Hello, I'm new to this forum and hope I can find some insight from your experienced members.
I hope I posted this in the right category, but please excuse me, if I did not.
First, let me explain what we have:
We currently have a 60 acre school campus, with approximately 130 classrooms and 60 offices scattered across 25 different buildings. In our mainframe computer room, we have a small Head-End consisting of 12 cable boxes from our local CATV provider and 2 DTV receivers. We are taking the composite output of the 12 converter boxes and receivers, and re-modulating them out across our coax network to all the classrooms and offices that have TV sets. We are using channels 2-16 to stay on the LOW end of the 540mhz coaxial backbone. We also have 1 T-Channel from the Production classroom that sends their feed in reverse back to the Head-End that is then, re-modulated back out across the campus on channel 15. Channel 16 is a direct feed from a Blu-Ray player in the computer room.
Over the Past 2 years, most of the classrooms have had their TV's replaced with an HD Projector that does not have a CATV input. So, we have purchased low cost converters, and placed them in each classroom and connected to the projectors Composite inputs. Most of the offices still have TV's or have been upgraded to newer Flat screen HD TV's. Currently, this setup is working fine in most areas. However, as time goes on, our coaxial "Hard-Line" has been damaged in places due to construction or grounds repair or is just slowly degrading due to age.
What we would like to do is: Abandon the analog Head-End along with the coaxial back-bone and possibly even the individual coax cables to each room, and replace with Multicast encoders for each channel. All classrooms currently have a computer at the teachers desk that is already connected to the HD projector. This would eliminate the converter boxes in the classrooms. We understand that the teacher will have to use a player such as VLC or something compatible on their computer, and the TV's in the offices would probably require a Dencoder or set-top box of some sort. Teachers and Staff would be given a Guide that has the Multicast IP address for each channel, and would be able to bring it up on the computer then send to the projector. Also, we are looking to provide better than 720. The director has seen a sample at this resolution and was not very pleased, so we are needing to get 1080. Also, this way the production classroom could just Multicast from there, and the reverse channel would no longer be needed.
So my questions are:
We are currently looking at this equipment:
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your time and information.
Kirk
I hope I posted this in the right category, but please excuse me, if I did not.
First, let me explain what we have:
We currently have a 60 acre school campus, with approximately 130 classrooms and 60 offices scattered across 25 different buildings. In our mainframe computer room, we have a small Head-End consisting of 12 cable boxes from our local CATV provider and 2 DTV receivers. We are taking the composite output of the 12 converter boxes and receivers, and re-modulating them out across our coax network to all the classrooms and offices that have TV sets. We are using channels 2-16 to stay on the LOW end of the 540mhz coaxial backbone. We also have 1 T-Channel from the Production classroom that sends their feed in reverse back to the Head-End that is then, re-modulated back out across the campus on channel 15. Channel 16 is a direct feed from a Blu-Ray player in the computer room.
Over the Past 2 years, most of the classrooms have had their TV's replaced with an HD Projector that does not have a CATV input. So, we have purchased low cost converters, and placed them in each classroom and connected to the projectors Composite inputs. Most of the offices still have TV's or have been upgraded to newer Flat screen HD TV's. Currently, this setup is working fine in most areas. However, as time goes on, our coaxial "Hard-Line" has been damaged in places due to construction or grounds repair or is just slowly degrading due to age.
What we would like to do is: Abandon the analog Head-End along with the coaxial back-bone and possibly even the individual coax cables to each room, and replace with Multicast encoders for each channel. All classrooms currently have a computer at the teachers desk that is already connected to the HD projector. This would eliminate the converter boxes in the classrooms. We understand that the teacher will have to use a player such as VLC or something compatible on their computer, and the TV's in the offices would probably require a Dencoder or set-top box of some sort. Teachers and Staff would be given a Guide that has the Multicast IP address for each channel, and would be able to bring it up on the computer then send to the projector. Also, we are looking to provide better than 720. The director has seen a sample at this resolution and was not very pleased, so we are needing to get 1080. Also, this way the production classroom could just Multicast from there, and the reverse channel would no longer be needed.
So my questions are:
- Is this a possibility?
- What would the best approach be to accomplish this?
- What equipment would you suggest?
- How cost effective would this task be?
We are currently looking at this equipment:
- Antrica ANT-4000E and ANT-4000D @ $750 per channel (Not including Decoders or Set-Top Boxes)
- Drake Digital PEG-NE24-IP-C @ $1500 per channel (Not including Decoders or Set-Top Boxes)
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your time and information.
Kirk