Buh Bye, Time Warner Cable! Hello, cleaner, crisper OTA HDTV!
After years of marginal support for CableCard-based DVRs (a Moxi and a TivoHD), incessant rate increases, and interminable waits on hold for support, I finally decided to do away with my $100/month cable bill.
Of course, it’s not as simple as just canceling the service. Thanks to the aforementioned Moxi and Tivo, the DW and I are now very accustomed to DVRing our favorite shows (watching live TV is so 48 seconds ago,) so we needed the same capability if we were to get our programming over the air. The solution would also need to have a high WAF (wife acceptance factor,) meaning it is easy to navigate and use.
Benefits
- Free!!! After NRE (non-recurring engineering, or setup) costs
- Depending on number of TVs supported, NRE is recouped within months, saving $100/mo
- Whole-house DVR (or at least to every TV with an AppleTV connected)
- Consistency–all TVs now provide same look and feel with respect to DVR usage
- No more monthly support calls when the tuning adapter(s) goes out!!!
The Setup
My solution is a combination of the following hardware:
- Electroline EDA 2800 drop amp
- SiliconDust HDHomeRun dual (x2 for a total of 4 tuners)
- Elgato Turbo.264 HD
- iMac (to use as DVR, in my case running Mac OS X 10.8.2)
- AppleTV (1 per TV for DVR viewing)
(Street price of the each piece of hardware, with the exception of the iMac, is less than $100. So for me setup costs were less than $400.)
Along with the following software:
- Elgato EyeTV v3.6 (DVR Software)
- mc2xml v1.2 (for guide data)
- iTunes (for sharing DVR recordings)
- A couple of custom AppleScripts (for EyeTV and iTunes cleanup and organization)
(The EyeTV software I’d purchased long ago, but even now it is less than $80 at Elgato’s website.)
Wiring Up TVs and HDHomeRun
Nothing too complicated here–not even worth taking pictures.
- Run a coax from the OTA antenna into the drop amp input.
- From the drop amp outputs, run a coax into each of the HDHomeRun inputs.
- From the drop amp outputs, run a coax to each TV that will tune OTA signals (for live TV.)
- Connect a network patch cable from each HDHomeRun to your router/switch.
- Apply power to the drop amp and the HDHomeRun units.
- Connect an AppleTV to each TV, connect network patch cable (or use wifi) to each AppleTV
Mac Setup
Follow installation instructions for the individual software packages.
- The iMac must be on the same network as the HDHomeRun units.
- Install EyeTV software
- Run EyeTV,
- Choose EyeTV | EyeTV Setup Assistant
- Follow wizard to detect HDHomeRun units and scan for channels
- Skip ‘TV Guide’ or TitanTV account setup steps
- Plug Turbo.264 HD into a USB port
- Install mc2xml
- Configure mc2xml for use with EyeTV (a good reference can be found here.)
- Go back to EyeTV and set the EPG setting for all channels to XMLTV
- In iTunes, turn on Home Sharing (File | Home Sharing | Turn On Home Sharing)
AppleTV Setup
The AppleTVs must be on the same network as the iMac. Turn on Home Sharing (Settings | Computers | Turn On Home Sharing) using the same account used in iTunes above.
Customizations
Automate Guide Data Download
First a script to simplify things, mc2xml.sh:
#!/bin/sh cd /Users/girls/guide ./mc2xml # open EyeTV with file open -a EyeTV /Users/girls/guide/xmltv.xml
(I used my girls’ account, ‘/Users/girls’, on the iMac since this is the account which is setup for autologin on the iMac and the account most used.)
And a simple cron job, as mentioned in the reference above, to automate things:
00 20 7,14,21,28 * * /Users/girls/guide/mc2xml.sh
This job will download new guide data on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of each month. A daily download is not necessary since the guide data is generally available two weeks in advance. But to play it safe, a once a week download is used to allow for a 50% failure rate on the update.
/Library/Application Support/EyeTV/Scripts/TriggeredScripts/ExportDone.scpt
EyeTV allows users to extend its functionality through the use of event handlers.
These event handlers are implemented in AppleScript and are invoked by name, e.g. ExportDone, if a script with the event name is found in the folder /Library/Application Support/EyeTV/Scripts/TriggeredScripts.
To make the recorded shows easier to navigate on AppleTV, the following script adds the date of recording to the name of the show in iTunes, e.g. ‘Elementary (1/4)’ in the image above.
It also resets the genre of the show in iTunes to ‘EyeTV’. This genre will be used later for maintaining the iTunes library.
-- ExportDone.scpt
on ExportDone(recordingID)
set myid to recordingID as integer
tell application "EyeTV"
set theRec to recording id myid
-- gather some info from EyeTV about the recording that just finished
set origdur to get the actual duration of theRec
set myshortname to get the title of theRec
set episodeID to get the episode of theRec
set thisdate to get the start time of theRec
set mm to (month of thisdate) as integer
set dd to day of thisdate
-- add date to name for iTunes
set itunesname to myshortname & " (" & mm & "/" & dd & ")"
end tell
-- wait a while to make sure iTunes has imported the exported recording
delay 30
tell application "iTunes"
-- all EyeTV exports go to playlist 'EyeTV'
tell playlist "EyeTV"
set theShows to tracks whose name is myshortname
if (count of theShows) = 0 then
set theShows to tracks whose episode ID is episodeID
end if
set a_show to (the first item of theShows)
end tell
if a_show is not {} then
-- change genre so we can find it later
set genre of a_show to "EyeTV"
set video kind of a_show to TV show
set show of a_show to myshortname
set name of a_show to itunesname
end if
end tell
log myshortname & " exported to iTunes"
display dialog (myshortname & " exported to iTunes") giving up after 10
end ExportDone
-- ExportDone.scpt
Automator Script — iTunesCleanup
Without some maintenance the iTunes library would grow continually.
I decided to automate the maintenance by deleting nightly news show daily, and other shows after thirty days.
While this could be done with a cron job, I chose to use an Automator event in iCal (this will be easier for those who are Terminal averse.)
In addition to cleaning up iTunes this script also deletes the recording from EyeTV since, once they are exported, I no longer need them in the EyeTV archive.
Before deleting from EyeTV a comparison is made between the exported duration in iTunes and the recorded duration in EyeTV–if the difference is too great then the export was probably not successful so the recording is not deleted in case we want to re-export by hand.
I’ve configured the following script to run daily at 6am in iCal:
on run
cleanup_iTunes()
end run
to cleanup_iTunes()
log "cleanup_iTunes()"
set tracksToDelete to {}
set now to current date
tell application "iTunes"
-- EyeTV exported videos automatically get added to playlist "EyeTV"
set shows to (every track of playlist named "EyeTV")
repeat with a_show in shows
set showName to (name of a_show)
-- look at recordings (we know them because we set the genre)
if genre of a_show is "EyeTV" then
-- delete older recordings, news daily, otherwise 30 days old
-- we record NBC news, local and national, so regex match to get news shows
set regexscript to "echo \"" & showName & "\" | awk /^NBC.*News.*$/"
tell current application to set news to (do shell script regexscript)
if length of news is greater than 0 then
-- delete news daily
set theDate to (now - 18 * hours)
else
-- delete everything else older than 1 month
set theDate to (now - 30 * days)
end if
-- add to delete list if old enough
set toDel to ((date added of a_show) is less than theDate)
if toDel then
-- cache files to delete so we don't alter library while iterating
set tracksToDelete to tracksToDelete & (get database ID of a_show)
end if
end if
end repeat
end tell
if tracksToDelete is not {} then
log "tracksToDelete -- " & tracksToDelete as string
set filesToDelete to {}
tell application "iTunes"
set myLib to playlist 1
repeat with theID in tracksToDelete
set toDel to (first track of myLib whose database ID is theID)
if (class of toDel) is file track then
set filesToDelete to filesToDelete & (location of toDel)
end if
delete toDel
end repeat
end tell
tell application "Finder"
repeat with theFile in filesToDelete
my delete_the_file(theFile)
end repeat
end tell
end if
--delete EyeTV recordings if exported
my delete_exported_recordings()
try
-- quit iTunes to force library sync on a regular basis
tell application "iTunes" to quit
delay 60
tell application "iTunes"
-- just do something here so we know iTunes is running
-- and ready for Home Sharing connections from the AppleTV
set shows to (every track of playlist named "EyeTV")
end tell
end try
end cleanup_iTunes
to delete_exported_recordings()
log "delete_exported_recordings"
set recs to {}
tell application "EyeTV"
repeat with a_rec in recordings
set thisdate to get the start time of a_rec
set mm to (month of thisdate) as integer
set dd to day of thisdate
set itunesname to (title of a_rec) & " (" & mm & "/" & dd & ")"
set recs to recs & [[(title of a_rec), itunesname, actual duration of a_rec]]
end repeat
end tell
repeat with a_title in recs
set myshortname to get item 1 of a_title
log " checking export " & myshortname
set exportdur to get_duration_of_show(get item 2 of a_title)
set origdur to get item 3 of a_title
if origdur > exportdur then
set thediff to (origdur - exportdur)
else
set thediff to (exportdur - origdur)
end if
if thediff < origdur * (0.15) then
my delete_recording(myshortname)
end if
end repeat
end delete_exported_recordings
on delete_recording(shortname)
log "delete eyetv recording -- " & shortname
tell application "EyeTV"
repeat with a_rec in recordings
if title of a_rec is equal to shortname then
delete recording id (unique ID of a_rec)
log "-Recording " & shortname & " deleted"
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
end tell
end delete_recording
on get_duration_of_show(show_name)
set exportdur to 0
tell application "iTunes"
tell playlist "EyeTV"
try
set theShows to tracks whose name is show_name
if (count of theShows) > 0 then
set exportdur to (duration of first item of theShows)
end if
end try
end tell
end tell
log "Exported duration " & exportdur
return exportdur
end get_duration_of_show
to delete_the_file(floc)
log "Attempt to delete file" & POSIX path of (floc as string)
try
do shell script "rm -f " & quoted form of POSIX path of (floc as string)
on error
log "Done. However, the file could not be deleted."
end try
end delete_the_file
Everyday Use
Using ‘Smart Guides’ in EyeTV makes it simple to set up a ‘Season Pass’ for any show. In the smart guide options you can also configure the recordings to export automatically to iTunes. When they do, the ExportDone script is invoked on completion of the export which puts the date on the show in iTunes.
Using AppleTV to connect to the computer hosting iTunes, it is simple to traverse the TV shows in iTunes. Selecting the ‘TV Shows’ category from the shared computer and navigating back to the top menu puts the TV shows in the top row on the AppleTV (see image above,) with the most recent recordings on the left, and the date of the recording in the title (again, see ‘Elementary (1/4)’ above.) It is then a simple matter of selecting shows from this top row–pressing ‘play’ plays the most recent recording of a show, selecting the show will present the list of episodes if multiple episodes exist.
As I complete this post, our new whole-house DVR system has been up and running for two months. There were a few hiccups along the way–the scripts above have been revised a few times–but at this point all the rough edges appear to have been eliminated and the WAF is high.
Mission Accomplished!
