Re: Inject text alerts into a CATV system

[Lewis Gardner <lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Green wrote:
> Dad's nearly deaf and is not terribly compliant about keeping his hearing
> aid turned up.  Instead, he watches the TV with the set's *sound* turned way
> up - we're talking thunderous volume here.  Unfortunately, this means he's
> almost completely unaware of his surroundings.

It can be VERY helpful to locate a remote speaker near the "nearly deaf"
person's chair so they can have a loud speaker within 2' of their best ear.

I have used a AR powered partner speaker fed from a volume controlled
line output on the back of a TV before. This allows the "nearly deaf" to
have a elevated volume while not blasting the rest of the room to get
the volume level they need.

After doing this wrong the first time the key is to use a quality
powered speaker with volume and tone controls on the front. I tried a PC
speaker at first and it was not up to the task.


> What I would like to is create a fairly low cost HA system that's capable of
> putting up brief text messages over the TV so when he's watch March Madness
> and someone's pounding on the door and ringing the buzzer, I can send "Front
> Door bell ringing" or "phone call" or "smoke detector activated" or
> "FIRE!!!" or whatever on the screen so he knows to take some action.

Check out the HomeVision controller.

www.csi3.com/homevis2.htm

"HomeVision generates video text for display on your TV. The line-level
(RCA jack) output connects directly to a video jack on your TV or VCR A
built-in video switch can switch the output between HomeVision's video
screens and an incoming video signal, essentially bypassing HomeVision
when desired."

Cost is subjective. By the time you get the same functionality with a
character generator, video switch, sensors and a controller you will
likely be close to $600.