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What’s the best way of watching recordings from my FVP-4000T in another room?

P

Philip Coles

Member
Hi all,

I have the opportunity to re-cable my house and in doing so would dearly love to finally solve the problem of watching recordings in the kitchen from my Humax in the living room.

I’ve tried assorted AV senders over the years and even bought the Humax H3, none of which have provided a consistent solution.

The picture quality and IR blaster performance with the AV senders was generally always poor (I have thick walls), and whilst the H3 has a good picture and sound, the recordings frequently stop and return to the beginning, particularly when the fast-forward function is used.

Media streaming over WiFi seems to work well but I can only play SD recordings (+ it seems impossible to get rid of the subtitles - I’ve tried everything).

I’ve considered buying a Slingbox - is that a good option?

Alternatively, I wondered about getting an HDMI splitter + an Infrared over HDMI extender, and then simply run a separate HDMl cable from the Humax to the TV kitchen.

Or is there a better LAN solution?

What do you reckon? Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks very much.
PC
 
The fundamental problem of AV senders is the "old school" TV resolution compared with even a StDef digital picture. Same applies to an analogue UHF modulator.

For up to about 15m, an ordinary (good quality) AV cable will do a reasonable job (analogue, but better than a sender or analogue modulator).

There are solutions for sending HDMI up to about 15m over HDMI, or several tens of metres using HDMI to Cat5 conversion.

For about £150 you can even modulate an HDMI output to UHF DVB-T and send to a digital TV through its aerial feed.

All the above allow "simulcast" - ie simultaneous replay in two locations. If you don't need simulcast, there are better options via network. All current Humax PVRs offer DLNA - which is the industry standard method for sharing media over a home network. A "smart" TV will almost certainly be able to access the PVR's content if both are networked, or there are many cheap ways to add that capability.

Let us know which way you would prefer to go, and we will advise accordingly.
 
Thanks for your very helpful reply, Dark Hole.
I don’t need simulcast. I am currently able to connect my smart TV in the kitchen with my Humax FVT 4000T in the living room via DLNA over wifi, but it will only play my SD recordings, so it feels like that option is ruled out. (Incidentally I can watch both SD and HD recordings on my iPad via DLNA using the VLC app, but the app, and others I’ve tried, will only display the last 20 recordings in the Humax library.)
As I currently have the opportunity to re-cable the house due to some building works it seems like a cabled solution would be best? Whichever option is chosen, presumably an IR blaster is always required when using cabled delivery rather than DLNA?
Since the distance between the two rooms is just over 15m, it sounds like the best solution would be HDMI to Cat5 ie
  • Humax in living room to HDMI splitter
  • HDMI splitter to cat5/6/7 cable
  • In kitchen, cat5/6/7 cable to HDMI
  • HDMI cable into TV
How does that sound to you?

Thanks again for your advice.

PC
 
Have you got the facility to feed coax from the 4000 to the TV? If so, you could use an HDMI digital modulator as suggested by Dark Hole :frantic: in his fourth paragraph.
If you add that to an aerial distribution system, you will than be able to get the 4000 output on any TV connected to the system.
You seem to have mis-interpreted BH's use of Simulcast.
What he means is that you can only watch the one channel,that the 4000 is tuned to, but on multiple TVs
 
If you only need it in one other location then I would go for the HDMI over LAN option as its comparatively cheap these days (around £35, see HERE for example) for the extender and will give you good picture quality. I would use Cat 6 cable as a minimum.
 
Bear in mind that it is not HDMI 'over LAN' but over CAT 6 etc. cable.
You cannot patch it into your home LAN.
 
Philip Coles said:
  • Humax in living room to HDMI splitter
  • HDMI splitter to cat5/6/7 cable
  • In kitchen, cat5/6/7 cable to HDMI
  • HDMI cable into TV
Click to expand...
Yes, except you've not explicitly mentioned the HDMI-Cat5 and Cat5-HDMI converters (sometimes called "baluns") - and bearing in mind I have no personal experience of HDMI over Cat5.
 
Many thanks everyone for your great comments and suggestions - really helpful (and kind) of you.
Thanks also for clarifying a few things for me. I’ll probably pursue the hdmi to cat option, but as I’m going to be re-cabling anyway, I will give the coax aerial distribution idea some thought too as an alternative approach. Picture quality might not be as good, presumably, but there would be fewer additional bits of kit requiring power (still needs the IR blaster if I want to control it remotely though, I guess).
Thanks again.
PC
 
Philip Coles said:
still needs the IR blaster if I want to control it remotely though, I guess
Click to expand...
Maybe not - have you investigated the Humax remote app?

Philip Coles said:
Picture quality might not be as good, presumably
Click to expand...
Picture quality with an analogue modulator will be awful (old 625-line TV standard), and there is the inconvenience of switching the TV to analogue reception (if modern TVs have that at all!). Picture quality with a HDMI to DVB-T2 modulator will be indistinguishable from the original (at a cost).
 
@Philip Coles Not sure if you are aware already but on the subject of the Cat HDMI extenders, I should also have mentioned that you can get them with a loop out (so no extra splitter required, see HERE for example) and they can also simultaneously feed more than 1 remote TV if you run the cables (see HERE for a 2 TV example)
 
Black Hole said:
Maybe not - have you investigated the Humax remote app?


Picture quality with an analogue modulator will be awful (old 625-line TV standard), and there is the inconvenience of switching the TV to analogue reception (if modern TVs have that at all!). Picture quality with a HDMI to DVB-T2 modulator will be indistinguishable from the original (at a cost).
Click to expand...
Haven’t tried the Remote app before - thanks Black Hole, that’s a game-changer potentially.
 
sceptic said:
@Philip Coles Not sure if you are aware already but on the subject of the Cat HDMI extenders, I should also have mentioned that you can get them with a loop out (so no extra splitter required, see HERE for example) and they can also simultaneously feed more than 1 remote TV if you run the cables (see HERE for a 2 TV example)
Click to expand...
Thanks Sceptic - I’m going to give that a try. 👍
 
Black Hole said:
the inconvenience of switching the TV to analogue reception (if modern TVs have that at all!).
Click to expand...
They do. The TV I picked up yesterday has it, but annoyingly doesn't have individual colour balance control (other than the useless Neutral, Warm, Cold) unlike a previous model in the series, and the viewing angle drop-off is also terrible. More bl@@dy dumbing down by the manufacturers. It's so annoying.
If it was for me I'd probably have to take it back.
Picture quality with a HDMI to DVB-T2 modulator
Click to expand...
They're DVB-T, not T2. At least, I've never seen a T2 one.
 
The one I have does. My 'remote' TV reports 'HD 16:9 1090i 1080i MPEG' from my Fox T2 as the source.
 
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