[Wlug] Meeting Topic Idea - MythTV

[bkn at ithryn.net]

On Wed, 7 May 2008 08:30:12 -0400, "John Stoffel" <john at stoffel.org> wrote:
>>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Martin <freak4uxxx at gmail.com> writes:
> 
> Eric> I have a mythbox but can't bring it in as my wife would *KILL*
> Eric> me.  I can however talk about a few things although I don't see
> Eric> it going past 20 minutes.  If anybody's interested in it I could
> Eric> throw something together for a later date...
> 
I also have am mythtv box.

Someone was asking about a distro earlier. The latest ubuntu appears to
have ivtv support built into the kernel and the lirc code built into the
kernel. The former is a driver for the hauppauge tv cards the the latter is
for the remote. Until very recently ivtv and lirc were a challenge to get
working because it meant you had to recompile your kernel every time
something changed. 

Other challenges for old tube-style TV is to get it to display to the TV
correctly. I believe you need a special X11 driver for this. The new LCD
TVs are much more friendly when it comes to plugging-in a computer. 

> 
> Now my big questions, since I can't make the meeting due to other
> commitments, is as follows:
> 
> - do people use their TiVo remotes with Myth?
>
I use the remote that came with my pvr card. It works really well. I need
to use the TV remote to turn the TV on, but once the TV is on, i only use
the mythtv remote to control TV. I also use mythtv and the mythtv remote to
play DVDs using xine, which is the only media player i could find that has
decent DVD menu support.

> - anyone hack a TiVo to be a Myth frontend box?
>
I believe their tv tuners is propriety, but i could be wrong on this. The
hauppauge cards are well supported under linux many of them have hardware
decoders and encoders which alleviate the load on the CPU for converting
the TV streams. 

> - which capture cards work with Digital cable?
>
I don't know of any, read more below ...

>   - does it need to be downstream of the cable box?
> 
Yes. I did set this up at my place just to test it. With my setup using
comcast, i had a serial cable plugged into the mythtv box and the cable
box. I was able to change the channels on the digital cable box. There is
significant lag -- i mean more so than lag than usual digital cable. Since
i don't want anything that comes through on the digital channels i just
setup the analog side to go to my mythtv box. That gets me all the channels
i want. 

> 
> I was just at my mom's house and she has a new Sony LCD HD TV.
> Realize that my mom is clueless about technology, so much so that they
> took advantage of her and sold her a Toshiba HD DVD player too.
> Sigh...
> 
ouch. I would definitely take it back, where did she get this? I would go
find their manager. that's really absurd. 

> All she wants is a big screen so she can watch TV and DVDs.  That's
> it.  Now she has to juggle three friggin remotes to do this.  A
> logitech Harmony remote is in her future I think. :]
> 
As i mentioned above, i only need to use the TV remote to turn the TV on
for all other tasks i just use the mythtv remote. A friend of mine has a
nice LCD HDTV with mythtv setup (although he only gets standard def TV);
he's TV goes into sleep mode with it's been inactive and the mythtv remote
will wake the TV up; so he only needs the one remote. 

> But this just shows how complicated it can be to setup a simple
> setup.  So, how do people deal with multiple inputs, remotes,
> digital/analog cable, etc.
> 
I hope this question is somehow explained above. The remotes that come with
the hauppauge PRV cards are well supported under linux. It took me some
configuration to get it working, but i can explain that at a later time if
necessary; that is if i can remember how to do it; it's been so long. 

> All in regards to Myth, since when my TiVo finally bites the dust,
> I'll need to put something up ASAP to keep the family happy.
> 
i can understand that. It's hard to go back to watching regular TV.

 - brad