My mini head end -- a report

[Doug E.]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

If you're using VLC media player on that laptop and you number the files you can build a 24Hr or longer Play list and put it on repeat so there's constant programming. Some computers support multiple graphics cards and some graphics cards supply multiple monitors. You can get USB audio adapters to have multiple independent audio outputs, CTRL+A in VLC toggles between different audio output devices, and you can run multiple instances of VLC simultaneously.... I've been wanting to use this to make my own single device 3-7 channel cable system with my Blonder Tongues.... Haven't gotten around to it yet but have basically all the components.

That's great to know. I have VLC media player on that laptop, but I ran into a problem when I set up playlists...after 4 or 5 selections played, the audio of the next selection would start without the video coming on. I never found a solution & I switched to smplayer, which worked just fine. smplayer supports the same kinds of playlists, with repeat & shuffle modes.

I have space for a 4th mini-modulator & maybe someday I'll get a laptop that supports multiple graphics cards & video/audio outputs. But for now, 3 channels is enough for my needs. I love being able to set those channels adjacent to each other (usually on high-band VHF where there are no frequency gaps) & check the IF alignment & adjacent channel rejection on my RCA TV. If you grew up with a cable system & your TV had manual fine tuning, you became very familiar with tuning up & down from the proper setting & running into the interference from the next lower & higher channels. With RCA portables from the mid-60s, when you tuned up toward the higher channel there was usually a certain amount of "windshield wiper" from that channel's blanking bar (at least on high-band channels) but it disappeared completely when the fine tuning was dead on...or if it didn't, your TV was probably misaligned.

Doug E.