Output to S-Video?

Is there a difference between "CVBS" and "Composite"? If they are the same thing by a different name, that would explain my confusion.
 
grahamlthompson said:
Pretty sure using a slingbox (HD or not) quality is going to be down to your ISP upload speed. Using a Broadband speed checker like http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ what is your upload speed.

Unless you have a exceptional upload speed this is likely to be the limiting factor. For most of us download is much faster than upload. Mine is 70Mbps which is fast enough given one user to cope with a full quality Blu-ray stream if one existed.

Upload speed is 2.42 Mbps way less than even the crap quality SD channels let alone the 720 x 576 BBC channels. It;s not going to look great, nowhere near as good as downloading content to watch on line from say BBCI player or streamed abroad using a VPN service,

You should look at using a local Freesat or Freeview recording box with IP streaming connected to your network. SD quality streaming of recordings or live over the internet is pretty good on a mobile device.

https://www.vboxcomm.com/uk-freeview-and-freesat.html
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Yes I'm expecting quality to be pretty poor. I'm only on ADSL2 at the moment (fibre isn't available from Openreach where I am), but plan on moving to Virgin Broadband when my current deal expires in January. Until then my upload speed is only around 512kbps!

I hadn't come across the Vbox before. What would be the advantage of the VBox over the Slingbox+Humax setup?
 
At 512kbps don't expect the Slingbox to be of any use at all!

The VBox eliminates umpteen stages of conversion - you want to receive a DVB-T/T2 UHF signal with the Humax, demultiplex and decode it into digital streams (optionally storing it), convert it to analogue to send to the Slingbox, convert it back to digital streams in the Slingbox (it's probably easier to re-sample it to a lower bit rate that way), and then transmit it over the LAN/WAN to a display device (which converts the digital streams to actual sound and pictures).

With the VBox: it just receives the DVB, demultiplexes and decodes it, and then makes the streams directly available on the LAN.
 
Black Hole said:
Is there a difference between "CVBS" and "Composite"? If they are the same thing by a different name, that would explain my confusion.
Click to expand...

No difference it's a contraction of the C at the beginning. Bit like H264/AVC is often shortened to just AVC. The fact that it's a two wire analog connection means it has to be a single analogue signal.
 
Black Hole said:
At 512kbps don't expect the Slingbox to be of any use at all!

The VBox eliminates umpteen stages of conversion - you want to receive a DVB-T/T2 UHF signal with the Humax, demultiplex and decode it into digital streams (optionally storing it), convert it to analogue to send to the Slingbox, convert it back to digital streams in the Slingbox (it's probably easier to re-sample it to a lower bit rate that way), and then transmit it over the LAN/WAN to a display device (which converts the digital streams to actual sound and pictures).

With the VBox: it just receives the DVB, demultiplexes and decodes it, and then makes the streams directly available on the LAN.
Click to expand...

Recordings and Live Streams also available anywhere with internet access. Best to use SD sources though, HD can be a bit choppy.

http://community.vboxcomm.com/viewtopic.php?t=5

Kodi has an excellent add-on to view Vbox Live TV and recordings. Works great on my tablet and phone.
 
grahamlthompson said:
Simple and cheap adaptors are widely available.
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It's difficult to see what they do apart from connect the wires together.
To do it properly you need 75 ohm resistors to make the matching work, but then you lose half your signal, which means you need 6dB of amplifier gain, which means powered kit. Like I said, it's a bodge. But really, taking stuff to analogue these days is an even bigger bodge.
 
Black Hole said:
At 512kbps don't expect the Slingbox to be of any use at all!

The VBox eliminates umpteen stages of conversion - you want to receive a DVB-T/T2 UHF signal with the Humax, demultiplex and decode it into digital streams (optionally storing it), convert it to analogue to send to the Slingbox, convert it back to digital streams in the Slingbox (it's probably easier to re-sample it to a lower bit rate that way), and then transmit it over the LAN/WAN to a display device (which converts the digital streams to actual sound and pictures).

With the VBox: it just receives the DVB, demultiplexes and decodes it, and then makes the streams directly available on the LAN.
Click to expand...
OK so the main advantage over the Humax/Slingbox solution is output quality? Since this solution will be mainly for when I am travelling that's probably less relevant to me, as I'll be at the mercy of whatever bandwidth I have wherever I happen to be. Even when the upgrade to Virgin Media arrives it'll be the internet connection at the remote location that will probably be the weak link.

The VBox seems to be an IP-based alternative to the Humax, but perhaps less feature-rich than a Humax with custom firmware. Would there be any point in having both a Humax and a VBox?
 
If you were starting from scratch you wouldn't start here.

As far as I can see, the practicalities are that the Slingbox has been specifically designed (and an infrastructure provided for) accessing home video devices across the Internet using a variety of platforms. It should therefore be easy to set up and operate, and it will probably do what you want (provided you can supply adequate upstream bandwidth - until you go super-fast in which case you then have only the local downlink to contend with), if you can use its inputs, and bearing in mind versions of Slingbox have been on the market for a very long time one suspects it ought to cope with restricted bandwidth gracefully.

On the other hand daisy-chaining receivers/players to a separate network transmission system seems messy when there now exist devices that can do it all in one with no unnecessary conversions in the chain. However, if that means scrapping serviceable equipment for the sake of a paradigm shift, I probably wouldn't do it either.
 
Ian Manning said:
OK so the main advantage over the Humax/Slingbox solution is output quality? Since this solution will be mainly for when I am travelling that's probably less relevant to me, as I'll be at the mercy of whatever bandwidth I have wherever I happen to be. Even when the upgrade to Virgin Media arrives it'll be the internet connection at the remote location that will probably be the weak link.

The VBox seems to be an IP-based alternative to the Humax, but perhaps less feature-rich than a Humax with custom firmware. Would there be any point in having both a Humax and a VBox?
Click to expand...

I have four Humax pvrs (2 Freeview+ and 2 Freesat+) which in terms of viewing on the main lounge TV and the Kitchen TV are a lot more convenient. Apart from the 4000T Freeview-Play unit (and the new 5000T i imagine) you can't watch live TV from my Foxsat-HDR and HDR-Fox-T2's only recordings. You can get near to real time by starting a recording and watching the recording in chasing playback. The Vbox is mainly used to watch live TV on my smartphone and tablet though I can watch it on my main TV using my smart blu-ray player.

If you have a large data allowance on a smartphone you can watch BBC channels using iplayer in the EU since the roaming changes and in the UK using Free WiFi.
 
Actually I've found the TVCatchup app does the job for watching live TV on my phone/tablet - even when I'm overseas. Catchup TV and recordings are where I need help. When I'm away I usually want to view a recording that I've got on the Humax, but occasionally also want to see something that I missed from the previous week and forgot to record. That's a little trickier. Hence I'm also hooking up a cheap Youview box to the Slingbox.

I agree it's awfully messy stringing all of these devices together, but somehow there's never a solution out there that meets all of my needs!
 
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