I bought some new TV gear (some Ikusi modulators, amplifiers, etc pulled from a small hotel) to run my own personal (self-contained) cable TV service.
The issue is do I encode all my digital files for square pixel PAL (768x576) or non-square pixel PAL (720x576)? I've no idea how they will look on an acutal TV set until I get the gear next week, so I've made a couple of test vids; one for each.
I'll play them both at the same time on separate channels and see the results.
L: 768
R: 720
PAL TVs don't have square pixels so I'm gonna do this experiment to see if I need to account for that or not.
For example if I throw a square pixeled video at an actual CRT through UHF how is it going to look compared to the non-square pixel video?
Oh also "why do this?"
1) It's interesting technology and I'm nerdy for it
2) I don't watch broadcast TV anymore because (despite the hundreds of channels) there's nothing I would want to watch at the time i want to watch it, and also I'm fed up with streaming.
I want something good to watch and it be in rotation so I don't have to choose. If I'm forced to choose I end up watching a documentary for the tenth time instead of something else I've got waiting.
I want some semblence of old style British analogue TV back and as I can't get it anywhere else I'm going to make it myself.
With the four modulators that I have I'm thinking of recreating something akin to the viewing habits I had on early Sky TV:
A channel of kids shows/cartoons during the day and movies in the evening (Cartoon Network & TNT)
A channel of scifi programs and more adult anime (Sci-Fi Channel/Bravo)
A general entertainment channel (Sky One)
A documentary channel (History)
I want the system to show programs in episode order but not as a box set binge style. For example the scifi channel would show an episode of Star Trek TNG and then an episode of Babylon 5 and then maybe The X-Files.
The cartoon channel would show an episode of Earthworm Jim, then Gargoyles, then MLP, etc and then in the evening it becomes a movie channel and starts showing movies.
Okay I’ve found a project on GitHub that might be able to do this! Will test it out when everything arrives.
If all goes to plan I’ll have four raspberry pis, each acting as a video player, into the modulators and then into a cable TV network broadcasting over the terrestrial UHF frequencies. No actual over the air broadcasting so it should stay self contained.
The MATV/cable headend gear arrived last week and it wasn’t in a great state; it had been packed in situ so some stuff broke in transit. It’s not a huge deal to repair though, just some plastic pieces.
Gonna try looking into the software over the next couple of days. Tried to work on it last night but for some reason I couldn’t get the Pi I wanted to use connected to the WiFi.
I’ve been a bit introspective over the last few days as to why I want to do this project. Part of it is that it’s fun and interesting, but the other part is that I’m now getting sick of current broadcast TV as well as algorithmic streaming. Places like YouTube are starting to feel more like TV in how they are pushing stuff that I have zero interest in.
This whole project will let me choose what shows I want to watch and then give them to me like broadcast TV of old.
