Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

[redwein]

Well I stupidly deleted all of my movies that start with "T" from my home made VOD system. I was messing around with Tivo Desktop and thought I was just making Tivo Desktop "forget" about them when I was actually deleting them. Then, this morning, one of my Terastations ceased to function. It wasn't a disk failure. I can't even get the thing to boot.

So then I realized that I rarely use this system anymore since we got Vudu in October 2007 and I just don't want to put any time or money into maintaining it. So I powered them all down and that's the end of it. I feel relieved. I'm so glad that Vudu came along. I shudder to think of how much time and money I would have wasted in the last year or so keeping that system up, adding DVDs to it, etc.

[jleavens]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

Ugh, good luck with that Terastation. Let us know - I've always wondered what I'd do if mine went.

[HeadShrinker]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

I too was engrossed in the idea of a homegrown VOD and spent time building one based on my ATV. Lately I've gotten out of it with the combination of ATV (or VUDU as it may be) and my Roku Netflix box. The solution being ATV/VUDU for more current rentals and Netflix for the catalogue older titles.

The only downside being that this is limited to a room where I have both devices (currenlty just my family room). Whereas with the more time intensive homegrown VOD I could access my stuff in any room that had an ATV. Still I don't miss the effort involved.

[NA9D]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

The only downside being that this is limited to a room where I have both devices (currenlty just my family room). Whereas with the more time intensive homegrown VOD I could access my stuff in any room that had an ATV. Still I don't miss the effort involved.

Solve this real easily with a Slingbox and SlingCatcher. You put the Slingbox with your AV stuff and the SlingCatcher at your other TV. The quality is damn good with the ProHD Slingbox streaming to the Catcher now in 1280x520p. Nearly HD. It's very good.

And the other advantage is you can then access all your content from a laptop or computer elsewhere.

[jleavens]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

Solve this real easily with a Slingbox and SlingCatcher. You put the Slingbox with your AV stuff and the SlingCatcher at your other TV. The quality is damn good with the ProHD Slingbox streaming to the Catcher now in 1280x520p. Nearly HD. It's very good.

And the other advantage is you can then access all your content from a laptop or computer elsewhere.

I'll agree here in that the SlingPlayer/SlingCatcher is a great option when all your equipment is in one room and your TV is in another. It's a little expensive and some of the interface is cumbersome (6 button clicks to switch between inputs to your SlingPlayer). But it works, the picture is pretty good, and they've done a great job at making it responsive to remote control commands. And the SlingPlayer inputs also have outputs, meaning you can put it "in-line" in your AV connections.

I have my SlingPlayer connected to my DirecTV DVR, ReplayTV, and VUDU, which all connect to my family room TV through an AV receiver. I can watch any of those devices from my bedroom on the SlingCatcher, or from my office using SlingPlayer on my Mac. Only drawback is that one SlingPlayer can only serve one client - SlingPlayer or SlingCatcher - at a time.

I'm just waiting patiently on the SlingPlayer for iPhone!

[redwein]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

I just have a Vudu/Tivo/DVD player for every TV.

[NA9D]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

I just have a Vudu/Tivo/DVD player for every TV.

Right, but content on one Vudu is not accessible elsewhere and protected shows on the Tivo aren't viewable elsewhere either. So the SlingPlayer/SlingCatcher combo gets around that quite well.

[redwein]

Re: Getting Out of Homegrown VOD

Right, but content on one Vudu is not accessible elsewhere and protected shows on the Tivo aren't viewable elsewhere either. So the SlingPlayer/SlingCatcher combo gets around that quite well.

I agree, though I prefer to just rent or buy it on the other boxes that I want to watch it on. Still, the ability to watch content on any Vudu from any other Vudu in the house is pretty high on my wish list for Vudu.