[linux-dvb] receiving on a server and broadcasting to machines?

[peter pilsl]

Not sure, if this is the right mailinglist, but I give it try. Its less a 
technical than a general question about linux and dvb. If the topic is not 
appropriate on this list I would be happy if anyone could point me to a more 
suiteable location.


I want to to be able to watch TV on two of my laptops (maybe different people 
looking different channels at the same time) So instead of buying two expensive 
USB-DVB-cards, I was thinking about buying one cheaper PCI-card and put it into 
the local server and then broadcast all the channels over the intranet. I've 
seen such a broadcast-option in my player Kaffeine.

So now I dont have much idea what this would mean for the cpu-load and the 
network-load. If broadcast means that the server reads all channels 
simultanously and send them over the network then the server and network would 
break down within seconds I guess.

If it means that a client can connect to the server and request a certain 
channel and then this channel is transmitted over the network then I would 
probably be ok !?

The clients are connected via WLAN to the server and 20 MBit is a realistic 
transfer-rate that is achieved all over the covered area.

I dont have any clue how much bandwith a dvb-stream needs and if the server 
"broadcasts" the original dvb-stream or an encoded version or whatever.

I dont even know if the client then has all abilities that dvb brings : like 
stopping the TV and continue lateron - using programpreview and so on.

The server is a old 500MHz-Celeron with 512MB which is more than enough for a 
SOHO-fileserver but maybe not for dvb-server!? On the other hand : I dont want 
to watch TV on that server. It should just distribute the signal.

any help, hints, insights highly appretiated,
thnx,
peter