WholeHome

Currently available on Newegg for between $219 and $269

Why review this item?

Primarily because it is currently the lowest cost security DVR available and many have been wondering if it worked and whether it would accomplish their goals. Turns out it is also a good opportunity to see how one of these DVRs works and the various options and features available.

Out of the Box experience:

Good packaging – this is the first device that has ever come “fully wrapped – in fact vacuum sealed. Packaging was in normal Styrofoam – and it all appeared “safe” – which is all you are really looking for. First impression was that there was an unusually small amount of documentation – everything must be on the CD?

8 Channels for around $200 is a great deal almost no matter what quality it really records or what the UI looks like, but let’s dive in, starting with the hardware and contents:

The CD

– what can I say except that the first impression is that I’m in trouble – no label of any kind – someone just bought generic cd-r discs, burned them, and threw them in the package. OK a little leniency because of the price point, but for the extra $.02 they could have at least labeled it to look professional:

Rest of the contents – looks good – I really like external power supplies – gives me maximum cord control and keeps some of the heat away from the rest of my components – check!

Simple Remote control – well laid out and English is all correct – check!

Very nice front and back panels – well laid out, controls as well as lights are easy to see and understand and it all matches the remote. Inputs and outputs on the rear panel are also well laid out and easy to read.

The alarm input/output is also industry standard, so anyone that has ever purchased a DVR will immediately recognize the layout.

Very nice to have a mechanical power switch as well as both VGA and S-Video outputs. Note that this particular DVR has the option of 720p out – seemingly pointless given security camera resolutions, but nice to have the option nonetheless.

My first mechanical issue, however, was that the front panel came partially detached – it appeared to be snapped on, but regardless of what angle or pressure I applied, it would not snap back on. Upon closer examination, it appears that it is actually screwed on with two small plastic straps that both broke in transit. Having done a considerable amount of mechanical engineering recently on BOCS, I can say with authority that this particular attachment system is highly flawed – the strength of these particular straps is clearly not adequate to securely hold on the faceplate in transit. My plan is to simply glue it in place later – it is imperative that it be secure since the DVR will be controlled by buttons on the faceplate.

Moving on to internals:

500GB hard drive included – SATA – and a WD at that.

It is interesting that the VGA output is laid out as if it were an option – a small plug in card that sits over the main board – not sure why – VGA seems like the industry standard for dedicated DVRs although in a home application, composite video and network control are beginning to dominate. Only concerning thing is that the video encode chip only has a stick on heat sync with a body fan that does not even blow directly on it. So, either this is going to be some not so great video or heat will be a long term issue – stay tuned.

Functionality:

Boot: fast – approximately 20 seconds from power to video display. Irritating that the alarm buzzer sounds for a bit while booting, but after hooking up a couple cameras and applying power, I immediately got video. As you can see, it comes up by default in full grid mode (to a monitor plugged into composite video out right next to the DVR) – that is my basement and upstairs living room on cameras 1 and 2.

Video quality locally is pretty good – small window, tiled, but all the features can be made out – keep in mind this is local video and pre-compressed though.

This means that as a simple tiler, it is doing well. It can easily be hooked into the BOCS system and whole-home security cameras on every TV is merely one wire away. It will be great to be able to see the front door, 4 or 5 rooms, and a couple pics of the backyard all on one screen on my 50” plasma and the bedroom TV simultaneously. CHECK!!

UI:

A collection of UI captures are below – overall, not bad. Everything is intuitive and fast to set up. IP address and all the network details are easily set up from the remote control. Frankly, better than most US companies. I’m impressed.

Even the motion detection screen is straightforward – you go to any particular camera view, place the cursor in the top left of the area you want to select for motion detection, hit select, then move it to the bottom right corner of the preferred area and hit select again – the system draws a nice box for your motion detection area. Simple, yet in many applications you have unusual or multiple areas on screen you want to detect – My favorite is a grid system where you get a nicely gridded selection on screen and you select any area(s) on screen you want to detect. This is especially helpful when you want to exclude specific moving things but include many other distinct areas on screen. So a + for simplicity, but a big – for flexibility.

Dynamic DNS!!

Motion Detection “Block” selection

One more note on functionality – something not well documented, at least on the newegg site: This DVR supports Dynamic DNS – and can be set up right from the remote control.

DDNS is a nice little system that will let you get to this DVR from the internet even if you are a Comcast subscriber and your IP address changes every day. It maintains a link with a free outside service and allows you to set your own domain name and assign it to the dynamic IP of your broadband connection. Very nice. Normally, you have to run this on another PC in the house, but for standalone applications, this makes everything easier.

The PC application:

Initial installation is straightforward and comes with both a real application and an active-x control so you can access the DVR from any web browser. Within, seconds, again, it was at least up and running.

Right off the bat, though, a few problems:

1) You have to manually connect every time you open it or switch to the viewer from the DVR function and re-enter the password. It would be really nice to have some way to save the password at least. Picky? Perhaps.

2) Controls basically mimic the remote control – you cannot click on the menu/popups onscreen – this is basically just a pipe of the video output and a relay of the remote control. This makes things easy to understand but a pain to control. Pressing right 6 times to enter a password seems a real pain given that I have a mouse and keyboard (neither of which is recognized)

3) DVR playback controls – none are functional – unless you install the right player – there are 4 included on the CD with no instruction as to how to choose the right one.

4) Playback is straightforward as long as you choose not to record all the time and rely just on motion detection. Then when you playback it only displays the camera where motion was detected and only for the motion duration plus the delay (I had 10 seconds set) – nice but a couple of skip buttons would have made finding the events much easier. Poor interface on this one.

5) Stabilty – Out of the box, the unit (mine anyway) was completely unstable. It would lock up and reboot almost every time it began a recording (motion detection or manual). I solved this by reformatting the hard drive. It apparently does a quick format as it only took about 30 seconds, but that solved all stability issues.

Video Quality:

For network connection as well as DVR recording, the system uses motion jpeg – not the best encode type, but with good cameras and putting record quality on high (no problem with motion detection and a 500GB drive) it is good enough to catch a good pic of that intruder. License plates, for instance, might be tough to pick out without careful camera aiming, and good lighting.

For a basic system, this is about the best you are going to get under $500. In fact, the next better quality system I’ve seen runs in the $1500 range. I would say that meeting expectations

Whole-Home distribution:

My next step was to route the video signals home-wide so I could see all the cameras on any TV. The BOCS system is ideal for that – with composite video output right from the DVR as well as the DVR being capable of receiving IR signals, it allows whole home viewing AND control (so I can scroll back and see intruder events from any TV. )

General qualifier here, I work for a company that distributes the BOCS system although I would have used it regardless…

The hookup is pretty simple, BOCS takes composite video in (you need a BNC to RCA adapter) and the system comes with a little stick-on IR emitter that attaches to the front of the DVR so the BOCS remotes can control it.

So, the end result is all the cameras on every TV in the house – here is the resulting picture displayed on my 50” plasma – note that for this review I only have two of the cameras hooked up. Unfortunately, my camera does not seem to be able to capture a good (non-washed out) picture of the plasma screen, but the quality is really good. I’m headed to put the other 6 cameras up this week.

You have been following the new “Build-your-own-DVR” project(s) faithfully, I’m sure, but beyond all the subtle little things you are learning about how to put one of these cool toys together, I’d bet you are wondering where to get all the cool stuff…

Allow me to share some of my favorite online guides and software – I’d even go so far as to say that before taking on any project like this, you should definitely at least browse through all of these places. As always, the full eBook is freely available at http://www.bocsco.com/dvr

BOCS – THE standard for whole-home distribution of your new HTPC solution. (Yes, yes, a shameless plug, and first in the list, but really – it’s COOL)

PreWire Guide – Wanting to put in low voltage A/V wiring for audio/video distribution, understand matrix switchers, or just prepare for the future.

Hardware Guide: For hardware configurations – choosing which processor, motherboard, case, memory, and other accessories, there is no better online source than renethx’s thread on AVSforum. He regularly publishes details and recommendations for low, mid, and high performance systems both Intel and AMD based. That thread is also THE best place to post your chosen configuration for comment and get great hardware tips. Go to the thread, find a post by renethx, and in his signature will be a link to the latest hardware guide.

HDTV tuner and software reviews – Good research site. Hdtvtunerinfo.com

Afterdawn howto guides – hundreds of well done guides on just about any DVD, audio/video, and HTPC topic.

Link list (AVS) of just about anything you will ever need for an HTPC

Powerstrip – a utility to allow custom resolutions to compensate for overscan/underscan and correct strange behavior of video cards.

Karnis’ Custom Resolution Guide for PowerStrip – AVS Forum thread for powerstrip

Reclock – Critical utility that fixes most jitter, audio/video sync issues, and smooths playback of most video files. Excellent.

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack – Good core codec pack for your PC

MPEG codec(s) – If your computer does not already have an MPEG2 codec, check the Cyberlink.com website. PowerDVD9 is the latest all-in-one MPEG codec pack – MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264, and full BluRay support, but you can get just the MPEG2 codec for ~$20

XVID codec – Really, you need this – Xvid is da bomb…

Ffdshow – codec/filters for playback and decode of virtually any format.

Ffdshow FAQ – AVS Forum ffdshow FAQ thread

Remote Control – THE forum that focuses on jp1 enabled remotes (UEI based) – tools available to customize most remotes with custom codes, macros, and special setups.

Broadcast mapper – planning on putting up an antenna? This site lets you map your location and find out exactly what is available in your area.

Autologin – Running windows XP and want the computer to skip the login screen and boot right into yor DVR program? Here’s how

DVD Ripping – Lots of programs out there, my favorite is DVDFab

TightVNC – free remote control of any PC – from anywhere – in our out of the home.

GSpot – audio/video codec information appliance (show the codec used for a file)
HIP from ByRemote – “Driver” that accepts IR and can translate it to just about any program – VERY handy
TV-Cards.com – information on TV tuner cards & PVR software (6/12/04)
XBMC Media Center – excellent media center/front end (11/25/08)

Titan TV – the most definitive source for what is on TV

SchedulesDirect.com – Online TV schedule EPG source

And – my favorite software packages (See eBook for details):

Boxee – Absolutely THE BEST front end for online media – not a DVR – an Internet connected TV

GB-PVR - a FREE PC-DVR program – excellent stability and features

knoppmyth – for the daring – a linux based PC-DVR package – again – free

More? feel free to send me a note with others I’ve missed (I’m just trying to share the really core-critical ones)

David

As you know, I’m working on a “Build your own DVR” eBook, (www.bocsco.com/dvr) – and I’ve had multiple requests to include MythTV in the discussion. I think it is a bunch of guys who want to be able to say they have a Linux box at home like a friend of mine from my boxing class. So I decided to dive in and put a simple system together for him. I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve not been a big Linux dweeb although I have strong roots in Sun based Unix systems from my days at Texas Instruments. Similar commands, an online support system, and an excellent find of Knoppmyth (a nice combo debian linux distribution with myth-tv) gave me legs.

It really is a beautiful thing in that low memory(512MB), a video card with a hardware encoder, and a really crappy old PC Pentium III 2 (ish) GHz is plenty to get started. Download the free iso, sign up for schedules direct EPG, burn the iso to a CD and boot from it. Be sure to have your computer all set up before you do – all the memory in you will be adding, the video card and TV tuner card, and any peripherals plugged in. Pretty much, you type knoppmyth at the prompt and the system installs linux and mythtv. There are a few setup options but their video covers most of the basics.

A few suggestions :

• Do not stray from the recommended hardware unless you are ready to dive into linux setup files and know how to run vi. (Don’t know what vi means? – reread this bullet). In fact, I highly recommend using the Hauppauge 350 card as setup becomes automatic
• Get a big hard drive – it will keep you from having to mount new drives and set up remote sharing
• Read the Linux Basics howto on the knoppmyth wiki site – a great primer for getting you around in the command prompt enviornment
• Write down the basic hidden commands – from the GUI, Alt-S reruns setup, Ctrl-Alt-1 gets you a new Xwindow to perform linux commands, ctrl-alt-7 gets you back to the gui.

Me, I had a defective Hauppauge 350 card and spent 3 hours trying to figure out why it was not even recognized by the system – ah, yes, the joys of defective hardware.

So – if youknow linux, this is a great option… If you don’t this will end up being a dead end of frustration for you.

Some tips concerning Hauppauge cards – specifically the internal PCI and PCI-e cards – call it a FAQ for the DIY’er

• Both the Windows Media Center cards and the non-Windows Media center cards will work in Media center, Hauppauge’s own WinTV application, and third party apps like GB-PVR. The main difference is in whether the cards have an IR in/out port or whether they rely on a supplementary system to handle IR
• Drivers are the same whether you use these cards on standard windows or the media center version.
• Make sure you have the “right” drivers – yes this sounds straightforward, but the Hauppauge website is confusing. The 150/250/350 cards are under support – Wintv-pvr NOT the legacy PCI card selection. Those older drivers “kind-of-work” and have really wasted a lot of folks time until they figured out they are not the right ones. A major way to tell is if your recording is taking up HUGE amounts of disk space the internal MPEG encoder is not running and either you have the wrong driver or something is set up wrong.
• Generally, Hauppauge requires you to have the original cd that came with your card even if you download the new driver package from their website – do not lose that cd or you will be ordering another one.
• The 150/250/350 cards will auto recognize under media center once the right drivers are installed – the external HD-PVR is not supported natively under windows media center as a recognized tuner (which makes sense since it is really just a stand alone HD-mpeg encoder) but with third party applications like dblink, you can fool media center into thinking just about anything is a tuner (even the network connected tuners for instance)…
• Except for media center, which handles guide information automatically, you will need to use a converter like mc2xml to grab data off a guide service, convert to a standard xml file, and upload to the PVR software of your choice. This pretty much applies regardless of what software you choose.
• For media center computers (and a number of third party apps) if you are building a custom setup – you will likely need an MPEG decoder. Strangely enough, that is one piece that is still a “must purchase” and a critical part of any system.

More to come

Received new hard drive and memory – as you may have read in my previous post, the PC I chose to use already had a bunch of video cards, a full suite of video playback tools, and a PVR program already installed – along with a sophisticated remote control system. Long story short, that gave me a head-start and also highly complicated things so I decided to start from scratch. More specifically, I want to start from something closer to what you might find stashed in your closet rather than a tricked out video PC…

So, since we are going to work through a variety of operating systems and PVR programs together, I partitioned the new disk into 3  50GB partitions (for various operating systems), and one bog one to store media that they will all share. I downloaded all the drivers for my system from the ASUS website, and proceeded to install WinXP Media Center Edition on the first partition. The beauty here is that Media Center is basically just an application that runs on top of Windows, so to test other PVR programs, we can simply not start that application up. Note that getting a copy of media center is not simple as it is typically only installed as an OEM version by PC companies. So you either need to have a connection or order it online. Good news is that almost every version of Windows 7 comes with media center, but since that old PC in your closet probably has XP on it, we will start there.

A few general rules and things to consider for a media center (or PVR) PC

• You will be dedicating it for entertainment applications so strip it down
• Remove all software that is not critical to entertainment applications – both to save hard drive space and cycles
• Use msconfig (from the run menu) and disable everything that starts that is not critical – get rid of desktop and launch icons
• Consider a low overhead antivirus like AVG
• Make sure you have a good codec pack in place – Google XP essential codec for some good packages
• On top of that make sure you have xvid codecs installed
• Is your hardware adequate? 1GHz per encode or decode stream (less if you use a hardware encode option), an 1GB total memory is recommended
• Is it quiet enough? Fans and hard drives tend to be the loudest things – consider a quieter fan and/or hard drive
• Does it have bright blinky lights on the front that will be distracting when watching a movie?

So – there is an order to things:

1. Double Check BIOS settings to make sure nothing is set up for the PC’s “old life” – CD first boot, HDD Second, on board video activated, not overclocked etc.
2. Is your OS OK? If so, strip it down, if not install the new one now. Consider at least 100-150GB for the primary partition where the media center and or PVR resides for TV recording – some of them prefer to store recordings only on the same drive where the PVR program is running
3. If your on-board video card does not support the outputs you need, consider installing a second one now – make sure that is all up and running before proceeding
4. Install tuner cards and verify they work using the software that came with them
5. Install your PVR program of choice and get it functional – EPG is usually the hardest part, but make sure network connections, radio, proper recording all function
6. Verify video quality of live tv and recordings – different codecs have different performance with various tuner/video card combinations
7. Get Sound working – depending on your setup, spdif/optical is usually the best choice, but if you intend to use the computer for gaming as well, you might need analog 6 channel outputs to your amp (depending on your audio card and drivers and whether they translate everything to spdif or not)
8. Setup the second drive partition as a shared resource and consider installing other Network Attached Storage if your library grows.
9. Install whole-home distribution system like BOCS so every TV in the home can access your new creation

Yes – I’m working on covering all of this in detail in the Build-Your-Own-DVR writeup -

More to Come

First, lets lay out the goal – Assuming you already have a PC of at least reasonable capability, what is the most cost effective way to convert it into a DVR? Not only is it a great project, you can ditch your cable company DVR or Tivo and save all those monthly fees. Recording shows should not cost you. While you are at it, creating a device that will play all your media files, display your pictures, and stream internet content is a huge bonus.

Good and lofty goals, but easily attainable. To start, though, we need to define some things and explain the different tuners and equipment out there. You will have to decide up front exactly what you want to record, how many independent outputs your system needs, and how you are going to serve it up to the entire home. Luckily, we have a BOCS system at our fingertips to distribute the signals home-wide and allow you to control your new creation even from across the home.

I’m doing a full writeup (with pictures and videos) but here, I’ll give a blow by blow as to the progress of the build and hopefully give some insight into typical problems encountered. So – this is the “diary of the build” – and the writeup will be published seperately – make sense?

DF

EDIT_ good news, the project has started – I’ve got a good portion of the equipment up and running and expect to publish the first section this week!!!