A Slingbox On Steroids — Streaming Your Entire Home Theater Anywhere In Real Time

By James Stringer

Creating a “Slingbox on steroids” that allows real time access and control of your home theater, allowing you to play games and watch movies without any delay.

Hardware Requirements

• Windows 8.1 / 10 HTPC with modern GPU hardwired into internet router or switch

• Elgato HD60 Pro

• Headless HDMI Dongle

• HDMI receiver or device capable of bundling multiple HDMI inputs into one output

• HDMI splitter — used for duplicating your receiver output to TV and capture card

• Logitech Harmony Hub — for controlling IR devices

• Devices you want to share EG. Game Console or Set top box

• Titan One adapter for game console

• Xbox controller

Software Requirements

• Parsec installed on HTPC and client device

• Elgato capture software for your HTPC

• Gtuner and MaxAim DI plugin for Titan One

• Harmony hub software on Cellphone

Step 1

Take HDMI Receiver output cable from Television and plug into the input of the HDMI splitter — we’re going to need to duplicate this output if we are going to want to be able to stream the content, as well as allow you to watch it on your existing TV.

Step 2

Take one output of the HDMI splitter, and plug into TV, take the other output and plug into the input of the HD60 Pro Capture card. In the output of the HD 60 Pro, you’ll want to plug in the headless dongle, as the output is not needed, but needs to be plugged in.

Step 3

Your set top boxes are going to be controlled via the Harmony Hub and its IR blasters. This means that anything that requires control via IR must be added to the Harmony Hub system. This is going to allow us to control your IR devices over the internet, from your tablet or mobile phone.

Step 4

Update your Titan One to latest firmware using the GTuner Pro Titan One software available for download and install MaxAim DI plugin for GTuner on your HTPC — from there you will need to set your Titan one in the GTuner settings to match the console type you are using, and use MaxAim Di to create a button mapping with your Xbox controller. Make sure to save the profile, as MaxAim doesn’t seem to retain them always.

Step 5

Sign up and Install Parsec to your HTPC and to the laptop (Windows, Mac, Linux) or another device like Raspberry Pi

Step 6

Install Elgato capture software on your HTPC, this is going to be your portal into viewing the content from your HDMI receiver.

Final Step

Connect to your HTPC from your Laptop (or other device) using Parsec and open the Elgato Capture software and plug in your Xbox controller — once you press a button, your controller should be detected by the HTPC and should appear as though its natively plugged in to the system. You should be able to control your games console now when GTuner and MaxAim DI are running on the HTPC. In addition to this, you should now be able to switch inputs on your HDMI receiver using your Cellphone and the Harmony hub app.

Notes

• Make sure you make sure it all works while inside the same home network, before traveling!

• I didn’t talk a lot about the HTPC Display out in this article, you can either have it plugged into a secondary Television Output (so you can watch content directly on your TV with the PC, or you can run it headless — which means there is no display attached, it’s just a file server) In any case, you do need a GPU that supports hardware encoding, and you also need a display attached to the GPU, either a real display, or a headless HDMI Dongle.