[GDeward]

Could someone lend some psychiatric ... er ... technical advice, please. I'm a complete noob. I'd like to find the least expensive means of setting up the gear below to do two things...

1. Record & watch OTA HD TV in multiple rooms
2. Watch videos from FreeCable (sp?) in multiple rooms

I've been playing with Windows Media Center (installed on a VM) but hate the fact that the 360s are the only solid Extenders out there... and that WMC seems to be dead.

Some of the questions I have are...

A. Looking at the gear below, how would YOU setup the environment?

• Available Gear
  
• 1 x SiliconDust HDTC-2US HDHomeRun Plus
  
• 1 x Antenna's Direct DB8e antenna
  
• 5 x Xbox 360s
  
• 7 x Apple TV 2nd Gen
  
• 2 x Apple TV 1st Gen (have XBMC from 5+ years installed ... haven't been fired up since install)
  
• 1 x QNAP TS-859 Pro+
  
• Several x 19" rack-mounted Dell servers (most running VMWare ESXi)
  
• Several x i5 & i7 Dell laptops
  
• Several x Core 2 workstations
  
• Considering the purchase of Fire TV and Minix Neo X7 devices.
  
• Wireless N available everywhere
  
• GigE available in most areas
  

B. If I install NextPVR onto a laptop (dedicated to NextPVR) can I control OTA recording and playback functions from XBMC running on an AppleTV Gen2?

C. Does XMBC install as an application on a FireTV (like an Android app) or is the OS overwritten?

D. Will using an Apple TV, Fire TV, or Minix Neo X7 prevent me from viewing content from FreeCable?

Thanks, in advance, for your wisdom and patience.

[Ned Scott]

B. Yes

C. As an application

D. Not that I know of. I'm not sure when the last time FreeCable has been updated, though.


Also, for your ATV1, run Crystalbuntu (wiki) on it, even if you don't have the Broadcom Crystal HD card. It will breath new life into the unit.