos.

Although they advertise channels available in HD "free with basic cable subscription" at http://www.timewarnercable.com/SouthCarolina/products/HDTVAvailableChannels.html

I cannot get many of them due to the switched digital issue.

• HGTV
• History HD
• ESPN2
• TBS HD
• Food HD
• M HD
• A&E HD
• Golf HD
• National Geographic HD
• CNN HD

So this is false advertising and I really think I should sue...

They have a solution. A USB dongle that allows for 2-way communication. Due out in the second quarter of 2008. Time Warner is a monopoly and they are abusing their monopoly power and should be sued for not getting FCC mandated cable cards to work.

Recent System Stack

More recent picture of stack. Switch, slingbox, speaker switch on left then Leapfrog and Wii on right. Tivo HD on amp on DVD player.

Old Pictures of System

The old stack of equipment on the old shelf. No Wii, slingbox, switch, or leapfrog. Old stinky SA 8300 DVR.

The corner showing the swing out shelf with components.

TV in alcove over fireplace. Notice Orb Speakers are mounted a bit high. This was partially by design, partially due to limitations of access for wires. The imaging is not bad, even though they are nearly three feet above the TV.

Tivo HD, Slingbox, HTPC

So I got my wife (and myself) a Tivo HD for Christmas. Very nice! We also received a Slingbox AV. The Tivo is almost working (cable card issues) but even now I can see the system will be very nice.

After downloading the Tivo Togo desktop to my HTPC, I published my music and photos directories. I put shortcuts from my TV and home video directories in the proper folders as well. The music and photos showed up on the Tivo immediately. After some time and a few reboots, some of the videos showed up in the "Now Showing" portion of the Tivo.

The HTPC with Beyond TV is currently set to record in Mpeg 2 to a given directory. They automatically put the show information and a date in the file name. Amazingly, all my BTV HTPC shows appear in the listing for the HTPC on the Tivo! So now, you can watch all my HTPC shows in the den. Of course, the card is bad so these are grainy SD videos at best, but it is pretty slick to have access to your HTPC videos from the Tivo. Problem is, my AVIs and DVDs don't show up yet.

When watching these videos, the tivo starts to download them. It gives you the option to watch as it streams, but sometimes it is slow downloading and you have to pause. Ideally, you pick a show to download, watch something for a bit, then go watch your show. You also have to delete it, you can't just stream it from the HTPC.

The slick part is using the sling box to watch the Tivo. Now, I can easily watch the Tivo using the HTPC in the bedroom with the sling box. No Tivo desktop downloads, just watch like I was there. The quality is not bad, even for HD stuff. The HTPC runs at 1920x1200, and it looks ok when slingbox is streaming video. And the slingbox works at work and on my treo cell! Woohoo.

The system is not perfect, but it certainly is fairly slick and polished at this point. Other than Beyond TV needing daily reboots, the system appears stable. Now if Time Warner could get off their butts and get my cable card working!

BeyondTV in HTPC

So I finally go a working PC in our bedroom. After struggling with MythTV installs, I finally gave up and ran XP with Beyond TV. This installed easily and works nicely. The interface is snappy. The interface is intuitive, like a Tivo, but generally more options. Using a WinTV 500 card, I can record two streams at once. It seems to work well with finding shows and dealing with conflicts and priority issues.

I also got Beyond Media, so I can watch DVDs, home video, pictures, and MP3s as well. They have a plugin to stream XM radio too. This is slick overall, but it is not integrated with Beyond TV, they are two separate applications. No big deal, I mostly use the TV application. It would be nice to have the skins be similar though...

We have had problems that are still not sorted out. I got a dud Win TV card that has a terrible signal. They switched up production about a year ago and I got one of the first new cards that did not have working drivers, and still after using the drivers it is still not great. I have an RMA to send it back.

The overall system is nice but loud. I should get a new Mobo with a quiet fan, but that is a job for another day.

The biggest issue is that Beyond TV dies on me. We leave live TV on overnight and the system generally hangs by morning. I sent the following the them, but after two days I have heard nothing:

While running BTV and BMedia, the system is never stable more than 24 hours.  We start live TV at night when we go to sleep, by morning the system is hung.

Menu bars, window frames are black, the little images in the tray are black.  The warning says no D3D device available.

Sometimes it loses the Hauppage Wintv 500 location and claims no devices are present.

Sometimes it loses the TV recording directory, so it can't record.

Sometimes it locks the machine so hard you have to unplug it (not just hold power).  Usually, the OS is still running but killing all the BTV processes does not seem to fix the issue or allow you to restart without a reboot.

Sometimes it loses all the setup information, so you have to enter your shows to record again from scratch and put in your configuration.

I have turned off XP system screen savers and the BTV screen savers.

I turned off auto updates, thinking that was causing trouble.

I turned off ShowSqueeze which was scheduled after midnight (seems to happen mostly at night).

The system is still not stable for long periods of time.

Noting interesting shows in the logs.

SA 8300 HD PVR

So for the last year we have had a Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD PVR. We used a Tivo Series 2 for years and loved it. The SA 8300 is like night and day. This thing is terrible in so many ways. I can't believe Time Warner charges people for this piece of garbage. Some problems include:

• HDCP Problems - We constantly had problems with HDCP using the SA8300. When viewing TV, we would often have a error code displayed that required us to turn off all the components and sometimes the TV. Thanks DRM!
  
• Interface Quality - The interface is kludgy at best. It looks like something from 1980. Text is blocky, everything is blocky.
  
• Picture Quality - I assumed the HD signals were just crappy using the SA 8300. Using the Tivo, you can see that HD shows actually look nice. Artifacts are rare with the Tivo.
  
• Season Pass Management - There is not an interface to specify priority of season pass management. Also, season passes seem to be get lost periodically.
  
• Interruptions When Viewing - It would often put up a silly message while you are viewing to let you know that it is about to record something. Who cares, unless you actually are watching live TV and you need to make a decision?
  
• Fast Forward - No 30 second skip, fast forward does not auto-correct after you stop like a Tivo.
  
• Remote - The remote is a big clunky boxy thing.

On the positive side, it does record two different streams at once. It does PIP (who uses this?). It can be expanded with a eSATA drive. It can do on demand.

Even with the headaches I have had with the Tivo HD, I still prefer it by about 10 to 1 over the SA 8300 HD box.

Wiring

Wiring is a big freaking mess when dealing with modern component and AV systems.

Our Onkyo amp does switching, so all you have to run is a HDMI cable. I ran extra cables between the TV and amp, including a component bundle (RGB +LR audio for five total RCAs) and a few extra RCA cables for SD video and audio.

The DVD player was pretty easy. We only have an old Sony DVD player, so it has RCA for video and anlog audio, as well as optical for digital audio. That runs directly to the amp.

Wiring the DVR was not bad either. It had HDMI out, so that runs to the amp. Optical for digital audio also runs to the amp. The Onkyo receiver cannot send digital audio to zone 2 (kitchen/deck) so we also ran RCAs for analog audio to the amp.

The Wii connection was also quite easy to put in. Just run three RCAs for video and audio to the amp.

We recently go a slingbox AV, so I ran analog video and audio from the DVR to the slingbox. I actually had to get some RCA splitters so the audio could run to both the slingbox and the analog amp input (for zone 2 in the kitchen or deck). The slingbox takes S video inputs as well, so I ran that from the Tivo too.

The Wii gave us trouble using our wireless (dropping out a lot) so I go a 10/100 wired USB adapter for it. No troubles. With so many internet boxes (Tivo, Slingbox, Wii) we also had to add a ethernet switch.

We wanted speakers on the deck and in the Kitchen, so we also had to get a speaker switch box.

So the stack of equipment includes (from the bottom):

• Sony DVD player
  
• Onkyo amp
  
• Tivo HD (was SA 8300 HD PVR)
  
• Left side:
  
• Speaker switch box
  
• Slingbox AV
  
• Linksys 10/100 Switch
  
• Right Side:
  
• Wii
• Leapfrog with wireless keyboard
  

Instead of running exposed wires, we spent a long time running cables in our crawl space and attic. I also had to put in a new power outlet for all the components. The wiring into the wall includes:

• HDMI cable (35 foot to TV, online for ~$75)
  
• 7 speaker wires (R, L, Center, Sur L&R, Back L&R)
  
• 1 RCA for sub
  
• 2 Coaxial for cable (1 unused)
  
• 1 Ethernet
  
• 2 speaker wires for deck
  
• 2 speaker wires for kitchen
  
• 2 RCA for audio from TV to amp (hooked in, never used)
  
• 2 RCA for backup video from amp to TV (hooked in, only used for amp setup)
  
• 5 RCA for HD to TV (RGB+RL, never used, not hooked up now)

For a grand total of 25 wires going into a little 2 inch hole in the wall. Some go up into the attic, some go down into the basement. After spending a few weekends last year doing this project with my wife, I am proud that we are not divorced after completing this task. It looks very nice now, IMHO and it is a nice project to stand back and look at. If you pay someone to install your wires in the wall, whatever you pay is insufficient. This is a terrible job to have to do.

We ran the amp-tv cables down to the crawl space and up the wall to the alcove over the fireplace. Luckily, the original room wiring showed me where to run wires near the fireplace. We bought a stiff fiberglass rod for poking and pulling wires, this helped a lot. The flexible snake was useless. We devised a system where we would run a nylon rope up with a knot. One person would tie a cable onto the rope then the other would pull the rope up. We did this repeatedly as needed and left the ropes in place in case we ever needed to pull more cable.

Speaker wires and Cat 5 Ethernet went up into the attic area. Some speaker wires (rear surround, sub) went into the craw space along with the coax for cable. Once the holes in the framing were cut and the rope was run, running the cable was easy. Figuring out where to cut the holes in the floor and wall was the scary part. Luckily, we did not have any disasters (yet). Wires run into the wall in a nice fashion and I put a big plate on. You could put pro plates on, but with 25 connections it would take a lot of plates. As it is now, 25 wires go through a plate into the wall. Power is nearby as well.

Note, exterior walls are difficult to deal with. They have insulation, so we avoided using them completely. This made running a rear surround wire difficult in one case.

Here is an old picture of the wiring from the side:



Update 12/31/07: We decided to try and run Cat5 from the switch to the bedroom through the crawlspace, so we had to pull a cable up from the crawl space. That actually went very well, but my splicing of the existing cat5 cable was not so good...

Component Setup

So last year, I got a promotion. My wife and I decided to celebrate by upgrading our AV system.

We ended up getting a 52 inch Aquos LCD with 1080p, an Onkyo amp, and some speakers from Orb Audio. The cable company supplied a SA 8300 HD PVR. After a four hour wait in the parking lot of a Target on a cold morning in February, we also had a Wii. We wired up everything on the dining room table to test and tweak, then we started to install...

The TV just perfectly fits over the fireplace in our den. With about 1/4 inch on each side (if that) it is the perfect width. This is also nice, since we had an alcove over the fireplace, so all the wires can go behind the TV and it is pretty flush to the mantle. Also, with a mantle, there is no crazy wall mounting to do, it just sits there and the wires are all easily coiled behind. We put painted board in above and below to hide the void space behind, it looks pretty darn good IMHO.

We have a corner of the room that is near a window and walkway. The area is about 2x2 feet, so it is about perfect for components. We could not find suitable furniture to fit, so we decided to try a shelf for components. Also, this may keep the kids out of them a bit. After two iterations, we found a TV shelf on a swivel arm that would support 100 lbs. The problem was the metal shelf they provided was flimsy, but we propped the system on there anyway. I finally made a new shelf out of four layers of 1/4 inch MDF glued and bolted together. After routing, filling, priming and painting, the new shelf looks ok. The nice thing about this setup, the arm swings so I can get access to the back of the components pretty easily. We mounted the 17x17 inch shelf at an angle, so the wires are also hidden pretty well. You don't notice them from the front or either side. This should be great until the kids pile up something and pull down the stack of components.

Tivo HD for Christmas!

I went ahead and bought my wife a Tivo HD for Christmas. I asked her if I could give her something I wanted too, and she was worried about what she may be getting. A new drill? A band-saw? She appeared totally surprised and actually cried when she opened it.

Setup was initially fine. Took a while to download everything and reboot, but eventually it all worked. The cable guy came the day after Christmas to install cable cards, but after about an hour only one appeared to work. It never actually got authorized, so it was not working.

I called two or three times to tech support at time Warner, but they could not activate it. They sent out another group of techs. This time, they brought a M card as I had requested. This time, it actually paired up but I still could not receive a lot of the channels. Some digital came in and some HD, but not everything. Very odd. The card says no EMMs are received, so maybe it is not really working? Or maybe they broadcast some channels without encryption ? Why would they broadcast ESPN (works) in the clear but encrypt ESPN 2 (does not work)? Very odd... More later.