[mythtv-users] A few questions from a new mythtv user

[Hans Engelen]

First of all, hi to all.

I just recently started to take an interest in mythtv. Due to circumstances I 
seem to have the time for it now. I realise some of these questions might be 
answered at some point or another but hope you don't mind clarifying them for 
me.

1. Support for the old WinTV-PVR-PCI. I pretty much gather that there is 
hardly any way to get this older card running due to lack of a mature enough 
driver (all I found was the on sourceforge). I know it can run as a v4l 
capture card but was hoping to use the mpeg encoder on it if only to save on 
cpu cycles.

2. Is there support planned for removable media ? What I mean is, to use 
things such as DVD-RAM, DVD-/+R/RW, etc as a sort of offline archiving? 
Happen to have a DVD-RAM here leftover from my last job and it seems to me an 
ideal way to archive a seasons worth of recordings of <insert great tv series 
here>. As I understand the whole mythtv system now (with entries in mysql, 
cover photos, recording info, description etc etc etc) it seems to be 
centered mostly on having all that permanently online. Incidentally when I 
found myself wondering about this question I stumbled onto what seems to be a 
very promising idea (www.matroska.org) of what they call an 'extensible 
audio/video container format'. I especially liked the promise of being able 
to include chapter entries, selectable audiostreams, menus (like dvds) and 
subtitle streams along with other things such as covers and info. Seems to me 
a perfect way to take a lot of hassle out of the offline archive aspect.

3. Has anyone gotten tv_grab_be to work well with mythtv ? Manual importing 
works but its a bit fragile.

Hans Engelen