[mythtv] discussion re Win32 backend tuner/s.

buzz davidbuzz at gmail.com
Wed Jan 30 01:16:17 UTC 2008


Kevin,
It's not so much the fact that there are any "hacks" required, it's more
that there are plethora of options available, none of which is clearly the
"one true way":
1- use any of 3 known Microsoft-provided API's internally in mythtv
itself for accessing internal PCI tuner/s and the like, and writing this
info to a MPEG stream on disk (under linux this is via V4L).

2- use a/the firewire API to access an external (but physically pluged
into to the windows box) firewire-enabled tuner type device.

3- use software that uses the MS API's (like mediaportals stuff) to create a
kind of HD-homerun compatible device on the network that can stream to
another mythtv instance as a kind of "remote tuner" like HDhomerun.    The
device containing the tuner (and it's tuning/streaming software) is not
necessarily different from the one running mythtv, it's just that it would
likely talk TCP-IP, so could be remote.   However this option is still going
to have to use one of the MS API's under the hood to get at the tuner
card/s, so it's really just an extension and seperation of the component out
of the mythtv core.

4- other ideas?
My earlier request was (and still is) mostly focused on option 1 above, as
it's the most common, but I'm not entirely ruling out option 3 at this time,
I just figured it would be easier to start by considering the
smallest/easiest (least hard) option.

Buzz.
On Jan 30, 2008 1:21 AM, Kevin Kuphal <kkuphal at gmail.com> wrote:

>   On Jan 29, 2008 12:22 AM, buzz <davidbuzz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Win32 interested ppl,
> >
> > Given that the frontend now works, and the win32 backend can stream
> > existing recordings (if you make them with linux, copy them over, and hack
> > them into the database), and mythtv-setup works (as much as it can), the
> > thing that I'm interested in having a crack at (with help) is getting
> > the backend to record under win32.....
> >
> > I've been thinking about the options/possibilities with regard to
> > getting the recorder going in the backend, and I'd like some input on these
> > options:
> >
> > * custom win32 directX graph and filter building code like seems to be
> > found in mediaportal - http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/MediaPortal (
> > perhaps the MP TVEngine3 code might be worth a look at too?) which typically
> > sources from a "TV Tuner Filter", and through to a WDM Video Capture Filter.
> > It seems to be mostly documented in these MS links ) and places they link
> > to, but could get complex quickly.   A cursory look through the MediaPortal
> > code seems to sugest that has happened there.  (Maybe I could re-use key
> > parts of the mediaportal project if the OSS licences are
> > agreeable/compatible):
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms779290(VS.85).aspx
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms784346(VS.85).aspx
> > *http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms779902(VS.85).aspx*
> > with a VERY basic sample app:
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms778964(VS.85).aspx
> >
> > * video for windows (old tech, probably not desirable):
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms713492(VS.85).aspx
> >
> > * "Microsoft TV Technologies"  (seems to be newest, and most hardware
> > agnostic, not pre-XP compatible if we care.)
> > brief: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms787278(VS.85).aspx
> > nice overview:
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms787279(VS.85).aspx
> > a howto in either MFC or ATL C++:
> > http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms787820(VS.85).aspx
> >
> > Do those "in the know" have suggestions as to which of these might be
> > the best place to start.....?    I'm kinda leaning toward hacking bits out
> > of MP just to see if I can make it go because I can't find
> > any decent worked/example code for the "TV Technologies" stuff.
> >
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but how does every other video capture solution on
> Windows handle this?  I mean, right now on my PC I have Nero and a variety
> of other programs that simply capture from whatever tuner is available.  It
> doesn't appear on the surface that this should be something that requires
> hacks, tweaks, or anything else in order to build a program that will
> capture on Windows.
>
> How does FFMPEG on Windows handle capturing?  It would seem to also be
> possible to leverage that product to simply have Myth call out to start/end
> a recording using an existing library.  In this way, you avoid many of the
> V4L issues by having the Windows capture more like the HDHomeRun where we
> call out to a separate library/program to do the actual capturing and simply
> access the resulting file on disk.
>
> Kevin
>
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