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Recording 'stuff' for later playback with no restrictions [message #350245]

Thu, 21 November 2019 18:16

kerry pinkerton

Messages: 2565
Registered: July 2012
Location: Harvest, Al

Karma: 15

Senior Member

We spend a good bit of time in a campground with bad WIFI and poor antenna TV reception. In spite of 7 million channels on our Satellite TV, there is frequently nothing on we want to watch. Granted we are in an SOB but the principles described below applies to any RV. These are two posts I made in our Discovery forum that I think some of yall may find worthwhile.

FIRST POST

What I wanted was to record shows from Netflix and the like and be able to watch them when we are on the road. We can use our phone hotspot and have 45Gbyte total but that goes pretty quick if you are streaming stuff. Campground wifi is rarely able to support streaming...sometimes you can surf but I've only been in one campground where we were able to stream and it was basically empty so we had the whole bandwidth available.

What I've learned:

- You can plug your laptop into a smart TV via a HDMI cable and what you show on your laptop screen goes to the TV, audio and all.

- If your TV is smart enough, you can use an external USB disk drive that you save stuff on. We have a 50" ROKU TV that works perfectly in this mode, Doing this means you get an extra USB disk drive, put your movies on it, and use that as the source instead of your laptop. Two TeraByte drives are less than $65 at WalMart and probably less on the net.

So how to get stuff on the external drive or laptop?

Just today in talking to a computer literate friend who just married a lady who lives in an area with no internet, I was told that you can download directly from Netflix. But the time out, I said. He replied that you can 'renew' them by going to the Netflix website which allows you to watch without re-downloading. Saves TONS of data. I have not yet done this myself and this alone can be a big deal and solve the majority of my wish list.

There are software packages that will allow you to download or record Netflix etc. PLAYON TV is one. It has a GREAT interface and you enter your credentials for Netflix etc within the program and it connects for you and you select what you want. You can choose quality from HD to low. You can select individual shows or an entire season. Things record at real time. It is 5 bucks a month or purchase lifetime for 30.

I had some problems with Playon. Recording failed 90% of the time. When I contacted support, they said to turn off my anti-virus (hummm), all other programs, etc. Turns out my laptop just doesn't have the gonads. I was at 100% CPU. Ilove the user interface.

After messing with it a few days, I've decided I need a better Notebook. I currently have a cheap HP 15 with only 4GB non expandable. My buddy who told me about renewing NETFLIX suggested a Dell I7 with a SSD (Solid State Disk) and at least 8GB of memory. He suggested a reconditioned used unit since I was looking for a dedicated recording box. With his help, I found one from a 100% positive feedback seller for $205 tax and all delivered. It only has Windows 10 so I won't clutter it up with any more 'stuff'. It should be here next week.

I also checked my internet speed which was about 52mbyte/sec average. I called my provider (Mediacom) and was told that my plan was really old and they could get me 100MB and many more channels including HBO and Showtime plus getting TIVOs instead of the current DVR. All for less than my current bill. More for less...who can turn that down. It will be installed Friday. The faster internet MIGHT improve the recording but I doubt it. I'm hoping that the TIVO has a USB port that I can store recording on. If it does, that solves all the problems. I kind of doubt it however but we'll see.

My preference would be PlayOn and a PC that will record at high resolution with good playback.

POST 2 a few days later:

More progress. Today I learned about screen mirroring...or casting...or Miracast. If you download on your phone or tablet via HULU or some of the other streaming sites. The file is stored in some weird proprietary format that can't be moved. It is available to watch on that device but who wants to watch a movie on a phone.

Screen mirroring (name and technique varies by phone) broadcasts your phone screen via your home WIFI to other devices. Works slick and the image, while not HD, is quite acceptable. Downloading using the phone signal is a background activity and happens pretty fast. At home, our Verison signal is 4 bars out of 5. I downloaded 'How to train your Dragon 3' in about 15 minutes. On HULU, you can download up to 20 things at once but the two I download to my Samsung G7 expire in a week but can be renewed. Also they take a good bit of space. I've got a 256GB Micro SD card coming Sunday and that will make a big difference. My G7 only has 16GB of main memory and is not expandable. Carolyn's tablet has 32GB and accepts a 400gb SD card and it's coming Sunday also.

So that's great at home but, if you remember, this whole thing is because we don't have good WIFI when on the road usually other than using our phone contract data which is limited.

I called my Tech Support...otherwise know as my Daughter-in-law who knows a lot about tech and asked her if I could create a WIFI network WITHOUT Internet. She said no but it turns out you can. I happened to have a spare router and carried it to my coach which is too far from the house to get our home WIFI. Sure enough, as soon as it was powered on I was able to connect to it from my phone and also from my smart TV (Roku TV). This was step 1.

Step 2 was to go to settings on the TV and connect to the router. It shows up as an available network. As it's connecting, it states it connects to the WIFI but there is no internet. Not a problem.

Step 3 involved turning on screen mirroring on my phone. On my phone (Samsung G7), it's called smart view. When I click on it, it looks for connected devices and quickly found 'Kerry's ROKU TV'.

Step 4 was to connect. When I selected the ROKU TV, I heard a beep and after a minute, I get a message saying that the TV MAY...MAY need access to the internet and there isn't any internet. One of the options is to proceed anyway.

Step 5 is to 'proceed anyway'. After a minute, the TV display changes to whatever is on the phone (or tablet). Launch your downloaded video, make it full screen and enjoy the show. That's it.

What's happening is that the ROUTER is not talking to the internet...it doesn't need to. It's really just like printing to a wireless printer. Everything stays within your local network. Back in the dark ages we had LAN's...Local Area Networks. Things on the LAN could talk to other things on the LAN but nothing left the network. This was long before wireless. Without internet access, that is exactly what the router is doing...creating a wireless LAN.

This may be old news to some of you but it was all new to me and I expect to some others as well.

What this means is that Carolyn can download whatever she wants from NetFlix, HULU, etc, and watch it at her leisure. HULU allows you to watch TV shows a day late so if she misses last nights favorite show, she can download and watch.

The process is a bit tedious but I'll document it for her and she'll be able to do it.

Watching movies etc recorded or downloaded into WAV or MP3/4 or other video formats and stored on a USB disc drive is a more straightforward process and I'm hoping this gets solved by the faster PC and network. I'm also HOPING that the new TIVO allows moving recordings to a USB disk in a format that can be played by the TV. I know it has a USB but that's it. I'll probably know the answer to that tomorrow.

FINAL POST:

OK, I believe this code is cracked! The new laptop came in. Again, it is a Dell 6230 with 8gb memory, a solid state hard drive, and an Intel I7 CPU...all running Windows 10. Launched Playon and it works GREAT! I've since purchased the lifetime contract for 40 bucks.

It allows you to enter your passwords for NetFlix, Roku, Disney, etc and when you click on that 'channel' it logs you in WITHIN the Playon program. You then select what you want to record. You can queue multiple recordings and Playon records them one after the other. Each recording takes as long as it takes to watch but if you queue them up, it records on and on until they are all finished. One thing I like is that if I record something from Netflix, there are no expirations. Playon puts things in a folder on the disk drive you request...i put mine on a USB 2 Terabyte external drive so I can just carry them to the coach and watch whenever. If you want to record a season, you can select individual episodes or the whole season. If you do the whole season, it queues each episode and creates a folder with the name of the series then a sub solder for each season. Each episode has a separate name like 'Longmire S2 E5' or whatever.

Btw, this is all recording over my home wifi so nothing going on with the TV or whatever you are recording has any impact.

When I run the performance monitor, where I was seeing 100% CPU on my old PC, I'm seeing 35% on the new one and virtually nothing on memory, disk drive, or network...up to 5-10% from time to time.

Quality is excellent. Not Blue Ray HD but better than DVD.

I also had ordered SD cards for my phone and Carolyn's tablet so we now can download movies and cast them to the TV. Btw, I tried the renew feature and it is literally just a click. When you launch Netflix to play back your downloads, it tells you your selected download has expired and do you want to renew? That's it.

This is going to work for us and will make our RVing experience much more enjoyable.

Kerry Pinkerton - North Alabama Had 5 over the years. Currently have a '06 Fleetwood Discovery 39L